Author: R J Adams

It’s perplexed man almost since the dawn of Homo sapiens. The vexed question: is there a God, has, despite those who choose to believe by virtue of blind faith, always evaded a definitive answer.

Throughout our evolution as a species, the sheer inability to answer that question with any degree of certainty has led to bloody wars, persecutions, ethnic cleansings, and virtually every method capable of being devised to torture, maim, and eventually kill our fellow humans for daring to believe in a slightly different God from our own.

A host of religious networks have expanded around the globe, each choosing to believe it is the only one to have a hot-line to the Creator. That so many have been proved wrong over the years only serves to reinforce the beliefs of all the others, that theirs alone is the correct one.

Expressed diagrammatically, the relationship between man and his God can be viewed as an inverted tree. At the top (conveniently, in the ‘heavens’) are the tree’s roots, wherein dwells the Deity. Extending downward towards the ground is the trunk, up and down which the prayers of the supplicants and Holy Orders of the Deity pass, followed by the main branches, representing the various prophets and messiahs who communicate directly with the Divine One. They pass on messages and Holy Orders to the smaller branches and twigs that make up the multitude of mullahs, popes, archbishops, and various lesser clerics, responsible for translating these holy directives so that we simple folk below, waiting for such sacred bulletins to drop into our ears, can comprehend them.

Man’s God, whatever religious form ‘He’ may take, has always needed one vital attribute in order to satisfy His subjects. Man demands that his God is both aware of him, and cares about him. So vital are these two factors that the idea of a God existing, yet totally unaware of His creation and consequently not caring about it one iota, is seldom considered.

The word, ‘God’, even in early pagan history, has long been synonymous with a reciprocal relationship:

God –> man/man –> God.

However, science has now defined the Universe as a vast entity in which our planet is even less significant than one grain of sand in the Sahara Desert, so is it not likely that any Creator of the Universe would be about as aware of our existence as an elephant is cognizant of the protozoa hitching a living on its leathery hide?

The more relevant question, and one we should have been asking all along, is not, “Is there a God”, but, “Does mankind have a personal God all of its own?”

Or, maybe, the tree-trunk never existed at all. In which case, all the branches and twigs would continuously atrophy and eventually die, however hard we strived to keep them alive.

Perhaps the very history of religion goes some way towards advancing that theory?

A glance back through the time tunnel reveals lost, broken, obsolete deities littering the pathway; various ‘Gods’ found wanting, used and discarded in favor of other divine inventions that in turn wither away and die: Zeus, Apollo, Ra, Thoth, Brahma, Bacchus, Freya, Helios, Hermes, Isis, Krishna, Loki, Mithras, Ninto, Neptune, Nut, Odin, Pan, Quetzalcoatl, Sheva, Thor, Venus, Vishnu – to name just twenty-three of literally hundreds.^[1]

Modern day religious leaders – of Islam, Judaism, or Christianity – struggle to keep their twigs and branches alive by the use of various marketing techniques. When these fail, they resort to fear-inducing practices in a valiant effort to prevent their religious structures from collapsing. Hellfire and damnation, excommunication, the idea of ‘mortal sin’, and in extreme cases mutilation and execution, are all fear-inducing practices employed by the religions of modern Homo sapiens.

Earthquakes, wars, disease, famine, a remarkably deaf ear to supplication, are all reasons to suspect our personal God is no more than an invention of ego to counteract our human insecurities. We are the only creature on the planet with an ability to comprehend our own mortality, and anticipate future suffering. That makes us the only creature on the planet with a yearning for Divine parental comfort, even if we have to invent it.

Is there a God?

Unless there’s a tree-trunk, the question is surely irrelevant.

^{[1] “Mythology – Gods and Goddesses” About.com}

Filed under: Great inventions

They’re old men now, but some of the songs that helped make the rock band, Pink Floyd, famous were all about the Establishment Machine that churns out human beings like clones to do its bidding, whether slaving in its factories or dying in its wars.

Today, thirty years on from Pink Floyd’s heyday, the Establishment Machine continues to flourish, churning out half-educated, unskilled, fodder to shape into its soldiers and workers. Just occasionally, one manages to wriggle out the Machine by using his brain and rejecting the doctrines forced upon him.

It’s likely not to make a splash on the NBC or ABC News in America; after all, Guantanamo Bay Detention Center was lauded during the Bush era as some sort of ‘holiday camp’ for America’s infamous ‘enemy combatants’.

Over the years, some of the torture and brutality imposed on Guantanamo inmates has come to light. The glorious, freedom/democracy-spreading, United States of America has been revealed as the cold-blooded, uncaring, thug of a nation it truly is.

As is so often the case, when those in authority fail in their duties and obligations, it falls to the ordinary folk of this world to make amends, where possible, whether by publicizing wrongs done, assisting to put matters right, or, like Brandon Neely – ex US military, and once a guard at Guantanamo Bay – seeking out those he wronged and offering a heartfelt apology.

Neely’s story, and those of Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, who were picked up by the US military in Afghanistan and taken to Guantanamo, is told adequately by the BBC and can be found at the link near the bottom of the page. There is little point repeating it here, but in America it only takes one man doing the right thing to bring the assholes out the closet in their droves, screaming ‘coward’, ‘moron’, and other epithets denouncing those who bother to think for themselves, and supporting the brainwashed lackeys of an Establishment happy to utilize them as cannon fodder.

Well done, Brandon Neely – one of few who manage to escape from the Machine.^[1]

^{[1] “Guantanamo guard reunited with ex-inmates” BBC January 12th 2010}

Filed under: Reconciliation

“Baby, it’s cold outside,” crooned Dean Martin, in a desperate attempt to persuade his girlfriend to stay the night. Whether he succeeded is hardly clear from the song (though, it’s certainly implied).

It’s incredibly cold in Illinois right now. Temperatures have plummeted to below zero degrees Fahrenheit and snow is moving relentlessly in this direction.

Europe is faring as badly. The UK has had over twelve inches of snow, and disruption reigns throughout the continent. China and Japan are suffering the worst snowfalls in living memory.

All of which is a real joy to many people. Not because they have fun sledding, or building snowmen, or even indulging in the occasional snowball fight. Read the comments of newspapers, headlining the appalling weather, and the reason becomes clear.

They’re full of such sage remarks as: “What about global warming, then?” and, “Ho, ho, ho, so much for the climate change scientists and their crazy ideas.”

Judging from these missives, half the world’s population is content to accept a bit of cold weather as meaning the most knowledgeable and experienced of climate scientists have been talking through their titfers for the last twenty years. The blinkered stupidity displayed by so many of the human race never fails to amaze me. When they prefer something didn’t happen, they’ll seize on any bit of worthless information to prove it isn’t going to.

The initially imperceptible warming of the atmosphere, due to pollutants like carbon dioxide, does not mean we should all be basking under summer sunshine in the middle of winter. After all, a rise of six degrees in the temperature of the planet would almost certainly destroy most of life on Earth, but a local rise of six degrees on a hot summer’s day only means spending a little more time at the beach, for most vacationers at their favorite resort.

‘Global warming’ is an unfortunate phrase, leapt on by the great unwashed and ignorant as a convenient yardstick with which to batter climate change science into the ground. If it’s cold outside, how can there be global warming? If it’s hot out there, it’s just a summer’s day.

Climate change means exactly that: a slow and gradual change in the patterns of weather, to more violent and apparently freakish occurrences.

And, Baby, isn’t that exactly what’s happening across the Northern hemisphere right now?

Filed under: Not suffering fools gladly