Grim Rhapsody

Just a quick thought I had on the machinations of religions that a) follow an ancient holy book and b) claim themselves to be morally righteous. Some questions you should ask yourself, if you follow such a religion:

1. Do you “ignore” parts of your holy book because you find them morally unacceptable? If not, your religion is likely not morally righteous, unless you’re following a new morally perfect holy book I haven’t heard of.
2. If your holy book is truly the word of a morally perfect, omnibenevolent deity, why would he include these morally unacceptable verses?
3. If he DID intentionally have them written in said holy book, is he really worth worshipping, especially if he pretends to be morally perfect when these verses indicate otherwise?
4. If he DIDN’T intentionally have them written in said holy book, why not stop vaguely ignoring these verses and remove them altogether?

The fact is, either these blatantly brutal verses contradict your deity’s self-proclaimed nature, or they are not his word at all and might as well be completely removed. Notice I am not arguing against this deity’s existence; I am simply highlighting an obvious choice that atheists and theists alike should be able to recognise.

Taking the Bible as an example, considering it is the world’s major religion: how many Christians follow the actual written “Word of God”? If you as a Christian believe you do follow it accurately, take this simple test and check off things you actively condone:

• You kill anyone who worships a different god.
• You kill anyone who doesn’t worship a god.
• You kill anyone who doesn’t listen to a priest.
• You kill homosexuals.
• You kill people who commit adultery.
• You kill people for picking up sticks (at the least) on the Sabbath.
• You kill anyone who says “Oh my God!”
• You kill thieves.

How well did you do out of eight? The Bible openly condones each of these punishments, multiple times. If you find any (hopefully all) of the above morally unacceptable, ask yourself why God would command you to do them. Removing for the moment the obvious answer (he doesn’t exist), either God is not morally perfect and has lied to everyone; or these verses are fabrications, and not part of God’s Official Morally Perfect Word — in which case, why not remove them from the Bible?

If you are one of those religious followers who vaguely mutters “not meant to be taken literally” or “that was thousands of years ago”, I urge you to take this into account. Write your own edited Bible, start a new sect of Christianity, abandon the futile religious struggle altogether! The alternative is keeping these horrific Bible verses in shadow, too scared of removing them, and too ashamed to bring them into the light where the Bible, and its God, can be revealed for what they truly are.

After thinking of a suitable topic for GR’s first real article, I decided that there would be no better place to start than myself. Naturally, I don’t intend to bore you with my life story, thought I thought any readers might appreciate a brief history.

My life has been almost agonisingly normal. The oldest in an Australian suburban nuclear family, I was raised as a weak Christian theist: quite easily the most common upbringing. I took a great interest in schoolwork, particularly…well…everything. Throughout my primary and secondary education I continued to place school above the wild social lives of my friends and schoolmates, having an interest in nearly every area of study (the most notable exception is history, which I confess is successful only in sending me to sleep).

As school went on, I realised that I could see further than the people around me; I could comprehend consequences where my stereotypical partying schoolmates couldn’t. I began to delve into topics that the majority of people seemed to find either uninteresting or irrelevant to their own lives: the fast-growing issues of the world around us. How people could have such a shallow and self-absorbed view of life, I failed to understand. Everywhere I looked, I began to see only problems, and the usual ignorance of those problems.

Eventually, I realised that my outlook was becoming rather more bleak than is healthy, and I instead drifted onwards to the next stage: determination to make a difference where others were apathetic. I linked up with my valued like-minded friends and Internet acquaintances, and together we tackled almost every problem there was to tackle, wondering where we could do the most good as our lives ploughed onward.

This blog is for the benefit of readers as much as it is for myself. I welcome any feedback along the way, and hope to deal with as many topics as I can.