Humans & Gods

 I have been finding myself getting even more confused than normal regarding religion these days. And what’s my latest source of confusion, you ask? Well, it’s those good old Evangels. See, I sort of understood when they would take a stand against abortion, and decide to support a candidate who also opposed abortion. I mean, I think they’re full of crap, but I at least understand the abortion thing. They view abortion as a form of murder, as best I understand their position.  I know, I know, they aren’t really pro-life, so much as they are anti-sex. They seem to be arguing that women should not engage in any sexual activity, unless they have already decided they want to produce another child.  I mean, that is the only point to sexual intercourse isn’t it?  God made sexual intercourse pleasurable, so that people would produce more Christian children, as best I understand the argument.

But then the Evangels took this stand against Gays and the LGBTQ folks.  And I thought, huh  . . . why would they care if two women, or two dudes decided to hook up and maybe get married? I know, I know, sexual activity between two women or two men cannot, by definition, lead to a baby. Still . . .

But finally, it turns out that Evangels are also racist, i.e., they have decided that White Supremacy is the only course God intended for mankind.  I mean, I understand that God only decided to allow non-white folks to be produced on Earth in order to provide the White dudes with a support staff. You can’t expect the White dudes to do all the work, can you?  But still . . . serfdom??? Slavery??? Really, Evangels?? That is your decision and you’re sticking with it?

So, you will support all the Donald Trumps of the world, but AOC??? Heaven forfend.

I guess this idiocy brings me to my final conclusion about organized religion. It’s really all about control, and has little or nothing to do with a God figure.

It seems pretty clear that all the writings about God contained in the Bible, the Torah, and the other Godly writings of the early world were written by fairly ignorant white dudes intent on controlling humankind.  I mean, what better way to control folks than by inventing God and then declaring that you have personally spoken with the Dude in the sky? And it was always a Dude. I mean, who would invent a God and then announce it to be a woman?? How could you possibly control women, if God were one of them? I mean, get serious.

So, once the control-Dudes invented God, they began inventing a whole new set of careers—Priests, and then of course subservient nuns. But priests were the top dudes. They personally spoke with God and received instructions directly. The other folks could pretend to speak to God (they invented this cute thing called praying) but God never spoke back. God only spoke to the priests. So the priests knew precisely what God intended when he invented humankind, well when he invented everything actually.

And God intended that, should mankind violate the directives that came directly from him, then the priests were commissioned to punish. So, sometimes, the priests just burned folks to a crisp, or drowned them. And then the priests invented the Heaven and Hell thingie. I guess they realized they couldn’t continue just killing the sinners outright. But they could assure that the no-gooders would later rot in hell after life ceased, and that the good folks, i.e., those who obeyed the priestly admonitions, would be guaranteed a spot in Heaven, one within talking distance to God himself.

And after a while, the priests allowed folks called Kings to form and begin taking over the world, or at least some small part of the world. And the priests formed a coalition with the kings and their killing machines.  The priests would bless the kings and their domains, as long as the kings allowed them to continue controlling human behavior. And the Kings thought this was a nifty idea, since it gave them yet another avenue to control their subordinate humans—so many serfs, so little time.

And so the alliances were forged between the rulers of the world and the priests. And over time the priests became a kind of untouchable group.  Even as the Kings of the world saw their powers diminished, the priests saw to it that that priestly behavior was only to be judged by other priests, creating a kind of priestly hierarchy of Popes and other priestly “monarchs”.

But over time, humans began inventing new forms by which they would control themselves—democracy being one of them.  Now democracy is a strange kind of control, because it involves the humans themselves deciding which of their humankind they wish to have control. Now, mind you, the priests had already separated themselves from normal humankind. See, the priests had given up on actually killing folks who violated priestly commands, instead threatening to send those errant humans off to Hell forever.  Now that punishment depended on whether the humans believed in the heaven and hell things.  Still, we had two groups of humans—priests and their flocks of total believers, and the Others, i.e., humans who decided that they could figure out by themselves the difference between good and bad behavior.

And so, we now find ourselves with fairly distinct groups of humans—those who still believe the priests, and those who actually think.  Evangels are the former group.  And so, politicians came along during this formative period, and politicians figured out that humans could be controlled by and would listen to and support the politicians who promised to deliver a world in which their belief system dominated. So, POLs who yelled about things like abortion and Gays and White Supremacy, would automatically draw the support of the folks like Evangels, who still listened to their priests. In fact, one of the important lessons drawn by certain POLs was that it was productive to promote HATE. Yeah, if you yelled that certain groups of people should be hated, then lots of people would be drawn to your side.  And because Evangels were often the subject of ridicule by thinking humans, they began hating The Others , i.e., thinking humans.

And so lines were drawn between people who hated and the Others. And the politicians drew the priests to their sides, much like the kings of old, and bent the priests to their side. And so, God finally disappeared altogether from the fields of discussions among humans, and control became the only relevant subject.  Now, politics has always been about control. But in democracies, humans decided that they were willing to cede some control, and in fact decisions about who could control and over what subjects control could be exhibited.  But that control could always be withdrawn via the vote.  But in recent times, the opposing forces in democracies have begun to decide that “the other” should be kept outside the control mechanisms. And the more strongly humans believe in one side or another, i.e., the more “thinking” withdraws from that universe, and “belief” enters the controls, the more dangerous becomes that system, and the more it begins to resemble those earlier universes of kings, and priests, where logic, ethics, and morality no longer operate.

And so we come to 2021 America. The humans who reside here really need to decide whether they wish to be ruled by priests and kings, or by other thinking humans who actually possess some thinking qualities and some actual understanding of democracies, and how such things differ from monarchies or priestly universes.

Up to you folks.