The God Question is not benign

For many believers, my opposition to religion is unacceptable, strange and meaningless, but somehow theists do find a little bit of respect for it — not in the sense that they also believe it, or that they even find it a possibility or fact, but in the sense that they can (somewhat) respect my opinion and my lack of religious affiliation. This is in great contrast to what they think about my opposition to the existence of God as a whole.

I tend to refrain from introducing it into discussions now, because the reaction it initiates is fierce and angry. And this isn’t even a theistic characteristic, since many people — agnostic, undecided and even some atheistic — I have spoken with at university are also quite surprised and flabbergasted that I’m this opposed to belief in God.

“Why be hostile to belief in God, when this belief is in itself mellow and benign?”

There is a simple answer to that question: because the institution that relies on it (Abrahamic religion¹) is build upon God’s existence and his “godly elements.” Take away God from the equation and the religions fall apart.

It’s best illustrated in the skyscraper metaphor. Every floor of the skyscraper represents a certain chapter from the Abrahamic dogma — so one represents the Ten Commandments; another the “teachings of brotherly love” of Jesus Christ, who himself is also represented by a floor; yet another floor the creed that you should honour God and God alone; and so on.

The whole faith that God exists provides for the foundation of this skyscraper. It is the concrete that holds it all together. Unfortunately, it’s not reinforced concrete, and slowly throughout time people have chiselled the concrete away. Steadily the undeniable existence of God keeps on being disproven, time after time, after time. And then, at once, the skyscraper collapses, because the foundation has proven to be too instable and — to put it more dramatically — nonexistent. This skyscraper has been suspending mid-air for all that time, but only now do people really notice that there is nothing to support it.

Can the inerrant Ten Commandments survive without the belief that God exists? Well, first of all, Abrahamic dogma tells us they came straight from God. If he doesn’t exist, it would mean that Moses (if he existed) just made them up. Secondly, even if we would accept that, there is nothing governing those commandments anymore. If you break one of the dogmatic rules, you won’t miss the train to the sunny afterlife and you won’t be put on a one-way flight to down-below. Why would you adhere to them then?

This is one of the central arguments theists and theologians make against society-wide atheism. I already discussed it in “Atheism is not nihilism“, and I think it’s an awful argument to make. Like I said then (and in “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (Twice)“), belief in God doesn’t automatically make you a righteous and ethical person, and being religious also doesn’t. If you believe it does, you are the one who’s unethical and barbaric, considering you only act ethical because you’re afraid of the afterlife.

No, the inerrant Ten Commandments cannot survive without God’s existence, because they have no use in society if they are not undeniable. If God existed, they would’ve been humanity’s guide to pleasing this God, but if he doesn’t, we can all make up our own minds what to consider ethical and what not — we don’t need the Ten Commandments and their inerrantness.

And if he doesn’t exist, why should we all go to church, read fictional books about people who hallucinated they talked to him, who proclaimed they had met him and that they were his sons?

“But religion is so much more than that — it is also comforting and gets communities together.”

Sure, but let me ask you this — what is so special about religion that those elements can’t be done without it? If I need comforting because I have been going through some hard days, I don’t need religion to guide me towards people who can comfort me. In itself, praying isn’t consoling or spiritual. The feelings and emotions you attach to praying are, but you don’t need religion to attach those. And the “getting communities together” argument? Go outside of your comfort zone and just approach another human being. Go and have a cup of coffee or tea with them. Talk about literature, film, problems and life. Now, where is religion in all of this?

If God existed, religion would have a point. It would be the means to communicating with this supreme being, in pleasing him, revering him. But if God doesn’t exist, as is my conclusion, then religion becomes pointless and an empty shell. An empty shell that could become a method to discriminate, to call for hate, and to initiate war over differences in dogma. And the last thing we need are more empty shells to divide us.