Anger Management

I had a couple of friends with me in the pub tonight, and one of them said that my writings seemed full of anger - real, in-your-face anger, about religion.  I don't think she could quite reconcile the person I am (fairly quiet, usually easy-going and happy) with these essays.

First let me say that I didn't quit religion because of any hurt or bitterness given me by Christians. I still love my Christian friends. No, it is Religion the thing, the infectious viral spread of unreason and false ideas, that I am pitting my wits against here.

I think part of the reason for my friend's confusion is that there are different kinds of anger:

In my case the anger has these roots:

Anger through Knowledge
    Cassandra Anger
        Anger of the Peace-Lover
            Anger of the Bin-man (the refuse worker)
                Anger of the Surgeon

Let's look at these one at a time:

1. Anger through knowledge
Through reading, I have learned a lot about the history of religion, the effects of it on countries, communities and individuals even today.  Across history, its effects are appalling and it has been the greatest cause of strife on the planet.  Many aren't aware of this.
Having been a Christian I also know how religion spreads, and I know it targets vulnerable people, especially children.
Also I have knowledge of the constant attempts by religious people to get into governmental power.  My friend would quickly become pretty angry too if we lived in a religiously dominated state.  People like me would soon be "disposed of" - as they were for hundreds of years before the Enlightenment.  And it wasn't so long ago that in the UK you had to sign a paper declaring your belief in God before you were allowed to be a Member of Parliament.

2. Cassandra Anger


Painting of Cassandra by Evelyn de Morgan

Cassandra was daughter of the King of Troy. She refused the advances of the god Apollo (unlike the virgin Mary, she had her standards). Apollo cursed her with the ability to see future events but never to be believed by anyone. She could neither alter these events nor convince others of the truth of her predictions. Cassandra warned specifically that the Greek gift of a giant wooden horse was soon to carry tragedy within the walls of Troy, a warning that "All heard, and none believed".

I don't claim to be a Cassandra, or a prophet. But there is something of her frustration that wells up inside me when I talk to Christians.

Examples

• I spoke to a Christian and said: "These books (Genesis to Deuteronomy) narrate events that occurred possibly 800 years before they were written.  The stories were either passed down by word of mouth through 40 generations - and could have been embellished and exaggerated; or else they were made up as stories in order to give the Jews a history." I pointed out that our myths about King Arthur also come from about 800 years before they were written down.

• I spoke to another Christian and listed just some of the appalling deeds, threats and violence directly caused by God himself in the Bible.  Her response: "That doesn't prove he doesn't exist".

So it is hard communicating with such wrong-headedness, and that does bring frustrations.

3. Anger of the peace-lover.
If you are having a quiet evening with friends at a restaurant, and your peace is shattered by an aggressive thug at the next table, you become angry.  This world would be a better place without the endless conflict brought by religions.

4.  Anger of the binman (the refuse-worker)

When a refuse worker empties the bins - he often sees incredible waste. Good food and good clothes are frequently just thrown away when they could have been so valued by others.

Waste is a terrible thing - offensive to anyone who values the thing being wasted.
I value people.  I hate to see people wasted.

I get angry at the sheer waste of human resources and human life that religion brings.  For thousands of years, men and women have poured time and energy into worshipping, studying and writing about imaginary beings.  Not to mention time spent listening to endless mediocre rhetoric coming from the pulpits.  (While some human wisdom can be found in religions - there is none that you couldn't pick up by reading literature or self-help books.)

Think of all those men and women who became priests, monks, nuns... these people were all born with an ability to be tremendously committed to their chosen field.  Think how much they could have achieved in scientific research or art.

Religion causes waste as follows:

• It makes some people think they understand all the salient points about the Universe.  This makes them indifferent to studying science and nature.

• It makes some people think the Universe is certain to end at any moment, to be replaced by something better (at least, better for those who happened to choose the correct religion out of thousands.).  This makes people complacent, lazy or indifferent to studying.

• It makes some people think they have an all-powerful being who will always look after them.  Therefore they drift through life, wasting opportunities and making poor decisions. Sometimes important decisions are based on chance scriptures they may read - superstitiously attributed to guiding spirits.  Inevitably, when their invisible friend lets them down, they end up seeking help from the state, or scrounging from others. 
  

• While in my final year of University and still a Christian, I had an important examination one Thursday.  A Christian friend took me aside and urged me to exercise faith by going to Bible Class on the Wednesday evening - even though I knew I still needed to revise.  Fortunately I didn't go, but another person's entire career could have been ruined by that kind of mindlessness.

• It wastes human life itself.  The Dark Ages, when religion reigned supreme, were centuries in which much progress could have been made.  The control exerted by the church on every aspect of life and thought in those years, was a repression that is hard to think about in these more enlightened times.  The Greeks and Romans were using technology that was relatively advanced - plus they had invented democracy and the senate; they had beautiful literature and plays.  If Religion had not become dominant in Europe and Asia at that time, it is quite possible that mankind would have had anaesthesia by the 7th Century, been walking on the Moon by the 8th Century, and developed a cure for cancer by the 9th century!  (When anaesthesia was finally developed, it was opposed by many Christians for being unnatural).

5. Anger of the Surgeon
A surgeon who operates on someone with lung-cancer gets angry at the tobacco companies.
If she's digging a bullet out of a victim of gun-crime, she gets angry with the arms dealers.

My anger is heart-felt, eye-witness stuff.  I've been a Christian, I've seen it first hand, and I know it is horrible precisely because it makes itself appear nice.

It is the big distorter of reality.  Can you think of any other force that my friend would defend against anger, but which has caused so much pain - wars, witch burnings, torturing of heretics, division of families, inter-community strife etc.
Attack religion and lots of not particularly religious people will rush to its defence.

When I quote disgusting Bible verses, I am not being disgusting, the Bible is.
If I point out hateful verses, it's not me who is full of hate.

When I say Religion has been responsible for atrocities - I am only stating facts, not "spewing hatred".  If I accused Saddam Hussein of being a horrid, brutal man, would you say I was full of hate? It seems clear to me that I would only be stating facts in a fairly reasonable way.

I am (or would like to be) an advocate FOR reason - rather than an advocate AGAINST religion.
The two are opposites.  I am drawn towards reason because it is clear and beautiful, and I love beauty.

The highest ideal of beauty and love that Christians possess is that of a bleeding man upon an Iron Age execution device, because they attribute to that image a false meaning.  The fact that such a truly ugly sight is twisted to become an ideal is corrupting.  That is why I can show Christians ugly verse after ugly verse from the Bible and they will only shrug their shoulders.  They have been desensitised to horror.  That's why the terrible instrument of pain dangles so lightly around their necks.  (Would you want a silver electric-chair pendant?)

If you defined Love as a kind of Empathy - then I think I have more of it than Christians do. Why? Because I can't read god's order to kill the men, massacre the women and butcher the boys, but save the virgin daughters for yourselves, without feeling like crying.  A Christian will be too busy excusing their god to feel the slightest emotion.
(Numbers 31:15-18)



Geoff Mather 2007

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