Causa Unus

These verses were sent to me by a dear friend, in an attempt to shake me out of my unbelief. The following is an excerpt from my response:

I pondered this obtuse passage all day at work, trying to wrap my head around it. From the passage I gather that God's wrath is on constant display in some manner regarding sin and immorality. In addition to that, his power and nature are supposed to be clearly evident. Failure to recognize this has led to futility and some manner of moral decay. Now, if you were asked to make observations about the world, and solely from these make a judgment about the character of it's overseer, what conclusions would you come to? In the natural world I see violence, starvation, extinction, and constant struggle for survival. I see crippling diseases and pandemics, birth defects, and bitter fights among opposing species. In the social world, I see the greedy and deceitful rise to power, the misappropriation of natural resources, pollution, and exploitation of the weak. I see cruel treatment of others, murder, rape, tribalism, and war. Beyond this, I see a pale blue dot. A small planet orbiting a medium sized star on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, one of billions in a vast sea black space. What am I to gather about the nature of a deity who reveals himself in these things? From this I am to gather that the creator of so vast and majestic a universe is also highly concerned with the thoughts of a infinitesimally small speck and will damn the speck accordingly? That is a highly dubious claim. Everything that can be gathered about the nature of God from observation alone is perfectly covered by Epicurius: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?".

So, I missed the boat on that one. Now, assuming that I did actually pick up on all the obvious clues and suddenly understood God's wrath, his invisible attributes, and divine nature, what use would I have for scripture? If everything necessary for the understanding of God is evident within me already and obvious in everything around me, of what use are pages of dietary restrictions, schematics for a mobile temple, tedious genealogies, etc.? I supposedly have an understanding of his nature so encompassing as to leave me without excuse, but he still thought it necessary to remind me that I should not commit murder? Why evangelize if the masses of unsaved are already in possession of the knowledge necessary to be reconciled to God? In fact, if this perfect morality and nature is so evident, why is Paul even bothering to write to the Romans at all? What a terrible imposition upon your friends to write a lengthy letter full of things they all already know. Again, obtuse.

Futility. I'll have to admit, this one irks me to no end. What self righteousness! To make such astounding claims about the nature of God, without even a shred of supporting evidence, then assert that these claims are just plain obvious, Q.E.D., is bad enough. To then go on to accuse those who have not been convinced, by this absurdly sophomoric line of non-reason, of being futile in their speculations is intellectual cowardice. It is a moral responsibility to examine the claims of any belief system. How valid are these claims? What is the historic origin of them? Do the claims line up with what we can prove about the world around us? If so, are there other explanations? What are the real world consequences of these beliefs? Not only should I question the belief system, but considering the sum of human misery that has resulted from these beliefs, it is a moral duty to question them. This is the polar opposite of futility. Paul's smug certainty smacks of obscurantism, which is exactly what one would expect from a charismatic cult leader.

The problem with this passage is that the collected stories, beliefs, customs, and moralities of a Bronze Age desert tribe are not obvious at all. These are one culture's first, best guess at why we are here and what we should do. None of the assertions about God that are made in the Bible are obvious with any amount of natural observation. They are simply claims, just like the ones in the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Upanishads, and Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard. Being able to recognize this does not make my thinking futile, and my morality, in practical terms, has grown stronger since I became an apostate.

John Calvin once said, "... it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent”. This, of course, comes from a man who once had his rival burned at the stake, and also ran the city of Geneva in a manner the Sanhedrin would have appreciated. Despite these charming qualities, Calvin did manage to distill what most, if not all, of the faithful believe - that religion is undoubtedly a force for good in this world and without it we would all devolve into anarchy. Take as evidence of this ridiculous idea, the usual synonyms for the word "godless". Sinful, wicked, wayward, unrighteous, deceitful, immoral, unethical, profane, defiling, unholy, to name but a few. The general perception of someone who is non-religious is that they are, at the very least, empty, and at worst, downright diabolical. It is this line of reasoning that is the basis for the idea that, despite a somewhat tarnished past, religion has done more overall good than evil in the world.

Is it common for people to judge their own beliefs through rose-tinted glasses? The answer is absolutely yes. It is difficult to begrudge someone for doing what we all do at one time or another. Humans have a natural tendency to overlook the sins of their past, while at the same time casting a shadow of doubt on those who believe differently. With religion however, glasses capable of overlooking the shame, fear, murder, rape, sacrifice, etc. are simply out of reach for any species capable of moral contemplation. From the genocides of the book of Joshua, to the barbarism of Judas Maccabeus, the conquests of Mohammad, the black hole of the Dark Ages and the Inquisition, the sacrifices on alters in cultures throughout the world, the brutal oppression of differing views or differing sexes or differing skin tones. You could could fill volumes upon volumes with the wickedness of the religious. That, sadly, is not the most terrible part of religion's story. The truly terrible thing is that out of such a list, the faithful would no doubt step forward to defend the sins of their particular belief system. The cognitive functions of their brains would allow them to see and renounce the evils of other faiths, but their faith would force them to defend the evils of their own. This is what it means to be a believer.

Religion has done some good. There are charities, missions, and outreach programs that help the poor and oppressed throughout the world. The faithful give immense amounts of time and money in order to help those less fortunate. At what price are these sacrifices made, though? George W. Bush, acting on his belief that abstinence only education was the sole means of preventing disease and unwanted pregnancy, made U.S. aid to Africa contingent on a program of such education. Countries in Africa who received much needed funding would only receive it if they put into place educational programs that taught abstinence as the sole means of sexual education. In a continent with the highest rates of HIV/AIDS, a sexual education policy that ignores even the mention of condoms is nothing short of wholesale murder. To dangle the carrot of foreign aid and then pull it back in order to force governments to keep their people in a state of fear and naivety, is a policy who's cost in terms of human life, will never be measured. This policy is wholly derived from a biblical interpretation of what is and is not acceptable in regards to human sexual activity. There is no scientific research or tangible evidence in favor of this, just faith and the idea that death from a debilitating disease is better than eternal punishment. Parallels to this are found throughout the history of religions. Religions do good, but with strings attached, and those strings many times trump any benefits that may be gained.

Whenever those without faith point out the innumerable sins of religion, the faithful change the subject to the sins of the secular. Instead of being forced to answer for the countless evils that their brethren have been allowed to unleash upon our species, the believers are allowed to indulge in logical fallacies. They can say what they wish, they can change the subject and put us on the defensive, they can even ignore or fight the obvious history for which they must account. Make no mistake though, history and the blood of the innocent is very real and cries out. There is not, and never can be, anything so good as to justify or atone for the sins of religion. The religions of the world have to answer for their sins and justify their existence. In a world who's secrets are being unraveled by science, the god of the gaps is left with fewer and fewer places to hide.