I'm so tired... [View All]

[Mythsaje]

I'm tired of religion. There, I said it. I'm tired of those who claim to have inside information as to the nature of the universe to which the rest of us aren't privvy...or don't believe. I'm tired of those who pretend that they're somehow better because they think some higher power has revealed to them (or us) the truth behind the illusion.

Fuck that.

We can't expect some higher power to come down and fix all the things we've broken. The reason our world and lives are fucked up is because WE humans fucked them up. And we were given (by nature or some mysterious creator) the brains, talent, and manipulative tools to fix a lot of them. If we can set aside our greed and lust for power long enough to bother. Disease? We can take care of that. Hunger? Ditto.

If we stop arguing about whose God is better and what country supposedly deserves his favor the most.

We have the tools, the intelligence, and the talent. We just don't have the drive.

We hand our power over to a bunch of fools who think there's some transcendent spirit that's going to come down and wave his hand and fix everything and then wonder why the world continues to be fucked up.

Stupid.

I know I'm supposed to give lip service to other peoples' beliefs and, for the most part, I do. I DO respect those who understand that this is our world and we're responsible for the welfare of our fellow humans. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and god knows how many other "prophets" have said so. And some of their followers listen and understand. Good for them. The ones who don't are the ones that raise my ire.

God's not going to fix everything. As long as we allow these dickheads to act as though that's what they expect, they're going to stumble around like a drunk troll in a glassmaker's shop, busting things and expecting someone off-stage to fix it all.

But you can't blame infant cancer on God. You can't expect him to wave his hand and fix it. All these exist because they're OUR problems. Even if some deity exists, all of our troubles are just that...OUR troubles. We were given the tools we have to fix them ourselves.

Science shouldn't be used to find better and more efficient ways to kill one another. That's NOT what it's for. We're not given the tools and talent to allow some folks to make obscene profits and live in houses so large that they have to hire dozens of servants just to clean them.

People can only LIVE in one house, and drive one automobile at a time. Why should some folks have ten cars and five houses, while some people sleep in cardboard boxes in alleys and under bridges? Because "God" likes it that way?

Nonsense. It's because we are entirely missing the point.

We can fix all of this, as long as we understand that it's OUR job. Taking care of one another...not trying to acquire as much shit as we can before we die.

Our troubles are human troubles, caused by human mistakes, and fixable by human ingenuity. I truly believe that.

And before you ask...I'm not an atheist, or even truly agnostic. I'm a pantheist/humanist. Or humanist/pantheist. I think the universe is a wonderous place, and possibly the only thing that deserves to be recognized as God. But, if this is indeed the case, each and every one of us, and every creature that walks, crawls, or swims, and even the trees through which the wind is blowing right now, and the wind itself, are ALL part of God and are therefore sacred.

"That which you do to the least of these" and all that.

"God" is too big a concept for anyone to have a handle on. Bible or no. Koran or no.

Science is what we call the act of trying to understand God. It's slow, and sometimes confusing. But it seeks to understand. It questions. It reveals. It learns. It grows.

Carl Sagan, in his book Contact, suggested a little something I found very intriguing. Maybe WE (intelligent beings) exist in order to someday explain God to itself.

For, as far as we know, and as far as we can prove, WE are the minds and hands of God. Not just us, but anything out there in the great unknown that can also think and build.

If this is the case, we've been mighty irresponsible deities, haven't we?