Wailing, gnashing, all that jazz.
Richard Dawkins is a very angry man, which I find reassuring because it means I'm not the only one.
Last night I watched his two-part documentary "The Root of All Evil?", which aside from having a pure channel 4 sensationalist title was very interesting — and not a little bit scary.
While I'm fully aware — and have been for years — that religion is the one thing that stands between humanity and civilisation, there are various dangerous aspects of belief and faith that I hadn't fully realised. For years I was angered by the constant signs of religious nonsense around me, particularly when in Ireland and surrounded by thousands of the least Christian Catholics you can imagine. (The hypocrisy of a group of people who can talk endlessly about God's charity and giving and loving and all that, but who will, at the same time, treat newcomers with something below contempt, to the extent of making up vicious rumours about them. Something my parents had to deal with among those slack-jawed fucks.)
The hypocrisy really bugged me, until I decided to ignore it and take solace in the knowledge that when these silly bastards, who've had one eye on the afterlife as their real life passed them by, actually do pop off they'll be confronted with the realisation that they were totally, entirely and utterly wrong. Yes, you could have just gone on and enjoyed life rather than spent all your time feeling guilty about sex/food/whatever and, worse, exhorting others to feel guilty about what they do because YOU don't approve on the basis of your warped morality.
But where it all falls down is in areas surrounding the Good Book. Now, the Old Testament is the basis for the world's three largest religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. But how can it be that religion, which is at the end of the day supposed to be a way to help people come to terms with the world around them and live in peace and love, is based on a series of extremely violent fables crammed with plainly immoral acts passed off as The Will of God. Give me a fucking break.
Here's a wonderful example of the kind of warped thinking I'm talking about, from Ye Olde Bibble (Judges, if you must know):
19:22 [Now] as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, [and] beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.
19:23 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, [nay], I pray you, do not [so] wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
19:24 Behold, [here is] my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.
19:25 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.
19:26 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord [was], till it was light.
Yes, she's dead. Raped to death, as it were — but at least those men proved they weren't homos!
Er… What? Raping a woman to death is BETTER than having consensual sex with a member of the same gender? Since when? Whose fucked up moral compass decided that?
The really scary thing is when people say things about how you can't take all of the Bible seriously, but it has good lessons to teach. Right, OK, I'll buy that for now. I'll accept that Christians understand that parts of this book are totally bonkers and not to be read to children. I'll go along with the line that this book is a sort of How To guide to life. But, if you bought an appliance (call it a washing machine) and the instruction booklet contained a chapter on how much fun can be had stuffing kittens into the washer and watching them drown slowly as they're spun round and round and how doing so would make you a good an virtuous person — you might think, "Perhaps the rest of this manual is bollox." However, a lifestyle guidebook with chapters on how great rape, pillage, genocide, racism, small-mindedness and ignorance are is a perfectly reasonable proposition.
I wouldn't trust the Bible to accurately describe the symptoms of flu, never mind advise me how to live my life.
It gets more worrysome when you come across articles like THIS, which demonstrate that the world we live in is not only largely populated by fools, but it's ruled by them too. Quotes like "Freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to all humanity," should not be coming from the mouth of a man with his finger on the fucking nuclear button.
It would be unfair to have a go at Christians alone, especially since their ludicrous book is also the basis for Judaism and Islam. (Surely someone out there can see the joke here. No?)
The Belgian government recently announced it would be paying €110 million to Jewish people as 'restitution' for losses during World War II. Because a big wad of cash will make everything OK.
Apologies for atrocities committed over 60 years ago delivered by people who weren't even alive at the time are surely the most pointless imaginable. anyone can say, "Jeez, sorry for the shit that went down in your granny's youth, I won't do it again." It means nothing — you didn't do it in the first place. The Belgian PM, I can say with some certainty, did not stoke the fires at Belsen, nor did he cheer at Nuremburg, so why is he apologising for something he had nowt to do with? I could apologise for Bryan Adams' songbook, but since I had nothing to do with its creation… Why would I? Instead, I talk about how awful Bryan Adams is and try to steer people away from him.
What is telling is the way people talk about the Holocaust as if the tragedy of the past justifies atrocity in the present. I'd maybe have more time for this sort of thing if I felt that "Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive" did anything other than make the Germans feel guilty for something they had nothing to do with. Yes, that's right — WW2 was NOT fought by millions and millions of Germans alive today. This doesn't stop them from having serious guilt issues as a race. I think we can safely say that the vast majority of Germans are well aware that such a thing should not happen again.
But what I really would like to see is some evidence that the lessons of history somehow made an impression on the Jewish people, and not just to make them the victims of the world. Surely a routing and attempted genocide perpetrated against your people by a plainly evil and psychopathic regime would make you think, "Hey, that was some bad shit — perhaps we'll be nice to folks and try make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again!"
Alas, no. One word: Israel.
"Hey, we've got all the Jews here who want their own country, where'll we put them?"
"Eh… well, there's a nice bit of land in Palestine."
"Don't the Palestinians live there?"
