The Antichristian Phenomenon

Another attention grabbing cheesy title.

Yeah, well. I was reading this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/atheists-launch-campaign-to-get-unbelievers-to-come-out/2011/11/22/gIQApf8glN_story.html, and I have to say the whole idea seems alien to me.  I find it mind-boggling that there are places in the so called western world where being an atheist is something you may feel obliged to hide.

I live in a rather religious country – yet it never crossed my mind that it may not be ok to speak out as a non-believer. In fact, other than a few surprised reactions from when I was in school and the whole thing probably seemed weird to other 14-15 year olds,  saying I am an atheist has often prompted a, rather silly and quite paradoxical, it’s true, sense to others that I must be really knowledgeable or something – certainly never any sort of hostility.

I can understand why it may not be in a politician’s best interest to “come out” as an atheist – or why someone may not feel like discussing it with religious family members, even keeping it a secret in the hillbilly fortresses of the deep south. But that there should need to be a nation-wide effort in the USA, or elsewhere, for people to dare and declare their lack of belief, or that there is an actual chance for the average atheist to have some kind of social problem because of it, is beyond me – is it really so bad in the US or is the whole thing a bit of an overreaction?

One of my favourite lunacies of christian beliefs is the saints and the various stories surrounding them. You’d expect that saints were highly righteous holy men / women whose kind nature, acts of charity and wisdom granted them this status. That they are the role models of a good christian. And if you ask, that’s what you’ll probably hear.

In reality, there are lots of reasons to laugh at the ridiculous stories concerning saints. Christians themselves would probably find the stories ridiculous if they weren’t part of their church tradition. What can you say about Saint Spyridon, much revered figure here in Greece, who, according to tradition, expelled the Plague from the island of Corfu, where his relics are kept? Ok, I suppose that if you believe in an almight meddling creator, him having some helping sorcerers who perform miracles isn’t a huge leap of faith. What if I told you that the plague, after being expelled from the island, angrily scratched a stone at the city citadel? Yes. That’s right. The Plague was a person. And the ghost of St Spyridon kicked her ass. He also scared the Turks away, and when his native Cyprus was in peril, he left Corfu to go help. These folk tales may not be particularly unusual, but people actually believe them.  They are the same kind of people who don’t believe scientific discoveries because the evidence doesn’t convince them.

St Augustine conveniently became a christian when christians made his former religion, manichaism, illegal under penalty of death (what does that remind me of). Saint Constantine was made a christian, or so they said, on his deathbed for political reasons. St Catherine of Alexandria is the entirely fictional counterpart of Hypatia (of, guess what, Alexandria), who was murdered by christians. They invented her so poorly that her manner of death (the breaking wheel) was invented centuries after her “martyrdom”.

Other saints were simply lunatics. St Catherine of Siena claimed to be wearing the Holy Prepuce (yes, Jesus’ foreskin) as a ring. His foreskin. Ew? How anyone can consider such a wacko a saint is beyond me. Fun idea: try telling a christian friend you’re wearing someone’s foreskin as a ring and observe their reaction. Then again, a basic part of christian belief was that the virgin Mary flew to the heavens after (or right before, I’m not sure) her death. Flew. Physically, not spiritually. To go where I’m not sure. Space maybe.

I’ve seen monks claim they talk to skulls – to skulls that produce a nice scent too, actually. I’ve seen articles about saintly monks who battled demon-posessed, saolin trained youngsters. That last one refers to a modern era guy (the infamous elder Paisios), whom many thousands of people consider a (very) holy man. If you read a few stories about him, you’ll see he was rather a holier-than-thou creepy bastard.

Now, I know, you don’t really need these stories to conclude christianity is non-sensical. But christians, who so hated idols, ask for miracles from magic drawings and wondrous corpses. They believe in flying people and personified plagues. It just seems too much. If you present them with those things, some of them will see it: “Yes, ok, some of these guys don’t really seem very good people; but hey, we all know the Church is corrupted; I believe in God, but not everything the Church tells me – it’s not like I can’t think for myself”. The problem is that some of these lunatics are even older than the official dogma so it’s not the modern, “corrupt” church that you can’t trust, but even the early one. Every christian’s beliefs rely on some form of dogma so they do, by definition, accept a big part of what the church tells them. It all as usual comes down, once again, to cherrypicking the parts you like.

Personally, I like to cherrypick-believe that Catherine of Siena was the victim of a clever  prank.

PS: I feel like apologising that my articles, seem, in my mind, to trail off towards random directions. I should probably write on a particular theme rather than say, “oh that’s a nice title; let me rumble endlessly”.

I wrote this short story in greek, but I found it appropriate to translate it for you here – I hope you enjoy it.

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-Quick, get in the stable!

-Actually, I think it’s just a really dirty homestead

-Melchior, you asshole, give me a freakin’ break. Here, see? There are goats, oxen, even a glorbillah.

-Will you two shut up? Do you want someone to hear us?

