18/08/04

Father, Son And Holy Ghost

Hi AH, 

 First, l want you to know that I read your page regularly. I enjoy it and agree with the vast majority of it. I first became fed up with all of the feminist bullsh*t in 1990 when I started attending a very liberal college. It was "guilty by penis".

I digress though. I just want you to know this is a sincere question and not at covert attempt at attacking you.

Why is it that you seem to have a hard spot with the religious?

Or is it just the religion?

I'm a fundamentalist christian - meaning it's in the Bible or it isn't. I don't buy into that "everybody interprets it differently" crap. You can take a single verse out of context. Media excels at this. But if you read it cover to cover I think the meaning is pretty clear. That's just me though.

We apply biblical principles to our marriage.

But I have been happily married for 10 years now to my only wife. We apply biblical principles to our marriage. We have five kids. Even now I rarely go more than a day without being physically intimate with my wife.

My religion is what holds my marriage together, makes us strong, makes us happy, makes me happy to work at a job and have her at home raising our kids. 

What specifically is it that you don't like about religion?

It just a curious question from one who appreciates your writings. (Most anyway) I hope you will have time to respond.

I deal with the public and it often requires me to inquire after household situations. Every time I find a guy who is getting the sh*tty end of the stick or is about to get it, I let them know about your site. I think you ought to sell AngryHarry T-shirts to let more people know about you.

Thanks,

P

Hi P

Thank you for that. I really appreciated your email.

Hmm. But I'm not sure where to begin.

 I just don't believe in a god any more.

Fundamentally, I suppose, I just don't believe in a god any more.

And apart from the writings in the New Testament, I really do not know very much about "The Bible". I have only read bits of it.

I do actually believe that God and Jesus Christ (and others) live in the hearts and minds of people, but I just do not believe that they live anywhere else. And I also get the feeling that all the great prophets and holy men were simply talking to their various peoples in a way that could be understood in their time. 

And I have a sneaky suspicion that they were attributing to a god fundamental insights that they, themselves, had had - insights that they knew would be extremely important for future generations - and so they hyped up the authority behind them - perhaps because they seemed so amazingly important that they just must have come from 'on high', rather than from their own limited selves.

But I think that these insights did, in fact, come from their own limited selves.

you probably thought that it was a gift from God.

Today, for example, if you are a truly great mathematician or musician, you probably reckon that your genes had something to do with it. In the past, you probably thought that it was a gift from God. And I think that people like Jesus and Mohammed and other great religious men were just extraordinarily clever people who attributed their gifts to a higher being when, in fact, it was their genes and their biology that gave them their gifts.

Well, that's my belief!

Also, I am actually scared of 'religion' and, often, of religious people. I just do not see the world in the same way that they do. And while I think that religion has done some good in the past, I also think that it has done some bad.

 what the archaeologists were discovering was that many of the animal parts ... were fakes.

I saw a programme on the ancient Egyptians some time ago, and it seemed to me that the priests and their associated burial industries were basically running a great financial scam. The people were being led to believe by them that if they were embalmed in a certain way and mummified, with various animal parts buried with them, then they would achieve some eternal form of life. And what the archaeologists were discovering was that many of the animal parts that were supposedly buried along with the deceased were fakes.

These Egyptians also had special places (whole 'towns') where people would gather to buy various odds and ends that would, purportedly, help them with the afterlife.

It seemed to me that it was mostly like a flourishing business.

And, in my view, religious beliefs in God are little more than successful 'organisms' based often on flourishing businesses.

Any ideology can grow simply by making many people believe in it. It can then grow even further if the leaders of that ideology demand subservience and financial contributions to it. And the more powerful do they and their organisations become, the bigger do they grow. (Just like feminism and political correctness - wherein 'white heterosexual men' are portrayed as The Devil; from whom everyone on Earth - including their own children - needs rescuing.)

These organisms compel, bribe, frighten, indoctrinate and/or intimidate others into serving them.

These organisms compel, bribe, frighten, indoctrinate and/or intimidate others into serving them. And, in my view, this is what religions seem mostly to be. This is not to say that there is absolutely no value to religions, but I do not think that, henceforth, they are the best mechanisms for achieving human progress.

I do appreciate that religion can help people to run their own lives in ways that are very positive - both for themselves, their families and their communities. But it seems to me that a few thousand years of history shows that religion does not exactly bring about peace and harmony; and so on. Furthermore, science clearly achieves far more - on balance - than does prayer in terms of curing the various ills that plague us. And so, all in all, I'd rather put my 'faith' in science and technology than in religion.

the notion that I might be special beyond my own circle of 'influence' would seem to be the height of arrogance. 

There is also an aspect to some religions that I really dislike. And this is the notion that the people who follow them are 'special' in some way. They often see themselves as superior. Well. I don't see myself as someone who is particularly special. I'm special to me and, presumably, to those who are close to me, but the notion that I might be special beyond my own circle of 'influence' would seem to be the height of arrogance. 