"Yeah, but the Jews have had a tough time. Shit rolls downhill. Fuck 'em."
How does the theft of land and the suppression of the people who used to be there and the occasional foray into mass murder add up to "Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive"? Well, I suppose in a very real sense it is alive for anyone unfortunate enough to be on the business end of an Israeli missile, which whistled through the window during their maths class. Is that what the money's for? To help them buy bigger weapons with which to murder Arabs?
Islam boggles my mind a little more. I love the way Muslim clerics have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the essential goodness of their people — nor in their flock's ability to discern for themselves what is bollox and what is not. Well, that's how it seems to be from a Western perspective. I mean, Muslims are, apparently, so untrustworthy that women have to be covered entirely at all times in case someone can't resist the urge to rape them. ("O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not harassed." [33:59]) Er… Surely rape is one of the things we can all agree is wrong and, as such, we can continue to not do it to one another? I have a hard time believing this is not also true of Muslims.
But it's that damned Old Testament shit again…
One of my favourite recent examples of this total lack of faith was when Pakistan's government barred access to YouTube on the grounds that there was a clip from Geert Wilders' film about Islam posted there. The film, Fitna, is 15 minutes of Wilders tearing apart the Koran on the grounds that it's a violent, nasty book. OK, if you're a Muslim I can see how this would really fuck you off. However, I do not think being fucked off at a racist little wanker from the Tweede Kamer is good grounds to start banning websites, burning embassies or threatening people's lives.
I mean, seriously, if your faith is that strong in the first place rise above it. Make your own film entitled "Geert Wilders is a Wanker" and post it on YouTube.
On the other hand, you could respond to accusations that your faith is barbarous and violent by burning shit and blowing stuff up.
But doesn't that play right into the hands of the people who are making these accusations?
If someone says to you, "You're a fucking nutter and your imaginary friend isn't as good as mine!" And you respond by saying something like, "My imaginary friend and I are going to tear out your tongue and fly a plane into your house!" You might be proving that you are, in fact, a nutter.
Basically, right, religions are ALL bad for our development, both as a species and individually.
"Respecting" the rights of people to worship in their own way is one thing, but when these private beliefs suddenly become the justification for the launching of bombs, the firing of guns and the general kind of rape and pillage that goes on — that's when the problems start and when we have to draw a line under the nonsense we've been filling our heads with since man first decided that the world was created by a bloke in the sky.
It wasn't.
Of course, this is all personal observation and totally subjective, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on this one. If you disagree, feel free to ostracise me from society and perhaps stone me to death, but I think a chat would suffice.
Last night I watched his two-part documentary "The Root of All Evil?", which aside from having a pure channel 4 sensationalist title was very interesting — and not a little bit scary.
While I'm fully aware — and have been for years — that religion is the one thing that stands between humanity and civilisation, there are various dangerous aspects of belief and faith that I hadn't fully realised. For years I was angered by the constant signs of religious nonsense around me, particularly when in Ireland and surrounded by thousands of the least Christian Catholics you can imagine. (The hypocrisy of a group of people who can talk endlessly about God's charity and giving and loving and all that, but who will, at the same time, treat newcomers with something below contempt, to the extent of making up vicious rumours about them. Something my parents had to deal with among those slack-jawed fucks.)
The hypocrisy really bugged me, until I decided to ignore it and take solace in the knowledge that when these silly bastards, who've had one eye on the afterlife as their real life passed them by, actually do pop off they'll be confronted with the realisation that they were totally, entirely and utterly wrong. Yes, you could have just gone on and enjoyed life rather than spent all your time feeling guilty about sex/food/whatever and, worse, exhorting others to feel guilty about what they do because YOU don't approve on the basis of your warped morality.
But where it all falls down is in areas surrounding the Good Book. Now, the Old Testament is the basis for the world's three largest religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. But how can it be that religion, which is at the end of the day supposed to be a way to help people come to terms with the world around them and live in peace and love, is based on a series of extremely violent fables crammed with plainly immoral acts passed off as The Will of God. Give me a fucking break.
Here's a wonderful example of the kind of warped thinking I'm talking about, from Ye Olde Bibble (Judges, if you must know):
19:22 [Now] as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, [and] beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.
19:23 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, [nay], I pray you, do not [so] wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
19:24 Behold, [here is] my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.
19:25 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.
19:26 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord [was], till it was light.
Yes, she's dead. Raped to death, as it were — but at least those men proved they weren't homos!
Er… What? Raping a woman to death is BETTER than having consensual sex with a member of the same gender? Since when? Whose fucked up moral compass decided that?
The really scary thing is when people say things about how you can't take all of the Bible seriously, but it has good lessons to teach. Right, OK, I'll buy that for now. I'll accept that Christians understand that parts of this book are totally bonkers and not to be read to children. I'll go along with the line that this book is a sort of How To guide to life. But, if you bought an appliance (call it a washing machine) and the instruction booklet contained a chapter on how much fun can be had stuffing kittens into the washer and watching them drown slowly as they're spun round and round and how doing so would make you a good an virtuous person — you might think, "Perhaps the rest of this manual is bollox." However, a lifestyle guidebook with chapters on how great rape, pillage, genocide, racism, small-mindedness and ignorance are is a perfectly reasonable proposition.
