"God"; A Worse-Than-Nothing Burger

Could you "prove beyond doubt" that the Earth is not flat?

That depends on who you are explaining it to.

You could not prove it to anyone who is deeply committed to the idea that the Earth is flat.

When they say "prove it to me; beyond a shadow of a doubt", they mean "I bet you can't make me see it". 

And they're quite right about that.
We can't.
 
Similarly,
a God-perceiver might say "I bet you can't make me perceive there isn't any deity".

They too are correct.
We can't get them to realize there aren't any gods.

And yet, what about someone whom does not perceive any gods?
Might they say "I bet you can't make me perceive there ARE any deities"?

They might.
Some do. 
And most people would say that sounds equally dogmatic.
But is it?

Flat Earthers are cemented into their fanatically wrong view. 
But at least their rhetoric is inconsequential for humanity.
They also provide a valuable insight into the mentality of conspiracy theorists.

What about Christians (and other "personal God" type theists) who have "hardened their heart" against humanity, and against sound reasoning, and against personal accountability?

Can we get through to someone who doesn't want want to be reached?
No.

But are their views harmful to themselves?
Yes.

Are their views also harmful to all other humans?
Yes. 

Thinking any "personal g/God" exists is a view that carries big risks and heavy consequences. 
We'll go into that, in a moment.

In contrast, confidently concluding that no such entities exist 
is just a matter of having respectfully high ethical and rational standards.

 After all,
even if some creator-being(s) exist,
and even if they created our world,...

That wouldn't make them worthy of the title "g/God".

 Without the mindset of either scared and lost child
or a #SpankMeHarder Masochist,   
Creator-beings, as a concept, would just be powerful, pre-ancient aliens.

If power turns you on, it might hold great appeal to you.
But I find it troubling. 

Such aliens, if they exist, were so preoccupied with whether or not they CAN create our Jurassic Park of horrors, that they didn't stop to ask themselves if they should.


Given the amount of suffering countless humans (and other animals) have suffered, 
only a childishly selfish (and borderline sociopathic) person would be looking for someone to thank.

  Such entities would obviously not be trustworthy.

Old-school-standard Abrahamic religions are rationally and morally indefensible. 

Besides their extremes of selfishness,
their transparently fake compassion for others,
their narcissistic entitlements, 
their institutionalized gaslighting, 
and wanting to see the world burn,
...

Those religious narratives also leverage authorship over every surrendering-person's sense of identity and worth;
[ie:
 worthiness to be loved,
worthiness to be fully respected, 
worthiness to keep existing.
worthiness to keep existing without being trapped into inescapable suffering,
etc.]

The Christian offer of "grace", for example, literally means "undeserved kindness".

It posits that we are NOT worthy of ANY of those things.

And then it offers to help us earn forgiveness(!) for being so far beneath contempt.

How can we earn it?
By proving ourselves worthy of their "God".

How can we prove that?
By proving ourselves worthy of the people who claims to speak for "God".

And how can we do that?
By surrendering ourselves to their authority, 
and then doing all the work and sacrifice it takes to fully integrate with the story that justifies their viral narcissism. 

These are gross form of phycological violence.

We should not allow an exemption for anyone;
not even if they try to hide behind "but my God told me to say this about you" and "my "God" told me to relate to you in this way.". 

Abuse is abuse.

--
To quote the world-renowned Dr Robert Sapolsky,

"“I’m not saying ‘you gotta be crazy to be religious.’
That would be nonsense.
 Nor am I saying, even, that most people who are, are psychiatrically suspect.”

What he is saying, he continues, is that
 “the same exact traits which in a secular context are life-destroying” and “separate you from the community” are, “at the core of what is protected, what is sanctioned, what is rewarded, what is valued in religious settings.”
---
 What Sapolsky didn't take the professional risk of saying further is this:

Those traits don't really become healthy traits in religious social systems.

 They destroy there too.

Human psychology, sociology, neurophysiology, etc. do not transform into something that operates on different principals
just by saying magic religious incantations or walking into a church. 
 
Whatever hurts us outside of those religious bubbles
hurts us inside of those bubbles too.

For proof of that, join any ex-Christian or Ex-Muslim survivor's group
and then read about all the damages done. 

And then stop pretending that some Abrahamic churches are innocent. 

Let's be courageous and ethical enough to look and realize what's really happening there.

Notice how abusive it is.

Super-Dad In Sky 
is so GREAT that he will love us DESPITE us being unworthy ... IF (only if) we surrender to the "moral authority" of whichever random fallible asshole has delivered their own personal "one true version" of that mafia-type protection racket. 
--

 Once we seat our ego into a narrative
as what defines:
a.) WHO we are 
and
b.) what gives us worth, 

we become hostage to it.

