Taking the Gloves Off

The might of the Christian Right is unquestionable, showing up in the controversies surrounding abortion (where the Christian Right’s analysis fails logically, morally and biologically), so-called “conscience clauses” (where pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions they feel contradicts god’s law), the teaching of ‘intelligent design” (which says, in essence, that if it’s too complex to understand, that proves the existence of god – perhaps the most thoroughly unscientific statement possible) and the separation of church and state (made more problematic by a handful of recent US Supreme Court decisions).

Their arguments are posed, more and more explicitly, so that dissent is equivalent to denying their god’s existence, which is why the ascent of the Christian Right causes so much discomfiture on the part of the moderate conservatives. And in today’s United States, dominated so completely by conservative thought, the Christian Right has enjoyed huge successes.

It’s time to take the gloves off and confront this danger to democracy head on. There is no god. Belief in a supernatural being is not only unwarranted, it’s corrosive to our way of government. Such beliefs are based on myths and the writings of men bent on the acquisition of power and the suppression of dissent.

Christianity, which enjoys a 2000-year history, is nonetheless based on preposterous beliefs – like someone could walk on water, make the blind see and raise the dead. Islam is based on even more absurd assertions, and Mormonism is based on what has been proven to be an intentional hoax. And so it goes with the newer, lesser religions: B’hai, the Unification Church, the “New Age” cults, and the thousands of small groups such as the Twelve Tribes who just do what they want in the name of their belief, which trumps all objections except those written into the criminal code, and sometimes even those.

Belief in a Supreme Being is the most consistently malignant aspect of human culture, resulting in millions of deaths and the continued oppression of further millions, over generation after generation. It provides the justification to slaughter anyone, under conditions invented up by adherents.

Often this kind of argument is countered by the assertion that “religion” has also inspired enormous good. I have no disagreement with this. Christianity has provided some of the most eloquent minds in history to describe the good. Islam has a well-deserved reputation for scholarship, philosophy and tolerance. Both religions are responsible for preserving knowledge (in spite of the fact that, in the example of many of the Irish monks responsible for transcribing books could not read). I would respond by saying, belief in a Supreme Being is unnecessary for these accomplishments. And religious adherents have destroyed as much as they preserved.

But belief in a Supreme Being has, as I mentioned, provided justification for acts which are so barbarous, so horrific, so exceedingly cruel, that they’re difficult to comprehend. This is enough reason alone to confront this horror in our own time. Dressing it up in good deeds can’t conceal the thing that creates monsters of men.