Lonely Messiah

My anger has turned to sadness,
I don't understand this madness.

Warning: I'm in a pensive mood. Matt just left for a week on work and I just finished reading the newspaper. I don't know why I bother reading the damnable thing in the morning, it ruins my whole day. But if I read it at night, I'd have nightmares.

Quote of the millenium:
"The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both--and mixes explosively with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now."--Richard Dawkins
Quote obtained by the excellent book The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

Whatever it is that we claim is peaceful about our Abrahamic religions, particularly Islam and Christianity, is either long forgotten or never was there to begin with. I've been told that to know God is to know peace. I thought I knew him once, I thought I saw his face. I still do at times when I see strangers help each other or when I feel real wonder of this world and all creation. I think God, should he exist, wanted this for us. If we truly felt this way, we wouldn't kill and hate each other so much.

I, of course, don't believe in God anymore. That doesn't remove my (niave) hope in mankind. If anything, it bolsters it, because I believe now more than ever that we're here to create a life that is remarkable while we are still here to enjoy it. We're here to celebrate, accomplish, and to care about each other and our planet. Old vendettas and the persecution of fellow men and women because of tribal differences must be abandoned if we are to survive without needless violence and bloodshed. We've moved from rocks to nukes. If we keep going how we're going, we'll be back to using rocks soon enough.

Compassion is not the province of the devout. As we can plainly see, many of them don't know the first thing about it.

I'm not against religion so much if it helps people, and it arguably does. The myth of the angry atheist who spitefully denies everything the pious claim is inaccurate and misleading. I'm no dogmatist. I try to keep an open mind. But where I don't see evidence, I'm not about to go filling in the gaps with myths. And, unless you want to deny me my humanity or otherwise hurt me, I do not want to hurt you because you don't believe what I do. If anything, I will help you. We are all here together.

I wouldn't have such a low opinion of religion if the people who practised it wouldn't use it as a reason to become flaming assholes to one another. "You will know them by the fruits of their labor". How true. Read the newspaper, and you will see how rotten this fruit has become. I know there are geniune souls out there who are faithful and actively compassionate, but they aren't the ones running the show right now.

If there is a messiah, he's crying in his beer. There's almost nothing left to save.
(ink illustration above by me)