The Myth Of Faith

Last screening: the last samurai with tom cruise. Hello?! This movie ROCKED!!! Tom is fucking great in this film as always. He's one hundred percent.

It is five am and I cannot keep my eyes open. I must sleep. But I will take some notes before I do because I was inspired by the movie. I was reminded that as the Jews of Europe were innocently slaughtered by the millions in world war two, they were praying the whole time. And as the Chinese government murdered the Tibetans for their own selfish profit and gain and burned down over fifty percent of their monasteries, the Tibetans were a devoutly religious people who were praying the whole time as well. Of course we know where that got them. We only need look to the highly spiritual Native American peoples and their unfortunate demise in the face of the barbaric Europeans (supposed puritans) who conquered the Americas to see clearly the error in depending on a God or a faith for our survival. Success on earth has always come about through brute force, strength, military might, and money; not through prayer or faith or being kind or honest or generous or a good person. If anything, these practices and characteristics, regardless of how noble they are or how devoutly attached some of us are to them, have always worked against the innocent and enlightened among us. As a people we enjoy glorifying noble people once they are dead or fictionalized. But we rarely allow them to live too long.

It is a distinctly human phenomenon that I have begun to call the myth of faith – this belief that God is on our side if we do the right thing or try to be spiritual or good or religious. When we are young and still growing, it is preached to us; how important it is to believe in God, to have faith, to pray, to be good people, to be kind and honest and generous. But as we get older and study our history we are soon struck by the inconsistencies in these teachings as to they relate to what has actually transpired on the earth since we have been here. How indeed it has always been the strongest and the cruelest and the richest of us who have won the battles, and shaped the world we have lived in. It has never been the most devout, or the kindest, or the gentlest, or the most honest or the most religious.

And even if it has been at times the most religious who have won the wars and controlled the events of history, as was the case with the roman empire’s clutch on western civilization, or the Muslim domination through the latter half of the first millennia ad, or the Christian slaughter of the Americans, the most religious has never equaled the most righteous or the purest or the nicest. In other words, it is rare that a people who have dominated in the name of their religion have ever embodied much of the teachings of that religion in their practices, especially not in their business of trying to take over the world.

When we think of the winners of the great battles that have shaped the world into what it is today, whether we are thinking of Julius Caesar, or Alexander the great, or Napoleon or the catholic Church/Roman Empire, or Mohamed and his loyal band of Muslim freedom fighters who conquered half of Europe, or the Christian Crusaders who took much of it back, or the European settlers who murdered entire populations of indigenous peoples in their quest to conquer the continent of America, we can clearly see that it has never been the morals and values of our youth that have helped guide these victories. [Spain and Portugal murdered over one hundred and fifty million native peoples in south and north America. England and Holland another fifty million in north America. That's 200 million innocent people murdered by people most of us can still call our ‘ancestors.’] It has always been the secular qualities of sheer force, brute strength, and having more money than the defeated that has enabled these victories. God and religion have never played into it, even though God and religion are almost always used as a driving force or a justification or a reason to go to battle in the first place.

The myth of faith has always been used as a calling card for the victorious. And at the same time it has always served as a means of comfort and consolation for the defeated. When the barbarians win their wars, regardless of the pain and suffering that was inflicted on the millions defeated, one can always hear the triumphant rallying cry that God is on their side. And on the other side of the token, God has always been used as the source of comfort for the innocent defenders as well; the weak and trampled upon have always thought that God is just and that he will bring truth and justice to the cause. But he never has. It’s always just been about strength and money. if God has ever been on any side --- if one is to equate God with any measure of fate or destiny--- it has been the other side --- the side of strength and money. Whoever is the strongest or the most forceful and domineering. I guess that goes with the whole survival of the fittest theory. Which again, has nothing to do with God or religion but purely to do with secular humanism and evolution theory.

We the innocent are always going to be left in shock by the horrors of the guilty among us. And we the enlightened will always be taken by surprise by the cunning and brutality of the barbarians that have lived among us since we can remember. How many of us can remember the first time as children when we discovered someone had lied or was lying to us. I remember it clearly myself. I was young and in complete shock. I knew people lied; I caught myself lying myself on occasion. But I never thought people just blatantly lied. I never would have believed as a young person that you could get two or three kids in a room with two or three adults and that someone could or would look someone else right in the face and just blatantly lie. I was in shock. I felt as if I was looking evil right in the face. “O.k.” I thought “so this is totally fucked up. this person is lying right now. I have no chance here because lying is possible.” The truth can be played with and it isn't after all something that we can count on... I took the teachings of our youth and the religion that was drummed into our small brains at the time, the Christian religion for me, very seriously. like all kids, I thought it was gospel. I thought there was a God and that God was good and that God wanted other people to be good and that he would be mad if someone was not good. this is what I was taught.

I soon learned through the school of life that this was not the case. If there was a God, and there may still be, who knows, but I noticed very soon growing up that this God did not care about how good or bad a person was. If he did, he certainly didn't make this known to us here on earth. As much as our schools and churches and parents wanted us to believe it, we could clearly see growing up that it just wasn't the case. The strong always won. The rich always controlled the events of history. And the good just dealt with it however they could. God played no part. [this is clearly where the ‘afterlife’ theories such as heaven or nirvana stem from that are so prevalent in almost all human religions. If God isn't going to do anything now to protect the good and innocent or punish the wicked barbarians, he will surely do something about it after we die. a comforting and convenient theory surely, but not very helpful to us here now.]

This unspoken truth about God and truth and being good is what the strong and powerful and ‘in control’ among us know that the rest of us don't. they understand the real code of humanity. The code of might makes right and survival of the fittest. The good guy wins in the movies. The strong, rich, and powerful win in the real world.

I believe that at this point in our evolution that if we the innocent and enlightened are to have any chance of survival here in the future, that it is time for us, perhaps just for a brief time, to put down our search for God, and our allegiance to the morals and values that we associate with this God. and to focus on our spirit and our strength as humans. We are the only ones who still believe in the myth of God. The leaders, the rulers, the powers that be, understand much better than we do that might makes right. While we pray, they profit. While we attempt to help and save those around us, they murder. We search for truth, and they blatantly lie; the whole time using God as their calling card. When Galileo was imprisoned for telling the truth it was the catholic church that put him there. when the black people were enslaved and murdered for hundreds of years in the Americas, it was the Christians who were doing it. when Israel bombs Palestinian houses and villages, it is devoutly religious Jewish people doing it. and of course when bombs go off in Israeli cafes killing innocent people, it is religious Muslims doing the bombing. And when innocent Americans are being murdered and beheaded in Iraq it is the Muslims who are doing it. religious people. doing the killing in the name of their God. So who are the barbarians among us today? and who are the enlightened?

So the question that is begging for an answer here is this one: if this God of man’s religions is so easily used and manipulated by the evil and barbaric, who and where is the God of the enlightened? Has he ever existed? And if not, will he ever exist? Could we create him eventually?