There are four basic ways
of looking at life. First, you can become a mental
whore, prostitute your brain to the first god-peddler
who comes along, usually the same one who polluted
your parents' brains. From that point on you believe
precisely what you're told to believe. This means you
can switch your brain off, you don't really need it.
There's no need to think or reason, just go about
life robot-fashion... do this, don't do that, think
this, don't think that. It's what most of the world's
population does.
It's why we have so many
wars. God is always on the side of those going to war
against people who believe that God is on their side.
When Bush and Co. were itching to wage war against
Iraq, they dropped to their knees and asked God for
guidance. God assured them that war was the right
course of action, as he always does. Whatever
atrocity the religious person wants to commit, God
will always grant permission. Whether it be
christians against Muslims, or Muslims against
christians, God approves. He is a very accommodating
little deity.
"When we dropped bombs on the
villages I knew that many innocent women
and children would die a terrible death;
they would be burned alive by napalm,
maimed, or buried alive. I come from a
very religious family and I often thought
of my own wife and children back in
Massachusetts. I wondered how I would
manage to live with the guilt for the
rest of my life. The knowledge that God
was with me and that our padre had done
everything for my soul's salvation was a
constant comfort in these terrible times.
Even today I could not survive without
the certainty my faith gives me."
Flight
Lieutenant McCallum
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The second way of
looking at life allows you to question your state
religion. Study the various belief systems of
humankind and notice that most people adopt the state
religion. Depending on where a person is born, and
when, the state religion represents The Truth. Very
few, if any Iranians worship Jesus because he's not
the state deity. Some christians do however convert
to Islam because they have the freedom to rummage
through a smorgasbord of second-hand belief systems
and choose the one which affirms their outlook on
life. And as their outlook changes they are free to
dismiss the new One True Faith for an alternative One
True Faith. Religion for them becomes a fashion
statement.
The third way of looking at
life requires you to seize control of your brain and
notice that all religions - no exception - are based
on nonsense. One person comes up with an idea,
scribbles it on parchment, and before long it becomes
"ancient wisdom." The more people who
believe in the nonsense the more "holy" it
becomes. Hey, before long it's "Divine
Wisdom!" And so you ask yourself, "What
really is truth?" Suddenly you find yourself
face to face with reality. Frightening at first,
unnerving, you're on your own. There is no deity
watching over you, caring for you, looking after your
interests. It dawns on you how naive you've been to
assume there was such a thing. For if there was such
a thing as a caring deity, how come it ignores the
pleas of millions of people suffering from disease,
drowning at sea, burning in buildings, starving to
death?
"God
is great!" screams an Iranian woman
surveying the wreckage of her home under
which lie the bodies of her entire
family. The "god" she praises
is the very same deity that Americans
trust. The same deity who watched over
New York on September 11th 2001. "In
God we Trust!" and "God is
Great!" shriek the believers, while
"god" keeps an exceedingly low
profile. He lurks in heaven somewhere
picking his nose.
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So if there is no
god, and no after-life, what is the point of life on
earth? Why are we here? What is the point of billions
of microbes - because that's all we are - spending
sixty or seventy years on this speck of cosmic dust,
working, playing, planning, worrying, dying? The
obvious answer is that there is no point to anything.
Humankind is an accident of chemistry, the inevitable
result of various chemicals at a given temperature
reacting to certain conditions. We're born, we die,
end of story. If our planet exploded this afternoon
no one would notice, let alone care.
This is the truth but it's
an unpleasant truth.
There is a fourth way of looking at life. While the
above is true, people who have rescued their brains
from the robot factory can design their lives anyway
they choose.
Having reached
the fourth level of awareness they can ensure that
the years remaining to them are as pleasant and
enjoyable as possible. They can behave as though
things do matter. It's a bit of a game but it's a fun
game. And as you have a choice between being
miserable or happy, choose happy. So you deliberately
and intelligently design the world as you'd like it
to be. You have the power to do this because your
mind is roaming free.
If someone says to you,
"That's wrong because my scriptures say it's
wrong," you can check their scriptures and point
out that their deity is a perverted, psychopathic
monster and therefore whatever he says is to be
disregarded at all costs. Or if someone upbraids you
for being politically incorrect you can listen to
their argument and accept or reject it according to
whether it's gold or garbage. Or if someone points
out that something is wrong because it's illegal, you
can check why it's illegal and decide for yourself
whether the law makes sense or whether it's absurd.
I'm not sure whether this constitutes anarchy or not,
but it's safe so long as you have an ethical base to
work from. Mine is very simple, I ask myself,
"Is this the kind thing to do?"
And always have the
humility to admit that you could be wrong. There
might be some purpose that neither you nor the
religionists have figured out. Perhaps, a million
years from now, our senses might be sufficiently
advanced to detect things that are presently hidden
from us. A blind mollusk thinks it knows all there is
to know because its senses aren't sufficiently
evolved to detect the greater world. And who's to say
that our senses have reached their apex? For all we
know we might be only one per cent as evolved as we
could one day become.
"Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one."
Einstein
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So the fourth
level of awareness encourages you to design a good
and decent world that does matter. Then the planet
earth becomes important. Children and animals are
entitled to a rich and happy life. With your well
thought-out, meticulously crafted planet in place, it
becomes imperative to rescue humankind from the
precipice of destruction it is walking, zombie like,
towards.
You realize that unless you
can awaken people from their religious slumber, from
their belief that Armageddon is inevitable but it's
OK because they're going to be "raptured"
up to heaven and the martyrs will be provided with 72
virgins, then the beautiful planet and every living
thing upon it is doomed. So you do what you can to
arouse them. Even if it is politically incorrect and
unkind to robots.
So here I am, a tiny weeny,
insignificant little microbe, scribbling away trying
to awaken the dead men walking.