 We will not be free to discover
whatever might expose the lie. 
--
--

"GOD" is a word of power
given to a partitioned relationship
people have with their self. 

If any Super-Beings in the Sky exist,
this would still be how it works.

If other people tell us who "God" is,
and what "God" wants,
then their voice get blended in as part of that voice. 

It's a Trojan Horse.

They are smuggling their own voice 
into our head;
hidden inside of a human-made idol. 

They are calling that horse "God". 

In this way, unworthy people sneak in and take up residence
within the violated sanctity of our mind. 

From there, they would impose their will over ours;
seeding parts of themselves deeply, invasively into who we are. 

Let's not sugar coat this.

What they do does NOT abide by true consent.

They are taking unethical liberties, in their attempt to sneak-past and violate respectful boundaries.

They do not respect your autonomy.

They are trying to take your autonomy away from you.

Psychological violence is violence.

It's a deeply personal violation; even if someone feels like they deserve nothing better.

It's not a coincidence that they focus most of their efforts on the especially vulnerable. 

--
--
If an all-powerful being wants you or I to know a thing, we would know the thing.
They wouldn't be sneaky or invasive about it.
They would simply tell us,
by any respectful means which cannot be misunderstood.

It would be inefficient, risky, and irresponsible to use unqualified human messengers.

No humans are qualified to relay a perfect message. 

They would always screw it up.
And then they'd blame YOU for being unimpressed.

--

What a "God" could tell someone else directly,
they could also tell you directly.

No human is more worthy than you are
to hear from a "God" directly.
--
You should feel offended by all middle-men messengers, if you take the matter seriously.

You should otherwise be amused, if you do not take it seriously.

What would it hurt, to have at least that much self-respect? 
--

Meanwhile, ...

In life, we must chose which commitments take priority over others. 

If we have a strong sense of investment into any narrative as being "true", 
then this forces us to organize that investment. 

We can prioritize the pursuit of truth; no matter where the evidence leads us.
OR
we can prioritize our devotion to (whichever) narratives. 

One of these must take precedence over the other.

This reveals a crucially fundamental problem inherent to the idea of a personal deity.

Personal deities aren't like deistic notions of "god".

Personal deities,
as concepts
and as psychological phenomenon
(no matter if the perceived-entities really exist or not)
directly cause a conflict with ethics.

How so?

They are defined by a narrative.
But it's more than just that.
That narrative, in turn, defines us. 

Here's how it always goes:

Some predatory humans create fantasy stories for the purpose of controlling gullible others.
"Spooky beings will hurt you if you don't surrender to their will ... by surrendering to ours."

To ensure those stories are believed, they make those stories aren't too alien to their target audience. 

To ensure those stories are familiar, they borrow and adapt popular story elements from popular religions. 

Those new stories are then seeded into vulnerable populations.

They take root in the minds of a few.

From there, adapt further and then spread to others. 

For those who get infected with those complex viral memes,
they are so awe-stuck about the Super-Entity of those stories
(more accurately: their conceptualization OF that entity, and how that concept makes them feel)
that they ascribe the highest known worshipful-Title.

They call it "God". 

It really just means "I feel so small and fragile compared to how I perceive a person
(or personified-concept)
that I feel utterly humbled before them
(either in fear, or in admiration, or both)".

The stories which give definition to "gods" 
take time to evolve.

They require humans to adapt and spread those stories.

Some human hears some such story. 

It captures them.

It changes them.

Either intentionally or unintentionally, they change the story a bit; making it more fully compatible with their own psychology.

And because their psychology is largely a factor of culture, their efforts to 'update' it helps keep it relevant to their culture. 

That, in turn, helps the complex viral concept spread and endure. 

In the case of barbaric, authoritarian religions,
their stories include pressure to believe it's all true.

Those pressures include:

* fantasy-bribes (treasures in Heaven, eternal life, etc),

* fantasy-threats [you'll be killed or worse if you don't surrender],

* real-world threats
[you'll be estranged from (or seen as lesser than) your friends and family if you aren't part of their god-group], 

and
* gaslighting
[ie. 
* calling threats a "friendly warning",

 * various direct attempts to undermine the listener's confidence in their own character,

* undermining a listener's confidence in their own ability (and their right) to autonomously reason on the claims being made,

* uttering blatant contradictions, denying it, and then doing it again,

*phrasing gross abuse to sound like kindness]

Spreaders of those "faiths"
require perceivers to:
prioritize devotion to whichever narrative is being presented.

