From the letters section of the University of New Mexico newspaper, The Daily Lobo [9-21-01], comes the following statements written in light of the national tragedy of Sep. 11, 2001 by a psychology student:
“If one looks throughout history, it is easy to see that the most horrible acts of violence have been enacted in the name of God or some other self righteous foolishness…The problem with religion is that it is not logical. It is mass delusion, as one of my professors defined it. It caters to the way people wish reality was rather than the way it is. I mean, is it really logical to believe that some guy parted the Red Sea 3,000 years ago just because somebody along the line chose to write it down? Another common facet of religion, at least the Semitic religions, is that it reinforces the already prevalent human idea that I am right and everyone else is wrong...So, the next time you feel like blaming one group or another, perhaps you should take a long, hard look at your own belief system and ask yourself how much senseless death has been as a result of your own ‘faith’…if religion does not take a backseat to logic, very soon, I fear it may put an end to us.”
If we define a religion as a human hierarchical power structure then indeed religion can be very dangerous. But a relationship with God need not have anything to do with that. If religion is defined as a set of do’s and don’ts, a regiment of rituals and often, man working his way up to God. And relation is defined as a relationship with God, which may include do’s, don’ts and rituals, but ultimately God does the work in which He provides the way and we follow as close as possible always striving for perfection. Then there is a difference between religion and relation.
The claim is that religion has been the cause of more violence than anything else in history. There’s no doubt at all that there is much truth to this. However, we must recognize that atheistic-evolution and secular politics is just as bad and in fact, worse.
Even if we just consider recent history, the 1900’s, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, etc., etc. All this unprecedented blood shed in the name of politics (and a lot of it due to atheism as Communism). Also, consider that fraudulent science and atheistic-evolution back the number one killer, the killer of the innocent and defenseless, abortion. When, for example, Christians act in a murderous manner they are acting in direct opposition to that which they claim to believe. However, if atheistic-evolutionists act in such a manner they are acting in direct agreement of that which they claim to believe; survival of the fittest, etc. Communism is atheistic. Hitler was highly motivated by evolution’s higher vs. savage races (as well as occultism and Aryan mythology). Atrocities have occurred due to religion, due to politics, due to emotions, due to atheism and various other causes.
Atheistic-evolution is the height of pessimism. It offers nothing to live for but the fleeting moment. It offers no morals but relativism or situational ethics, in other words, there is no real right and wrong and so we make it up as we go along, as it is convenient for us. It explains all life and the whole universe as a meaningless accident. It teaches that humans are nothing but glorified animals. It offers no justice but that which is had by the authority of finite, temporal courts. It offers no meaning for yesterday, no comfort for today and no hope for tomorrow. Then we wonder why people act like animals with no morals, no respect for person and no regard for God.
As a religion, atheism is just as prone to proselytizing as any other. Consider John Lennon’s lyrics to the song Imagine, “Imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky…And no religion too” and here is the punch line, “You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will be as one.” According to this world-view the world will be as one when we all forsake concepts such as heaven, hell, religion, when we give up our beliefs and accept theirs.
The statement “God or some other self righteous foolishness” actually comes close to the truth that we seek to get at by this article. Whether we live our lives as religious people who worship a god, or we live according to our own wills, or we follow the teachings of atheistic-evolution, the end result can be the same, zealousness. Has this psychology student taken a long, hard look at his own belief system and asked himself how much senseless death there has been as a result of his faith? We do not know but would venture a guess that he probably has not, instead he is probably asking us to do that which he himself may be unwilling to do.
The elite enlightened ones, that is, the rogue spiritualists, as well as the hyper educated, both think that they have gained a sort of freedom from what they perceive to be (and what often is) an oppressive religious system. They do this without realizing that they are either caught up in another system of the same kind, such as pseudo-syncretistic religions or creating their own by placing themselves as priests and prophets. They place themselves in the position of ultimate authority and subjectively decide all matters according to their finite understanding. They despise organized religion, but why is disorganized religion any better? Moreover, consider that those who bad mouth organized religion often do so in order to not become part of a group of people to whom they will be accountable. If they become part of the organization then they must answer to the organization and the fact is that many people prefer to live their lives however they want and at the end of the day sit lotus position, meditate, do some yoga and tell themselves “I’m a good person” (however they chose to define good) even if all the evidence points to the contrary (see our essays “A Good Person”, Oh, My Goodness !!!, and “Love” and “Hate”—Defining Terminology).
