Evolution of an Atheist

God simply doesn’t exist.  What’s that you say?  95% of the world’s population thinks otherwise?  That’s because only 5% have the balls to accept that once we’re done here, we’re done forever.  Look up, though…it’s not like we’ll know it.  We’ll be done, and thus nothing, or the space between the borders of 0, while the world goes on without us.  That’s right, the world does exist without you in it.

Life is waiting to die.  You’re a giant walking compost heap, fertilizing the world around you.  We leave little bits and pieces of ourselves where we sit, and various microbes feed on you from the inside out.

In the back of all our minds, don’t we know this already?  Why do you think Moslems kill Israelites, or visa versa?  Or why zealots of pro-life shoot abortion doctors?  When was the last time god needed any help in his smiting?  Deep down, we know there is no heaven or hell, and that punishment belongs in our hands, to mete out to the guilty when we believe we’ve been wronged.  Life is the rarest of gifts, death the ultimate of punishments.
 

But then, maybe there is a God.  Does he care, though?  Do you hear the screams of mortality from your dust mites?  Do you hear their pleas when they become sick, and cry out in sorrow?
Do you know Dust Mite Bob?  How about his date of birth?  When he got married?  When he had little Dust Mite Bob Junior, did you know he thanked you?  Did you know that when his wife died, and he cried every night in anguish, tears streaking his pillow, he asked you to watch over her?  Did you know that Dust Mite Bob’s life was snuffed out just the other day, and now he’s rotting under your skin?

Our universe is continuously expanding, and one day, far, far into the future, it will dissipate, like gas particles in a big open field.  Oh, that’s just some silly scientific “theory?”  Go stand on the edge of a black hole, and tell me what really happens.  Tell me if you accelerate towards the speed of light, or that as you enter the event horizon, you aren’t torn atom from atom.  Test that theory, and just give us all a ring when you’re done.  The universe is God’s fart, and our reality stinks.

On the other hand, perhaps God does know we exist.  Maybe he did create heaven and hell, the angels, you and me, and everything in between.  Maybe he fashioned all the rules, is omnipotent, and exists outside our concept of time and space.  Is he the Father?  Then the deck has been stacked, and in all likelihood, your father hates you.

How can I say such a horrible thing?  Did God not put Hitler on this earth?  Did God not put that bully, that robber, that rapist, that killer, and all those other nasty things here to torment the “innocent,” knowing full well what, when, where, and how, it would happen?  No?  That was Satan’s fault?

God created Lucifer, and his current residence, from nothing, and knew what the angel would do before the poor devil had done it.  God, whether directly or indirectly, created all these things, and knew the outcome, just as he knows you scratched your ass yesterday.  If you’re “evil,” an atheist, agnostic, gay, American Indian, Hindu, Jewish, Moslem, or anything not “Christian,” or Catholic, then he made you, or allowed you to be made, to go directly to hell; regardless of nature or nurture.

How does it feel to know that your father made you to suffer for all eternity?  You’re not wanted, and never were, from the moment of conception (not to mention both before and after).  If I were Lucifer, I would have quit a long time ago.  You can’t win.  You know you can’t win.  You know that the only father you ever knew hates you so much, he made hell your prison.  The Lord of Flies, or the Lord of Rejection?  Where would Lucifer go if he committed suicide?  Home?  I think we give him to much credit.  If I were Lucifer, I would have given up caring a long time ago.  Can Lucifer quit his job?

Then again, Lucifer isn’t human, is he?  He was made to fill a specific and single-minded role, as a puppet.  Hell is a God owned property, and God is the slumlord.  He made Hellview Apartments, and appointed Lucifer the manager.  He’s choosing who goes where, like a bouncer at the door of a posh club.  Lucifer isn’t torturing you for all eternity, God is.  Lucifer is just there to make sure the rent is collected on time.
 

God can’t hate you?  That can’t be true?  Then that would mean someone, along the path of religion’s development, has lied.  Why do you think anything construed as anti-religious, anything that could cause doubt in what is popularly read, is conspicuously missing from any school book less than college level?  Manipulation and molding are much easier on a young mind, one gullible and not so set in its ways.