I wouldn't trust the Bible to accurately describe the symptoms of flu, never mind advise me how to live my life.
It gets more worrysome when you come across articles like THIS, which demonstrate that the world we live in is not only largely populated by fools, but it's ruled by them too. Quotes like "Freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to all humanity," should not be coming from the mouth of a man with his finger on the fucking nuclear button.
It would be unfair to have a go at Christians alone, especially since their ludicrous book is also the basis for Judaism and Islam. (Surely someone out there can see the joke here. No?)
The Belgian government recently announced it would be paying €110 million to Jewish people as 'restitution' for losses during World War II. Because a big wad of cash will make everything OK.
Apologies for atrocities committed over 60 years ago delivered by people who weren't even alive at the time are surely the most pointless imaginable. anyone can say, "Jeez, sorry for the shit that went down in your granny's youth, I won't do it again." It means nothing — you didn't do it in the first place. The Belgian PM, I can say with some certainty, did not stoke the fires at Belsen, nor did he cheer at Nuremburg, so why is he apologising for something he had nowt to do with? I could apologise for Bryan Adams' songbook, but since I had nothing to do with its creation… Why would I? Instead, I talk about how awful Bryan Adams is and try to steer people away from him.
What is telling is the way people talk about the Holocaust as if the tragedy of the past justifies atrocity in the present. I'd maybe have more time for this sort of thing if I felt that "Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive" did anything other than make the Germans feel guilty for something they had nothing to do with. Yes, that's right — WW2 was NOT fought by millions and millions of Germans alive today. This doesn't stop them from having serious guilt issues as a race. I think we can safely say that the vast majority of Germans are well aware that such a thing should not happen again.
But what I really would like to see is some evidence that the lessons of history somehow made an impression on the Jewish people, and not just to make them the victims of the world. Surely a routing and attempted genocide perpetrated against your people by a plainly evil and psychopathic regime would make you think, "Hey, that was some bad shit — perhaps we'll be nice to folks and try make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again!"
Alas, no. One word: Israel.
"Hey, we've got all the Jews here who want their own country, where'll we put them?"
"Eh… well, there's a nice bit of land in Palestine."
"Don't the Palestinians live there?"
"Yeah, but the Jews have had a tough time. Shit rolls downhill. Fuck 'em."
How does the theft of land and the suppression of the people who used to be there and the occasional foray into mass murder add up to "Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive"? Well, I suppose in a very real sense it is alive for anyone unfortunate enough to be on the business end of an Israeli missile, which whistled through the window during their maths class. Is that what the money's for? To help them buy bigger weapons with which to murder Arabs?
Islam boggles my mind a little more. I love the way Muslim clerics have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the essential goodness of their people — nor in their flock's ability to discern for themselves what is bollox and what is not. Well, that's how it seems to be from a Western perspective. I mean, Muslims are, apparently, so untrustworthy that women have to be covered entirely at all times in case someone can't resist the urge to rape them. ("O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not harassed." [33:59]) Er… Surely rape is one of the things we can all agree is wrong and, as such, we can continue to not do it to one another? I have a hard time believing this is not also true of Muslims.
But it's that damned Old Testament shit again…
One of my favourite recent examples of this total lack of faith was when Pakistan's government barred access to YouTube on the grounds that there was a clip from Geert Wilders' film about Islam posted there. The film, Fitna, is 15 minutes of Wilders tearing apart the Koran on the grounds that it's a violent, nasty book. OK, if you're a Muslim I can see how this would really fuck you off. However, I do not think being fucked off at a racist little wanker from the Tweede Kamer is good grounds to start banning websites, burning embassies or threatening people's lives.
I mean, seriously, if your faith is that strong in the first place rise above it. Make your own film entitled "Geert Wilders is a Wanker" and post it on YouTube.
On the other hand, you could respond to accusations that your faith is barbarous and violent by burning shit and blowing stuff up.
But doesn't that play right into the hands of the people who are making these accusations?
If someone says to you, "You're a fucking nutter and your imaginary friend isn't as good as mine!" And you respond by saying something like, "My imaginary friend and I are going to tear out your tongue and fly a plane into your house!" You might be proving that you are, in fact, a nutter.
Basically, right, religions are ALL bad for our development, both as a species and individually.
"Respecting" the rights of people to worship in their own way is one thing, but when these private beliefs suddenly become the justification for the launching of bombs, the firing of guns and the general kind of rape and pillage that goes on — that's when the problems start and when we have to draw a line under the nonsense we've been filling our heads with since man first decided that the world was created by a bloke in the sky.
It wasn't.
Of course, this is all personal observation and totally subjective, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on this one. If you disagree, feel free to ostracise me from society and perhaps stone me to death, but I think a chat would suffice.
posted by Stephen McMullin at 2:02 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home