Monkeys, Oz and Invisible Clothes

In the 1960s an artist became so frustrated with the "art establishment" that he took to the experts a painting produced by a monkey. He heard them rave about the fine brushwork, the imaginative scope, the boldness of the concept, etc. Then he told them about the artist.

When Frank L. Baum penned his fable "The Wizard of Oz", he was showing how mysticism and hype can fool us into submission and subservience.
Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man and the cowardly lion all believe that the Wizard is mighty, capable of granting their requests. But when things start to go wrong with the wizard's showmanship, we hear him shout: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

It takes Toto the dog, less susceptible to stagecraft, to pull aside the curtain, revealing the wizard and exposing him as the puny actor he really is.

Baum also writes that you don't need real knowledge - a certificate will do.
You don't need real courage - a medal will do.
You don't need a heart - a testimonial will do.

In other words, he was pointing out the lack of substance behind some people and institutions - they are all show.

When Hans Christian Anderson wrote "The Emperor's New Clothes", he was making a very similar point. Maybe the crowds want to believe in a silly story, and maybe they burden us with all the weight of cultural peer pressure, and try to make us feel stupid for not seeing what they claim they see. But the little boy in the crowd very quickly exposed the myth: "He's got no clothes on!"

Religion has got no clothes on. It is a painting produced by monkeys. It is stagecraft, mysticism and hype - there are men behind the curtain. 

Walk into any beautiful, large building, designed by a good architect, and you will feel elevated and awe-struck. A cathedral harnesses that emotion. The design of a large church or cathedral will always be imposing enough to make you feel small, needy and vulgar. It makes you think that the god who supposedly inhabits the grand building must be at least as grand.

He's got no clothes on! It is architecture, hype, marketing: "social engineering".

I may be wrong, but I honestly think that Christianity, Islam and other religions will collapse with increasing speed, because of the Internet.  There is a growing chorus of voices in the crowd - like the little boy in the story - crying out "He's got no clothes on!"

Information will prove deadly to such mythologies - the enemy of Religion has always been information. The question is - will religious fundamentalists allow the planet to survive long enough for this collapse to occur? It will surely not be long before Islamic or Christian fundamentalists use chemical or nuclear weapons to 'destroy the unbelievers', as their holy text commands. Both the Bible and the Koran order such destruction, and any fundamentalist is a risk to society because of his or her total belief in violent texts.

A good read:

"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" by Sam Harris

Geoff Mather 2007

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