Excerpt #13 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Theologians Sustain Religion
Theologians are forever engaged in the study of ancient texts and endlessly debate their interpretations.
Most theologians are swept away by, absorbed in, and dependent upon the current of religious institutional inertia.
They do not challenge it.
They sustain it.
Their interests are vested in the continuation of these myths.
“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” – Gore Vidal
“Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot therefore be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error.” – Robert Owen
We praise distant mythological deities as we exploit our neighbors.
We dream of the “hereafter” as we destroy the “here”.
Convinced that we are the exceptions that will be saved in an afterlife, we ignore our responsibility for saving ourselves in this life.
We are willing, even eager, to take giant leaps of faith, but refuse to take even small steps toward sound reason and common sense.
We elevate fictional stories of gods and creation — fabricated by ourselves — to the status of divinely inspired dogma, freeze them in texts, and upon these shaky foundations build and perpetuate religious institutions.
“In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience to this promise, Christianity must convince men that they need salvation, that there is something to be ‘saved’ from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy man living in a natural intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, man is sinful and helpless in the face of god, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation.”- George R. Smith
“Puritanism – the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” – H. L. Mencken
Many Recognize Religious Nonsense
Many now see religious nonsense for what it is.
Doctrines formed before the age of science and written by churchmen and women profoundly ignorant of their world no longer hold any appeal for informed individuals.
“I do not think the existence of the Christian god any more probable that the existence of the gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptic orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian god just as unlikely.” – Bertrand Russell
“I would love to believe that when I die, I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.” – Carl Sagan
Interpreting Ancient Texts Is an Industry
Mainline churches have lost countless members.
Still, antiquated religions live on, driven by enormous institutional inertia.
Swept away in this tidal wave, theologians and clergy are forever engaged in a litany of interpretation upon interpretation (exegesis) of word after word of ancient stories written creatively to explain what, without knowledge of science, could not otherwise be explained.
When they are not involved in the interpretation of ancient texts, they are involved in interpreting each other’s interpretations.
Indeed, interpretation has become an industry unto itself.
“If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” – Anatole France
“It was man who first made men believe in gods.” – Critias, 480-430 B.C.E.
Right Living Is About Behavior, Not Worship
Hopefully, it will occur to us that a clear understanding of our reality and its demands is far better than vague concepts about supernatural deities.
Right living is about behavior, not worship.
Salvation (saving ourselves from harm or loss) is not delivered by a supreme being; it is earned by ourselves.
The forgiveness of our “sins” lies not in the hands of some external god but in our alignment with the uncompromising demands of the reality in which we exist.
“And he to whom worshiping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet