Religious Rites and Rituals

 I don't celebrate holidays, nor do I take part in the them. This has been a source of consternation to some people around me for most of my life. They just don't understand and they wonder what is wrong with me. Even among skeptics and atheists, people still celebrate holidays, renaming them or attempting to assimilate them or even just simply trying to ignore the religious aspect of them. Excuses, excuses.

I have a profound respect for the power of symbols (which is not the same thing as a respect for specific symbols). My experience is that they turn on you. I wore a pigasus for a while until I discovered the organization it represented didn't have the courage of its convictions.

Following is a retelling of the moment I went from atheist to anti-theist, on a very personal level. Perhaps it will help shed some light on my views on holidays for anyone who might be interested. I wrote this for a board I participate in. I have toned down my description of the priest in the story for delicate ears (yes, this is toned-down).

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Actually, the last time I was in a church (Church of England) for a wedding really opened my eyes. Up to that point, I had pretty much gotten the academic side of things down, was a public atheist, etc., but I didn't have that sense of understanding, on a very personal level, about how virulent religion really is. I was an "each his or her own way" kinda person. I kept things, more or less, to myself.

The priest used their wedding as an excuse to put forward a "there is an atheist in the crowd" rant, and I saw red - not so much because I perceived myself as the target of the attack, but because this twisted little parasitic homunculus had the temerity to assume the right to abuse the wedding of some of my loved ones to attack one or more persons in the crowd. I realized at that moment that this [person] was in the business of annexing our humanity and wielding it against us. What was supposed to be a celebration of two people's love became a mere opportunity to push an agenda for this piece of parasitic detritus. There are very few times in my life I can claim to have seen red. That was one of them. That moment was when I went from atheist to anti-theist. I decided I would never permit one of these monsters to have any claim on me.

I didn't say anything then. I was desperately trying to think of my uncle and his new bride, seething at the realization that the priest was using that I was doing so for his twisted little purposes.

I dropped all religious celebrations that day. I'm not saying anything to anyone else about what they should or should not do. Your life; your business; your call, but I will not allow religion any claim on my humanity, not in any way, shape or form, ever again. I will not hold my tongue ever again. It is probably better for anyone else that I never enter a church again.

If that makes me a "dick," then so be it. I will still not tell you what you should do. Extend the same courtesy to me, please. If you can't, brace for impact...

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This turned religious dogma from an academic exercise into a vivid personal prescriptive force, virulently wielded. It exposed the vicious nature of the deeply abusive relationship between belief and believer and the parasites that (I can't say "who") use it to steal free room and board and spread hate and malice.

Some have tried to find ways to work around the religious content of holidays on my behalf, and I thank them for their efforts, but I just can't stomach the poison...

A Buffet of Ideas

 Most modern christians feel they can dismiss the Old Testament out of hand and the New Testament is supposed to represent some kind of new deal with god. But none of that jazz alters the fact that the primary function of the monotheisitc religions is to provide a basis for absolute objective morality. Once they compromise the integrity of the absolute, it is not an absolute anymore. When they dismiss this moral truth or that moral truth in favour of this new moral truth or that new moral truth (which contradicts the old ones, of course) they are engaging in dishonest moral relativism games, which undercuts their entire mentality. The instant one of them starts yapping about "social context" or the "context of the times" they make themselves into extreme fools because at that point their supposed trump question, "Where do you get your morals from?" can be wielded against them with, actually, more force than it was ever wielded against real relativists, since most real relativists don't make claims to absolute moral truths.

Even that aside, however, some stories are fundaments of the mentality involved with religious dogma. Let's take the story of Abraham and Isaac. The particulars of the story are really irrelevant; what matters is the subjugation of humanity in favour of a philosophy (sacrificing our humanity for God). If they wish to write off the Old Testament, then that story gets written off as well, but they cannot afford that. They must keep that story or else humanity takes precedence again. So they waffle - "Oh, the sacrifice never really took place, so...." Yes, it did actually, the moment Abraham decided to conduct the sacrifice. The intent to subjugate his humanity for God was the real crime of that story, not whether Isaac was actually killed or not. The story of Abraham is about setting priorities. God above humanity, even one's own children. If they toss that story out, their God gets superceded. Can't have that, now can they?

And that, boys and girls, is the true "evil" of christianity, indeed all three of the monotheistic horrors (and possibly of all religions) - they all prescribe surrendering our humanity to a mere philosophy (it can be a "who," a "way'" or an "understanding"). It is the most fundamental betrayal imaginable, sacrificing your own children - physically, intellectually or emotionally. And if the word "evil" means anything in the real world, there is no conceivable anything more evil than this, which is at the heart of all prescriptivity. That is the crime from which all other religious violence and crime arises - the understanding that we serve as cogs in a dogmatic meat grinder. That is the true root of all evil.

Even so...

The superficial content of the religious works are only part of the story. The dynamics (underlying assumptions and prescriptive force) of religious philosophy itself inherently lead to violence.


Let me give a related analogy. Western societies are built on the idea of change, not only scientific, but social, moral, attitudinal and otherwise. The structure of the society is such that it incorporates change in its everyday function. Courts take input from juries, political policies are determined by voters, etc. The result, just as one would expect, is change.

Theocracy-based societies are built on the denial of change, at their fundaments. Believing they already know the Truth(TM)*, change can only be evil. Perfectly reasonable, if one thinks one knows the Truth(TM), and in a static environment. The result, just as one would expect, is stagnation.

These are not so much expressly stated as implied in the policies, such as means of arbitration and, for example, the legality of blasphemy.


As long as we only talk about the obvious negative (or positive) events in the religious texts, we are only observing the symptoms. The sickness runs much deeper and is systemic on a philosophical level. The primacy of God over humanity is at the core of the monotheistic understanding. That is the meaning of the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. In such a view all human concerns, including such trivial things as considerations of suffering or life-span (and the role of the caregiver of children) are necessarily downplayed or redefined such that humanity is expendable in the name of the idea. That is, necessarily, a violent understanding since any and all means are rendered acceptable to the maintenance of the faith. Now, if the faith is evangelical in nature, and God has primacy over humanity, then any and all means are acceptable to the spreading of the faith. The inevitable result is violence.

What most people fail to recognize, is that the horrors or the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament (and the other "revisions" for the other two monotheism) are supposed to be "Good" things on an underlying level, as they are expressions of something beyond their mere trivial example. That is what it is for a story to have a meaning. Well, just as coughing, phlegm and back pain can be symptoms of the lungs filling up with fluid, so too a willingness to adopt just about any means and methods of maintaining and spreading the faith are symptoms of something as well - namely of a philosophy that dehumanizes and trivializes us and turns us into expendable cogs in a dogmatic machine.

Ever read any Rapture Ready stuff? For them, the wholesale slaughter of all humanity is a "Good Thing(TM)." (They, of course, would not use that wording.) These are sick, sick people, but their sickness is not something merely alien and strange - it is a natural result of a deeply held conviction that our lives are trivial, indeed meaningless, in the face of some greater ideal. It is a prescribed sickness, actively promoted by the dogma. The Rapture Ready people are just a few openly expressing the sickness.


* (TM) = Trade Mark - a way of painting how ridiculous the idea of absolute morals is.