Carefully, the three fugitives entered. The place stank of mud and glorbillah poop. The leader, Gaspar, took a quick look around. The goats were asleep.

-Good. Balthasar, start digging. Go behind the post-hay stacks.

-Me again with the hard work?

-Yeah, you! Weren’t you the one bragging like the drunken jerk you are that we emptied the vaults and Herod would find richer kings in stables?

-How could I know the tavern would be crawling with mutant rats..

-Of c..

-Hello there!

-Who the devil are you? Gaspar roared.

-My name is Joseph, and that’s my daug…my wife, Mary. Our hole is poor, but if you don’t mind the baby’s crying, we’ll be glad to accom…

That was when Joseph noticed the strangers had left some bags on the ground. And despite the glorbillah’s smell, he detected an odour of “myrrh”, the drug of which the monopole was in the hands of HEROD CO., and which was the economic foundation of the entire New Canaan colony.

“You’re those thieves from Babylonia 6! You robbed the good king Herod’s palace!”, he cried in outrage.

-Another word and I’ll have you pushing up googooleds old man! By the way, in our circles, we are known as “the three magi”. You see, we make fortunes vanish.

-I’ve already hit the button for the roof star-siren! The police will be here soon! You’d better surrender, you leec…

Melchior had already planted a bullet in the holelord’s left head. Behind some soy-apple boxes, a girl, holding an already bearded baby, cried: “Fath…Joseph dear, are you ok?”

She kicked him cautiously. He didn’t flinch.

-Well, that serves you right, scumbag. So, dudes, let’s make a deal. You’ll give me a taste of this “myrrh” whenever I want to get high, and I’ll see that you get on a private starship to whatever destination you fancy.

The police sirens were already close.

-As you wish, babe. But the baby will stall us.

-Oh, him? Azor hasn’t eaten in a couple of days.

When the captain of the guard and his men stormed the homestead, all they found was some sleeping goats, two oxen and a very happy glorbillah.

кухненски масиWhy do people still believe in god? I’m not looking for the philosophical answer so let me phrase that better. How has the christian god survived for so long? Surely, as a core concept it’s not a more believable deity than all the ancient ones, and is much less likeable. What differentiates this god and makes him/it so enduring to all kinds of evidence against its existence, or better yet, what makes people defying common sense?

The force of habit, you may think. Along with lack of the necessary education that will remove the persisting notion. Or maybe it’s the very reason why people believe in gods in the first place – hope. Ok, second place – first would be explaining things. All of the above is correct. But even so, there are still vast numbers of people who believe – even indifferently so. Even though many of them do possess sufficient education. And hope is a mighty reason, but surely all these people can’t just believe any nonsense just because it would be nice if it were true.

Which forces us to consider another option. Is the christian god really so unlikely to exist?

Yes. Actually, he is. But the ancient jews who invented him, had one trully incredible idea – perhaps without realising it. They made their god invisible.  God is invisible. Despite his occasional portrayal as a thin Santa with a triangle-hat. Why is invisibility important? God can take any form. God is everywhere. You can’t climb Mt. Olympus and say, ok, there’s no one here. But god isn’t just unseen, he’s is also…trinity-istic(?). What does that even mean? It doesn’t actually mean anything. But it is wonderfully, ingeniously vague.

Vagueness is a very powerful weapon. The christian god doesn’t need to throw  down lightning bolts to kill you. He can just take credit for your random death (or healing). He doesn’t need to appear. He is everywhere! He’s not anthropomorphic. You don’t need to physically experience his presence. He is “transcendental”. He is a shapeshifter. Christians can believe in god because he’s so quick to adapt to any new situation. The earth isn’t flat? The universe is vast? We’re made of quarks? Blah blah, God still can take credit for all that. And should you recall that the Bible tells a pretty much standard mythological creation story, the christians have the answer to that too. It’s weapon number 3: “symbolic”. Or even better, “it’s saying exactly the same thing as what science has discovered, if you interpret it like that”. The constant adaptation leaves god leaking philosophical inconsistency from every pore, but in philosophy  christians have always managed to do fairly well at excusing their contradictions. God isn’t believable – but he is just adaptive enough for most people to not rule him out completely – and that is exactly where the force of habit and the power of hope come to fit in. The “Symbolic” idea allows him to overcome the major obstacle of “what you said is untrue”, “transcendence” allows you to think that if he’s in your head, it’s actually reasonable, and being vague allows his more clever believers to devise convincing-sounding arguments to link him to reality.

It’s funny, really. The ancient jewish god was quite similar to his contemporaries. He made his appearences (though not physically), he sent down natural disasters, he was often sinister and very, very anthropomorphic in his reactions. But he was invisible. And then he became trinity and grew in all his vagueness. Nowadays the reason he can’t be disproven is that he cannot be properly defined. Ironically, god has evolved, camouflaging from his enemies, as effectively as any living creature could have.