Proof?  Gilgamesh, a Babylonian version of Noah’s flood, was penned before Noah himself is said to have existed, as written in the bible.  The notion of Adam was taken from the idea of “the first man,” who after having lived one thousand, five hundred, and sixty years, “produced” a tree from which the human race was born.  The seed of hell sprung from Babylonian origin, became the Sheol of the Jews, and finally wound up as the Christian’s idea of hell.  My sources?  Sources, in a religious argument, matter nothing to the one arguing for religion.  If I quote a source, it then becomes a matter of whom my source quoted.  Like standing between parallel mirrors.

Religion states man isn’t perfect, yet man wrote the bible, even if some of the information came from a burning bush, or a thunder cloud to Moses.  Bits and pieces have been left out over the millennia, like an editor snipping a badly articulated editorial.  How about the book of Enoch, or Jesus' supposed childhood?  All oddly missing from the final cut, the one that reached the hands of the masses.  Not to mention that the King James version of the bible, the copy so widely accepted as the one “true” gospel, was produced by the hands of Catholics, who for centuries practiced the convolution of biblical writings for financial, political, and sexual gain.

Did you know that the papal crown was offered up for sale on more than one occasion?  Benedict IX, who landed upon that cushy throne at the tender age of twelve, passed no chance to ring up more points on the ol' depravity and debauchery score hanging over that prestigious position.  But then, we seem to know that what is written by man, as supposedly given by God, isn’t true.  Why do you think Jihads and religious persecutions occur?  You break a man’s jaw, and he won’t be able to speak.  It only takes one hole in a raft to let the ocean in.

What does all this mean then?  It probably means that you should have heart, and that God, if he exists, loves you for the work of art he created you to be.  After all, God’s not likely to make mistakes.  If so, I guess he wasn’t God in the first place.  But then again, I’ve never spoken to God via nature, so I’m forced to admit I’m not on a person-to-deity relationship with him.
 

What do I believe?  Not that it really matters, but the question has probably surfaced in your mind.  I believe that science and religion are one and the same.  Heretical?  I’m going to hell?  Save your mouth for giving me head, because, as you can plainly read, I don’t believe in such a place…and no amount of whining, hate spewing, and finger jiggling is going to change that.  You want to get in my face and force your point of view, perhaps with a big stick to beat it into me?  I’ll grab that little branch, shove it up your ass, break off the end so you can’t pull it out, and then laugh at you when you wobble around like an albatross.

Now, let me explain my reasoning for what was written a moment ago.  When I was a boy, I bought some obscure board game from a yard sale, minus the directions.  Sitting down at that board, with my sibling, I could do one of two things.  I could, A:  Simply play the game without a care of it all; or B:  Use all mental faculties I possessed to figure out the rules.

Religion spends all of its time haphazardly playing the game and carelessly flinging the pieces about, and science spends all of its time picking apart the most minute of details, never bothering to have fun with what he has before him.  Just because science wants to figure out the rules, though, doesn’t mean that “God” didn’t write them.  As long as the two bicker, snarl, and bite, there’s never going to be a happy medium.  If there was a “Satan,” he would certainly flourish in such a chaotic climate.

At one point I was strongly atheistic, but something my father said to me, who oddly enough is also an atheist, changed my view in one brilliant flash of insight.  “Son?  You can explain away everything, all the way to the big bang, but at some point, there’s nothing left, and you have to accept the inevitability of something else.”  Next stop, agnostic.

I decided that yes indeed, there was some massive power beyond any human comprehension, but religion wasn’t the answer.  Anything that would threaten, torture, and murder the innocent, all in the name of unholy righteousness, was, in my eyes, plainly “evil.”  I didn’t need to be a certified theologian, or spend years going to church, to reach that conclusion.

But then, if God did exist, and assuming he could hear us, why would he be so interested in what occurred in the world around us?  Why would he use up so much energy to make the jump from inorganic material to organic material?  What’s that you say?  Inorganic material?  What do you think you’re made of?  Minerals found in the dirt, oxygen mixed in, and a good ol' cup of water to finish it off.  You are molecules composed of atoms, composed of electrons and neutrons, composed of tiny little quarks and such.  Our brain interprets your table as being made of wood, metal, or plastic, but in reality, what you’re interacting with is a complex field of force.

