Reflecting an Easter long weekend...

Over an Easter long weekend could be a good time to contemplate its intended meaning and reflection on the launch of my new book, GOD HATES ME.

Having time to reflect and watching the last interview of the famed God hater Christopher Hitchens talking with famed Richard Dawkins, both of whom made their fortunes slagging organised religion, it highlighted where they had spent a lifetime getting it wrong.

Focusing on my own story of being shunted out of war-ravaged Austria to relatives in Australia to have to be without family as never adopted and having to find a way through, this promoted Christianity from a Methodist college became a crutch on which to lean. Later however in the army, taught how to kill people, studying medicine to learn how to heal them, work in the worst mental hospital possible and then working for the UN and donors in over 50 countries witnessing poverty beyond comprehension put a real strain and revision of belief of this invisible man up in the clouds who loved us all but allowed all this misery. Yet all the time there was this voice in the back of the head saying all will be revealed.

So where the Hitchens and Dawkins get it wrong is that they simply attack organised religion but totally ignore its purpose, why it was needed and how it will have to continue until someone finds an alternative. Best to get back to basics.

Because in the beginning when humans crawled out of the cave they started to wonder where they came from. A greater unknown was in regard to dying and what happened after that. A frightening question for all. In response people from thousands of years ago invented stories to appease people's fear, content varying with local customs and what might bring comfort. Meanwhile the biggest brute in the cave took the largest slice of meat and his selection of women.

As societies developed, to maintain rule and some degree of order, it was necessary to introduce the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. Killing your neighbour; bad. Killing a neighbouring tribesman raiding your village; good. Doing what the head man said, good, and so on.

With human progression, it was then discovered that an even greater control of the population could be achieved if in the stories there was a heaven where you went to if you were good, and a hell for all other activity. To make this thing work, it was necessary to set it into an acceptable framework preferably with a divine god who since not existing, could not be challenged. Clever philosophers invented these supreme beings who could be resurrected for their good deeds and if not completely returned to earth as mortals, would after death be able to continue an even better life than on earth even for some with a plentiful supply of virgins. Of course, the instructions on what to do had to come from supreme authorities or straight from a God. Moses even had his story etched on tablets although it was just a pity he smashed them in a rage before anyone could verify God had physically written them but again it made a good story and how do you argue against something not there? Again there was this heaven after you complied and died.

Remembering that at these early times few people could write as we now understand it and only a select few could document these stories which were transmitted by word of mouth. Forty years of wondering around Canaan before finding the promised land becomes an allegorical interpretation before the local Canaanites and drifters out of Egypt organised themselves into what became Jews, and then after the shock of the Egyptian’s destroying King David’s temple, they took this as a warning and became monotheists under a God YAHWE, who as in Harry Potter became, “He who cannot be named”. Who doesn't like a good story? Anyone ever tried the game of passing a secret from person to person word of mouth down a line???

Overall, introducing this religion thing was a master stroke since now there was a recognised system for keeping whole populations in order, justifying wars by having God(s) on your side and leaders didn’t have to prove anything because the outcome was that everyone wanted hope after death, so were not ready to challenge anything sold to them.

Remembering that rulers now replacing the biggest brute in the cave required armies of men ready to die in battle so it was convenient to assure these poor souls that they would die for a righteous cause and a great heaven would be awaiting their sacrifice. Imagine people prepared to throw away their lives fighting for some king if they thought that would be the end of it? Funny though, how there can be wars where you have God on both sides, or even different versions of the same religion fighting each other.

So the Romans, with probably one of the most extensive empires in history had to keep their people in line and having had as the Emperor said, “these bothersome Jews” giving them trouble, found the Jesus story of “Offer the other cheek” and “Give unto Caesar” a convenient way of keeping people in line and overcoming the taxation issue. Over time the Romans supported this one God concept which was easier to follow than having so many gods each with their own ideas so supported the Kohen in order to enforce this work for them.

Until out of the desert the Arabs challenged the Roman might and having learned their lessons well, in defeating the Roman legions even taking Constantinople, they needed their own story and saviour outside of this Jesus. Again one had to have the promise of heaven and hell as part of compliance. Hence around the 7th Century AD, Mohammed emerged to be built up as a counterpoint against Jesus and the Byzantine empire. As with Jesus, a large part of Mohammed’s early life lacks detail as the stories were put together only later. With this new Islam, having learned how the eventual collapse of the Roman ideology came about when people switched sides, this new religion built in death as punishment should anyone renounce the new leadership and new faith. The Catholic church later learned from that and brought in its own inquisition. Meanwhile the Arabs saw they couldn’t compete against the Christian opulence of their churches and richness of symbolism so banned such ostentation from their religion. They were not going to have anyone, challenge, drop out or renounce the new faith on threat of death.

Meanwhile nearer home, these Jews started to give the Roman Empire considerable annoyance which led to various uprisings mainly taxation driven, so the literature of the day went along with many seers who were touted would come along and save the Jews. This Jesus was selected out of the many contenders and facilitated by the Romans under turncoat Jew Josephus to keep the Jews in order. This new idea clearly embellished by writers of the time lasted for hundreds of years until Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the early 4th century BC and then stepped in to try and standardise various texts and establish rules for electing future Popes. It was at this same time the Christian trinity was invented and the church introduced that Jesus with the stroke of a pen was now in fact God helping along the resurrection story.??

The world progressed as human animals fought each other over the centuries to establish their turfs, with leaders operating in a way no different from those in the cave only on a larger scale, backed by their divine guides asserted their rights and cemented their dynasties. Meanwhile religious leaders equally fought to cement their areas of influence leading to some of the most horrific human destruction and torture in the names of various Gods. Over time and despite two world wars (or one extended world war depending how it is looked at, or perhaps now a third), humans at the top of the “symbolic” tree realised that to stay there, they had to make it look like collectively they were sympathetic to the poor and weak and built-in systems to give this appearance. Saddled with ancient Greek and Roman thinking of democracy, this had to be given some acknowledgement and hence this concept of one man (then one person) one vote had to be tempered to link to votes and money to influence them.

So from all of that, humans and their stories are locked into the religion they bring with them and this is likely to continue unless it would be eradicated by a new story actually explaining what happens to humans after death. Unfortunately that truth might still come back with how there is nothing; better stick to a good story…

But back to the God knockers making this their careers. Watching a Hitchens online for an hour in last stages of cancer was a depressing sight especially if he believed there was nothing more. But as I postulate in my book, with what I had been through in my lifetime, while I understand organised religions were a necessary placebo, I am not denying a God, only that he is my own personal God and in proof of this all of what has happened to me could not have been an accident so God Hates Me…