I also think that humans (as a whole, or individually) delude themselves badly and unwholesomely when they believe that they are special in the overall scheme of things. Indeed, the dinosaurs ruled the Earth for about 200 million years. We have been around for about 2 million years; and we might not be around for much longer!

And so, in summary, while I think that someone like Jesus was the most amazing man (and it astonishes me that most of what he said is still so relevant today) religion and a belief in God actually worry me. Indeed, I think I see people like Jesus more as great psychologists, rather than as anything else.

And I think that in much the same way that Freud's insights (few that they were) ended up generating a huge organism of psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts who managed to hijack much of the cognitive and psychiatric ether with (mostly) baloney, I think that many decent religious leaders often managed, unwittingly, to inspire very much the same thing in their followers.

their clear wisdom and authority was used by others for their own  purposes

In other words, their clear wisdom and authority was used by others for their own  purposes (though these were not necessarily 'bad' purposes) and, as a result, these huge organisms grew and grew. And, just like the other huge organisms that I keep droning on about, these organisms are not human. They do not really care about humans. They have lives of their own to worry about.

And it is because of this, basically, that I have both a deep-seated suspicion and a fear of them.

These organisms are not the same species as me!

Mind you. I also feel the same way about the growing organisms of science and technology. They could easily lead us all to disaster. And this is one of the reasons why I keep banging on about the need to spread information.

In some sense, this is my God; because, in my view, this is the only realistic route to something akin to 'salvation'.

And, quite frankly, I believe that unless we can hurry up the process, we are all going to find ourselves in very deep trouble in the near future.

The rapid spread of information (e.g. via the internet) could help us enormously to disempower many of those forces that end up bringing misery to so many people - right across the world. It would help to flatten the forces of 'evil' because people would more likely see what was really going on, and they would also be more able to counter it - both at home and abroad.

And all the extremes could be zapped!

 this in one of the reasons why I do not mind sounding 'extreme' on occasion.

Indeed, this in one of the main reasons why I do not mind sounding 'extreme' on occasion.

If I am too extreme, then I will be zapped, ignored, pushed aside; and my effect will be very small.

This is what the free flow of information does. It flattens things. And extremes tend to disappear very quickly.

At the moment, however, our shaky futures are being entrusted to large powerful organisms - that we know are lying to us all the time. And they are lying to us because they are serving themselves - not us.

There are thousands of them all over the planet. And they often seem to demonise and generate hatred and/or distrust towards others simply in order to sustain themselves and to gain themselves more support. The abuse industry, the feminists, the politically correct, the tabloids, the White House, Al-Quaeda, the Palestinians, the Israelis, etc etc. They are all at it.

The Hate Business.

And this is what religious groups often do too.

In other words, regretfully, these tactics seem to work!

(e.g. see my peace We're going to become extinct, like the dinosaurs.)

And this, of course, is why I employ them myself. LOL!

I'm forever demonising politicians, feminists, judges etc etc.

I'm forever demonising politicians, feminists, judges etc etc. There is not a day that goes by wherein I am not uttering a volley of expletives in their direction. And I hope that, one day, 'men' will dominate the planet. Not Muslims, or Jews, or Christians, or feminists, or the left wing, or the right wing, or the communists or the capitalists, or the corporations (I could go on all night) but 'men'. The organism of average, ordinary, boring decent men.

In my view, if their collective consciousness can surface - e.g. through cyberspace - it will drive us toward the right goals and steer us through the best pathways - perhaps mostly by giving support to those people who appear to have the 'best brains'.

And by 'best brains', I mean the 'best brains' when it comes to delivering things like kindness, generosity, fairness, goodwill, creativity, science, intelligence, solutions, fun, health - whatever.

And they will also surely collectively compile themselves into 'a decent man' - because no extremes can rule in such a vast sea of consciousness. 

Well. Not for long.

If this organism ruled the planet, and everyone could also see whatever they really wanted to see (information) no extremes could really develop for very long and the best pathways would be better identified.

The criminals would be quickly caught. No Saddams could hide any WMD. There would be fewer major conflicts all round. Businesses large and small would have to be decently run. People would have to do their jobs properly. On and on it goes.

But, as matters stand currently, the organisms that have the most power have little or no concern for 'men', and they are masters at both distorting the information and hiding it.

We need to change all this. And I don't think that beliefs in traditional religions would take us in the right direction.

And, surely, until men begin to see themselves more as 'men' (rather than as Muslims, or Jews, or Christians, or left wing, or right wing, or communists or capitalists, etc) they will remain divided. And this means there will be continuing and worsening trouble.

As such, the growth of the men's movement seems to me the best hope for the future.

And this, coupled together with the development of science and technology and the spread of information are, if you like, my own versions of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The men's movement (Father) does seem to be paternalistic in many ways. Science and technology (Son) do seem to be the 'earthly' manifestations of some higher laws. And the spread of information (Holy Ghost) seems similar in concept to the flow of the spirit into people's hearts and minds.

Well, I can certainly see some interesting parallels!

Best wishes

Harry

Also see my most excellent piece entitled, ...

The Golden Rule