In contrast, a truly and fully ethical super-entity would do whatever they could to actually dissuade a human from committing to such a severe ethical compromise.

They wouldn't have any reason to want humans to take a stand of loyalty to a narrative.

Why not?

[Because:]
Prioritizing the pursuit of truth, no matter where the evidence leads, would inevitably lead people to
whatever truths lay waiting for us on that path. 

There would be no need for first surrendering to a specific idea of "God"
and then setting out to
 confirm that bias.

If we have access to verifying the existence of a specific Hide-And-Seek Super-Entity, ...
we'd have no use for loyalty to a narrative.

 The facts which lay upon the path (waiting to be found) would simply lead any well-equipped (and lucky) seekers to discovering that Super-Entity;
-  without need for any "pro-God" (or pro-dogma-ABOUT-God) bias.

Although, of course,
if a Super-Entity is NOT playing an unethically wasteful game of Hide and Seek with humans, then:

There is no opportunity to seek.

No knocking.

No finding.

We would all just be freely given
all that we need to know
exactly when (or before) we first need to know it.

From there,
we would all freely FEEL about it all ... however we feel about it all.

From there, each person would freely choose their response to
whatever knowledge each person is given.

There would be no unethical forms of manipulation.

This would be very different than the world we live in now.

Here in the real world,
nobody is freely given such information.

Billions wastefully and frantically seek.

The most ego-mature people don't even bother.
But most people aren't so lucky in how they developed.

I was not so lucky.
So I had to fight and struggle for the growth.

It could have came early and naturally
if I'd been born to mature parents.

I wasn't that lucky. 
But I was more lucky than most people;
because I was just barely mature enough
to BEGIN that journey.

I gradually became mature enough to keep going.

As for the least fortunate humans who get more deeply suckered into God-grifts? 

They come to a VAST spectrum of different (incompatible) conclusions.

Their conclusions are caused by
 directly unethical manipulations from other other humans.

Most get suckered into antisocial religions.
They get tricked into thinking that harmful attitudes, ideas, and behaviors are "helpful".
They then bring those problems into other people's lives.

It drives destructive division in our world.

Those divisions greatly amplify the frequency
and the severity of human dysfunctions.

Those worsened dysfunctions fuel worsened tragedies.

Those same religions then exploit those desperate vulnerabilities, to gain more people;
from-whom they gain more power. 
--
--
But the question remains.

What if a super-entity exists,
and is playing a wasteful game of hide-and-seek,
and wants to be found?

In this case,
Super-Entity would make sure to deposit ample evidence to be found.

Why would I say that?

It's simple.
If I want to accomplish something, it's my job to do whatever I can to accomplish it.
 Shirking that responsibility would be a clear expression of failed personally accountability.

Likewise,
if a Super-Powered entity wants to accomplish something, that becomes their job.
 
"With great power comes great responsibility".

The intentional choice to oversee a world
(either passively or actively)
where people are blinded and tricked 
away from some life-saving truth(s)
would make the supervising Super-Entity complicit in those crimes. 

--
Notice how all versions of The God of Abraham author confusion in our world.

They all sow division.

They all steal us away from valuable discoveries of the self. 

The more progressive the version, the less problems it causes.

But in order to be entirely healthy and honest,
even the most progressive versions would first have to clean their house. 

They would need to stop doing all the things that are unjust.

Stop presuming moral authority over others.

Stop telling people who we are.

Stop leveraging dogma over others.

Refrain from coercion.  

Refrain from all false-facts, logical fallacies, and all other forms of unethical manipulation. 
--
--

LOVE is not a mystery.

We don't have to spend our lives looking for a invisible Super-Dad in the sky who can throw us undeserved scraps.

LOVE has no fellowship with dogma.

LOVE is its own reward.

LOVE does not coerce, gaslight, or belittle. 

LOVE does not seek subservience.

LOVE does not set a time limit either. 

We can forgive without payment. 

We can heal without payment.

We can do good for people who don't even know we exist.

We can do good for people who aren't even looking for us.

We all can.
Some of us do.
Anyone worthy of a grand title would. 

--

LOVE is a rose.



As I re-listen to this song I haven't heard in years,
I realize just how every single line in this song 
rightly disavows so many crucial failings of  Abrahamic faiths.

Love has requirements.
I grant this, freely. 
But we've been lied to about what those are.

It requires a special kind of courage.

It requires respect, nurturing, and patience.

It also requires healthy boundaries;
 so that it does not get trampled or uprooted.
 
It must also NOT be locked in a box;
cut off from the air, earth, and water it needs.  


LOVE does not demand imbalance. 
It requires balance.
 

We either give that rose what it needs to grow healthy and strong
or it will be unable to do so. 

