apostates r us
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- Published on Thursday, 02 February 2006 13:22
- Written by Erik
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There has been a lot of stuff on religion so far in this blog. Perhaps my genetic predisposition is showing — both of my grand-fathers were pastors in the Swedish church after all. In a funny way I continue the family business — standing orating at the pulpet once a week is pretty much what I do too!
Yet since the death of my father a few years back, I’ve become an increasingly militant atheist. Religion seems like such a terrible fraud perpetrated on mankind. We are told that things will be ok, that we don’t have to worry, that there is life after death and that god will reward us. By believing in such fictions we never come face to face with the reality of our lives. Facing this reality is in the end the only way in which we can affirm our humanity.
Recognising the essential meaninglessness of life, we are forced to give life meaning. Such meaning-making is the essence of humanity. Religion can indeed be explained from this perspective — religion is yet another way of making sense of senselessness. Yet what matters is not the answer we arrive at — the tepid, porridge-like, substance that the churches dish out — but instead the struggle for meaning; the terror incompletely concealed. This is the point of human existence: always looking and never finding anything.
In the last analysis, religion requires fear — fear of death, fear of life. Fear always breeds submission; a frightened person will easily give in to authority. A free society must be without fear. We must be resolute in the face of death.
As I tell my students whenever I have a chance: there really is no god, you know, there really isn’t. Neither a Muslim, a Christian nor a Jewish. It would be nice if there were, and nothing would make me feel better than if I were able — like my two grandfathers — to believe. But the fact that we would be comforted by the thought doesn’t make it true. It just doesn’t work that way.