We all must recognize that we all worship a god. Whether that god is a generic higher power, a well-defined supernatural being, one’s self, or even a god named Random Chance. We must recognize that we all serve our gods, whether we discern our god’s will by written Scripture, by means of the occult, by trusting our intuition, or by following our feeling. We must also realize that no matter what our standards are we will at some point act against them. Then what? People want to believe that being good is good enough but their equation is invalid. They believe that doing good equals blessings and doing bad equals nothing. Or doing good gets you into heaven but doing bad is meaningless as long as the good deeds end of the scale is heavier than the bad deeds. Where is this cosmic scale? Will we only view it after death, when it will be too late? Who could live with such spiritual paranoia?
I recall a conversation in which in one breath a friend told me that he did not have a belief system and that he did not believe that Jesus healed people. I pointed out that he did indeed have a belief system. It may not be well defined but he certainly has one. For example, his belief system includes the belief that Jesus did not heal people. Telling himself that he did not have a belief system afforded him some odd and temporary sort of comfort, the freedom to do as he pleased and not feel bad about it. So he is the dictator of his own morals, his own personal priest, prophet and infallible Pope.
The psychology student has the dictates of psychology as his religion. His gods are Freud and his all-knowing infallible professors. His bible is his textbooks and his faith is blind. Moreover, his religion is so exclusive and he is so zealous, that he hypocritically passes judgment upon all other religions and attacks them as being false as opposed to the truth as revealed by psychology. So the student is following the prevalent human idea that his religion (or set of beliefs) is right and everyone else is wrong. This is pure hypocrisy and may be due to arrogance, for he states that religion should take a back seat to logic.
One time atheist and later Christian scholar C. S. Lewis wrote:“If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.”
[1]
Let’s consider some of Psychology’s logic:“Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology, was also a faithful follower of Charles Darwin. His belief that man was merely a sophisticated animal led him to postulate that ‘mental disorders were the vestiges of behavior that had been appropriate in earlier stages of evolution.’ Daniel Goleman points out that ‘the evolutionary idea that Freud relied on...is the maxim that ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,’ that is, that the development of the individual recapitulates the evolution of the entire species.’ This notion...supposes that the conceptus at one stage is a fish rather than a fetus (from the Latin for ‘infant’) and is thus expendable. The human carnage that has resulted from this evolutionary dogma has eclipsed the atrocities of Hitler and Marx combined.”
[2]
God never asks for blind faith, instead He provides various proofs for us and then asks that a choice be made, only then, asking for a commitment:
He invites us to reason, not to believe blindly, “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).
He offers options and requests and suggests a choice:
“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).
He offers proof on which we are to build our beliefs:
“After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
He chose men who would faithfully record reliable accounts of what transpired. For example, Luke drew up an account of the things that have been fulfilled at the time of Jesus. He interviewed eyewitnesses and carefully investigated everything that had occurred, and so he wrote an orderly account so that we may know the certainty of the things we have been taught (see Luke 1:1-4).
Therefore, it is not at all logical to believe that the Red Sea was parted just because somebody wrote it down. It only makes sense because the Bible can be proven to be the Word of God. Is it logical to believe that a fetus in the womb is an amphibian, a reptile and only finally a human as Darwin, Freud, Sagan and many others have and still do believe? No, rather, the student believes it because his gods, the professors and scientists, have written it in the Secular Bible, the Holy Textbook.“And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose
for yourselves this day whom you will serve…
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”
Joshua 24:15
[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1960), p. 29
[2] Hank Hanegraaff, The Face That Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution (Nashville: Word Publishing-a Thomas Nelson Co., 1998), p. 28 quoting Daniel Goleman, Lost Paper Shows Freud's Effort to Link Analysis and Evolution, New York Times, 10 February 1987, p. 19. As quoted in Morris, The Long War Against God, p. 33
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