The only conclusion I could draw, the only scenario I could produce, would involve me jumping forward a few billion light years into the future.  Man is the only animal that, with the development of his brain, no longer has to be subject to natural selection due to our environment.  If it becomes cold, we throw on some furs.  If saber-toothed tigers invaded our home, we picked up our flint ax and started whoopin' some big furry butt.  Speed forward a coupla million years, and now, through inducing focused unnatural selection upon ourselves, we can manipulate our own genes.  The world freezes over?  We create genes that give us the abilities of polar bears, and we walk around buck-naked.  Gets to hot to travel any distance on foot?  We improve our own cooling systems.

Now make that jump I said earlier, to the end of our ever expanding gas bubble of a universe, when the distances between galaxies have become so great that you can’t reach your neighbor without breaking the known laws of physics, and we’re now faced with not only the possibility of extinction, but with a complete lack of existence.  Shrinking the universe would take to much, and there is no other star that can warm us enough to not freeze into solid chunks of pretty symmetrical ice crystals.

What then?  Perhaps defy time, that forever-marching bastard, and step out of its confines?  We have now become something more.  We are, or have become, for lack of a better word, “God.”  Now, the survival of the puny human race is essential to “God’s” own survival, and what you and I had for breakfast is of great interest to that omnipotent power beyond our current concept of time and space.

But you belong to a religion, and my point of view is disconcerting to you, or even downright manic?  Perk up, for I do believe there is a place for whatever religion you may follow.  “Hell,” or some other place of punishment, is needed for a society to advance.  Where would we be if the rules set down by Moses or Hammurabi still applied?  We’d be stuck at “you kill my dog, I’ll kill yours,” and thus not much better off than most of the countries of the Middle East.  It’s easier to let go of the fact your next-door neighbor cuts up and eats your kid when hell looms behind them like a mountain.

Well you don’t like conventional mainstream religions, and you don’t like what I’ve just put forth, so what’s a person to believe in?  Good question, for we all need something to grasp to make the thought of death bearable.

How about Theosophy?  This is the principle that upon man’s death, one moves through several stages before ultimately merging with God.  So what’s the first stage?  The victim, being unable to cope with his or her own demise, clings desperately to a wispy version of life, thus suffering.  This is Theosophies version of hell, and luckily, only lasts about as long as the average living human’s lifespan, changing when the soul reaches “enlightenment.”  Although I must point out that it’s written that, should you be sufficiently spiritual upon death, you can “will” yourself past this first step.  A couple of phases further in your new afterlife, you will be able to create any reality you wish with only a thought.  This, I would think, could have its perks.

You could go the route of “Satanist.”  No, not the Satanist on television or in movies, who sits around reading the bible backwards.  This would be too much trouble.  Instead, this is the belief that Jehovah, or Adonai, or whatever other name the popular conception of God goes by, is actually the force of evil upon our world.  He has pulled a veil over the eyes of all, and now causes strife and pain through his worship.  Makes sense, since Satan is the god of lies.  Why is everyone so quick to believe that God spoke to him or her through his or her dog or television set?  I’d seriously query such a contact.  In this line of thinking, Lucifer is God.

How about the belief that we’re all just one shard of God’s own fractured personality, and in the end we join with the whole once more?  For those of you who hate being wrong, this could be your cup of tea.

No?  Then maybe the belief that there is only “here,” and “heaven.”  In this version, we’re all fallen angels, i.e. demons, stuck in human form.  We are “born” without this knowledge, to make our separation from God that much more bearable.  This could go far in explaining the world around us.

You could go ancient world, and just think of death as that shadowy after-realm, where you flit about pretending to be alive, and everything, I assume, is in black and white.  This may get boring pretty quick, though.

How about a big stride back on the ol' evolutionary chart of religion, and go for animism or fetishism?  You’d certainly have more respect for the physical world around you.
Or, finally, how about just this one simple tenet:  Follow your heart, and not the directive of some freak that speaks in tongues, suffers ecstatic attacks, and rolls upon the floor of a church when hearing a sermon.  Good luck, and may your God be with you in your search.
by
 T.C. Gilchrist
who welcomes your comments (click his name to e-mail him personally).

The song playing is "God" by John Lennon and was found at the music section of Imagine's Page.
The background image was fgound at Bells 'n' Whistles.