The Church of Reason

OK, so it's Easter and I'm reading all about the sermons being given by the various Church figures (at least those here in Sydney).

Archbishop Fisher says that Athiesm leads to Nazism, Stalinism, mass murder and abortion (Read article here)

Unfortunately this statement has no basis in fact. Terrible atrocities have been committed by religious and secular people throughout history. Religiosity does not guarantee moral virtue, and secularism does not guarantee moral iniquity.

Nazism was based on Christian ideology. Hitler regularly cited his Christian beliefs and that the rise of the German people was the "divinely-ordained". He cited Biblical references to the "brood of vipers" as justification for his Jewish pogrom. One slogan of the Nazi Party was "Gott Mit Uns" - "God With Us". Here's an impressive collection of Hitler's Christian references in his public speeches.

The point here is that being religious is no guarantee against committing atrocities. Pro-athiests cite examples such as Hitler, and pro-religious people cite atheist perpetrators such as Stalin.

Numerous psychological, political and social elements are required to engage in state-sponsored mass murder. However the absolute origin of these crimes is in the "us against them" mentality.

This divisive mentality can arise for numerous reasons - ethnic/racial characteristics, cultural differences, political ideology and (definitely) religious affiliation. Being secular in no way make you immune, but being religious almost guarantees you will adopt this attitude.

Most religions (and certainly the Abrahamic ones) authorise distaste, hatred and/or the slaughter of their opponents. The Bible endorses genocide frequently:

"Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." - 1 Samuel 15:2-3

It's not just the Old Testament. Jesus instructs Christians to slay non-believers (Luke 19:27). The Koran speaks of God's hate for the Jews and how he will turn them into monkeys (Surah 5:60 and 5:78).

If your goal is subordination of others then you'll find justification for your actions somewhere. Religion is certainly one place to go looking for it.

The ultimate truth

Did you ever have a moment when suddenly everything is made clear to you?

I had one a few weeks ago. It was when I finally made sense of everyone and everything in the world. The discovery was this:

We live either by reason, or by faith. You CANNOT live by both.

Simple. You probably already knew it. But it explained everything I didn't understand about the world.

Now if you are reading this and saying "DUH" then feel free to skip the rest of this blog.

If however you are sitting there thinking "No I can live with both reason AND faith in my life" then you are wrong. They are completely incompatible.

Here are the two fundamental truths of our existence:

1 - Reason contradicts Faith.

2 - Faith contradicts Reason.

This leads to an observation: everyone must at some point choose either faith or reason. Some do it consciously, some just go with whatever they were told as children and never really question it.

And here is the pearl: there has to be a choice. My next blog will explain this.