Traitors To Reason

Articles

Traitors To Reason

By Terry McClain
Dec. 22, 2005

Is it just me, or am I the only one who is fretful and impatient that it's taking supernatural-based religions so long to die? Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 17th century, and the concomitant rise of empirical science, all the old sky-god religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) are dead - they simply don't know it yet. In our era of special relativity and quantum mechanics, no rational, intelligent person should believe that an illegitimate Galilean peasant, or a 7th century Bedouin camel drover, or an ancient Mesopotamian sheepherder, is God, or the son of God, or the messenger of God, or made an exclusive contract with God. That churches, synagogues and mosques are full and billions of human beings on the planet profess faith in superstitious mythologies means there is a new divide, a new demarcation among us - those who embrace science, technology and reason to pursue glimpses of God, and those who are content to believe the fairy tales that are the sky-god religions.

In their defense, if you were able to call up the historical figures responsible for the creation and sustenance of the sky-god religions - Moses, the myriad Jewish scribes who wrote the Talmud, Paul, Augustine, Mohammed, all the Muslim scribes who followed him - they would probably shrug and say: "Trying to create civilization - to bring order out of chaos - has and always will be a rigorous task. You moderns have no idea how limited we were, how few tools we had against human inconstancy. We had to use whatever was available - superstition, credulity, fear - to inculcate morality into human society."

They did manage to create civilizations that eventually gave birth to what we have and are today; and for that they deserve our heart-felt gratitude . . . but we must also recognize the limits and errors of superstitious mythologies. In order to preserve themselves, they must choke independent thought that challenges their dogma. The history of civilization for the last thousand years has essentially been one of human efforts to move away from "received truths" to the realities of the universe, which is where we will find our best glimpses into the true nature of God.

In the final analysis, I feel only a sort of bemused pity for those who give their loyalty to superstitious mythologies. If I could address them all, I would ask them to consider that their being alive at this point in the space-time continuum is purely coincidental. Human beings, in our present forms, have been on the planet at least for the last 25,000 years. I 'd ask them to consider what they would have been like had they been born seven thousand years ago in what is now northern China, or the Yucatan peninsula, or an island in the South Pacific. More specifically, what God would they have worshipped?

I mentioned earlier my impatience at their religions, not merely that they are taking so long to die, but that the adherents of superstitious mythologies are intent on prolonging their existence by forcing them into public concourse. Fundamentalism Islam is slowly rounding into a mortal enemy of our modern edifice of reason; Judaism is only belatedly retreating from its fascism in the Middle East; and Christians in our country feel they must attack evolution in science classes to preserve their children's fables about the origins of man and the universe. Fortunately, there are enough of us now to fight them at every turn, and we are winning. Reason and truth will overcome superstition and ignorance - we must simply persevere another two or three centuries before we can celebrate their deaths.

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Email Terry McClain: kansasmcclain@cox.net

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