If we deny that rose what it needs,
we will be cutting ourselves off from what we need.

It's not about authority or punishment.

The power of love
is the natural result of courageously free nurturing, discovery, and growth.

It's a healthy symbioses between living entities;
 in a shared system in which they are integral parts of a larger whole. 

--

Bible and Qurans are rapid-fire weapons of manipulation; 
in attempts to capture and subdue.

They gaslight, in their attempt to disguise slavers as liberators. 

They seek disproportionate benefits;
taking more from you than they give. 

It is the very definition of abuse. 
--
--
Full Disclosure:

 I DO want there to be a completely wise, powerful, ethical, loving, accountable, Super-Entities.

Granted, that general idea would have never occured to me if religious people had not proposed that idea.

They got it from others, who got it from other, etc.

Theism is an evolved idea.

It evolved from other older ideas.

But now that we have it, what shall we do with it?

We can freely talk about it.

We can take inspiration from it, the same as we can from Superman comics.

I like the idea of actually-decent, incorruptible Super-People. 

The more of those ... the better.

I want more-than-one such Super-People to exist;
* so that they can provide symbiotically for each other,
* so that they can remain fully healthy,
* so that they can be fully healthy in how they relate to vulnerable humans.

I want them to be watching.

I want them to care.

I want them to help everyone.

I want them to heal everyone.

Why?
Because there are limits on what I can do.


And yet, ... 
wanting or needing a thing
doesn't mean we are sure to get that thing.

Every day,
countless people crucially need something they aren't going to get.

They are screwed without getting the help they need. 

And yet, ...
Believing in a giant possum in the sky
would not protect possums from the wheels of trucks.

We are all animals.
Life is a highway.
Life is also rapids and rocks.
Life is also a storm.

Life takes the form of many dangers;

and just as many wonders.

 If there are any Super-Entities watching all of this happen,
they have rationalized-away their ethical responsibilities to us. 

Functionally, that's the SAME as there not being any Super-Entities watching us.

IF we assume there are any gods, then 
let the gods worry about the gods.

IF they exist,
the gods have decided to let the humans worry about the humans.

We, as a people, are on our own. 

We, as individuals could become so much better at being there for ourselves and each other,
if we stop looking UP. 




Stop spending precious resources on Sky-People
who (if they exist) can provide for themselves.

Time, attention, passion, love, patience, healing, and money.
-All spent
looking for Sky-People,
mentally-finding Sky-People,
and then further sacrificed unto humans who get
paid by us
to lie to us
about Sky-People.

Atheists don't actually care if you think Sky-People are real. 
That's not the problem.

And yes, I realize that a phrase like "Sky People" will sound like something a "cringe-lord" would say as a cheap-shot at theists. 

But phrases like "Sky People" and "Sky Daddy" are EXACTLY the sort of phrasing this demands.

I refuse to accord words of respect 
to organized, self-infantilizing narcissisms. 

I refuse to help dishonest antagonists hide blatant absurdities behind cleverly nebulous marketing.  



---
"I'm tired of saying the word "God".
It's self-defeating and meaningless".
-Greydon Square
---


Notice how most atheists do NOT give push-back against non-authoritarian religions.

It's because non-authoritarian religions aren't doing any pushing to push back against.

Authoritarian "faiths", by definition, seek unchallenged control over others.

They want to sit as high as they can
in a pyramid of power.

Down from there, some benefits do flow.
But in that scheme, the bulk of precious human resources flow up from the bottom. 

Some spirituality-themed cultures are only somewhat problematic. 

But Abrahamic faiths steal from everyone.

And then they squander what they've stolen.
--

Humans need those resources down here.

Spending SOME of it on real people
and SOME of it on Sky-people 
is still wasting a lot. 

Giving it to humans who will make sure Sky People get it?
 That too is wasteful. 

 Scams never work out for the best. 

They also cripple us, in our self-sufficiencies; 
-which further amplifies how much help we need.



____________________________________________

Those same religions turn right around and exploit the desperately vulnerable states they themselves have worsened across the globe. 

--
Don't want to be an atheist?
Fine.
Embrace a Native American Spirituality.
Embrace "energism".
Embrace Wicca, or Deism, or Pantheism, or  agnostic theism. 
Embrace Buddhism.

Or gather-and-assemble your own discoveries over time; independent from other people's spiritual projects. 

Just don't make it a problem for anyone. 
 
Don't cause problems for others;
and then there won't be a problem that anyone needs to stand up to. 

There are many ways to be heroes. 


SHRINKING, so that a "Father" won't feel like his greatness has been challenged?
That's not the way.

Neither should we demand that of others.