Civil Commotion

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§303   Mankind, a small eccentric species of very excitable animals, which — fortunately — has had its day. Life in general on earth is a matter of a moment, an incident, an exception that has no consequence, something which is of no importance whatever to the general character of the earth; the earth itself is, like every star, a hiatus between two nothingnesses, an event without a plan, without reason, will, or self-consciousness -— the worst kind of necessity, stupid necessity -—. Something in us rebels against this view; the serpent vanity whispers to us, “All this must be false, because it is revolting -—. Could all that not be mere appearance? And man in spite of all, as Kant says -—”.

The just-released PEW study of religion in America finds that religious Americans are twice as likely to leave a Baptist church as they are to join one.

For every American who joins a Baptist church, two others who were raised Baptists are leaving the denomination, according to a Pew Center Report released May 12.

This should be no surprise; as religiosity declines overall, it’s only reasonable that the most fundamentalist denominations would feel the most severe pinch. The thought process probably goes something like this: “I can’t stomach all that crazy stuff Al Mohler says any more, but the Methodists might be allright.”

Then to the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, perhaps the Unitarians … and then out the door for keeps.

And:

Because y’all are no damn good, y’all were born no damn good, y’all can never be anything but no damn good, and if y’all regard yourselves and your lives with anything but uninhibited self-loathing and disgust, then y’all are r-e-e-e-a-l-l-y no damn good — and that’s that.

You can try to gloss-over Original Sin, or ignore it outright, but the fact remains: Original Sin is Christianity’s indispensable metaphysical claim; without it, Christianity has nothing on offer but an ordinary — except when very bad and cult-like — set of ethical teachings.

I suppose it might have seemed reasonable to believe in Christianity — or, at least, to exercise caution and make the pretense — a few hundred years ago, before science and Biblical scholarship really got going, but educated and thinking adults do know today — and know with incontestable certainty — that Christianity is untrue. There was no unhappy event involving a talking snake and a bad piece of fruit, and there is no such thing as Original Sin. Today, Original Sin is simply a tool (mis)used by cynics to exploit the insecure.

Good News! Word is getting around, and all but the loonies are fleeing religion.

According to the latest PEW Survey …

• Evangelical Protestants … declining.

• Catholics … declining.

• Mainline Protestants … declining.

• Nones … GROWING.

Though I do believe that education has the decisive part in this, I don’t believe that’s all of it. I think the contemptible behavior of evangelical leaders like James Dobson and Bryan Fischer has played a part. Seriously: A civil war over same-sex marriage? Are they out of their minds?

What decent, thinking adult wants to be associated with them?

A Bangladeshi blogger who denounced religious fundamentalism has been hacked to death.

A secular blogger has been hacked to death in north-eastern Bangladesh in the country’s third such deadly attack since the start of the year.

Police said Ananta Bijoy Das was attacked by a masked gang wielding machetes in the north-eastern city of Sylhet.

Mr Das wrote blogs for Mukto-Mona, a website once moderated by Avijit Roy, himself hacked to death in February.

If religion were about truth, it wouldn’t need the sword to sustain itself. Religion is about power, about controlling people.

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§302   If only human values would be put back once and for all in place that they so rightly belong: as loafers’ values. Many species of animals have already become extinct; if man were also to disappear nothing would be lacking in the world. One must be enough of a philosopher to admire even this “nothing” too ( —- Nil admirari).