On Religion

Draft 3.0

Perhaps the natural price of sentience, the human animal is willingly capable of anti-natural behaviors. Our rationality has an inevitable by-product, which must exist to some extent, but a decadent environment has nurtured these tendencies in a fertile soil. The result has been an increasing overall alienation in industrial societies. The individual becomes disconnected and isolated. Suicide is the extreme end result. Many opt for slower paths to the same destination. Rationality may compose an element fully integrated with existence, but does not extend in all directions. Categorization is never fully realizable. However, decadent schemes ignore the actual in favor of delusions of rationality. A fit is imposed, while not actually existing, thus leading to outright conflicts within the framework of reality. Inappropriate virtues are touted. A root error, leading to incorrect prioritization, concerns misplaced notions concerning duration. Patterns are seen where none exists. The true flows and textures of an often rotten existence are missed. A random smudge becomes idolized while true wonders pass us by in the fast lane. A complex series may produce a result unlike any subset. Although the decadent values the stupid opinions of all, perspective is not necessarily valid. Nobody wants to hear it, yet most keep flapping their lips in an endless tirade which seems to validate their existence while proving absolutely nothing. The rational seeks a mean value even in those cases which does not actually fit any statistical pattern or distribution. The rational is a very practical tool for large linear problems like organizations and logistics, and builds civilizations by these means. However, the rational never seems to be set aside except through decadent backlash mechanisms. A hammer is not always necessary. Strictly positivist beliefs should have been a passing fad, but still exists within our economic and governmental systems. Anything not quantifiable becomes very difficult to fathom by a society so limited. Everything has a price, which means nothing. The only morality existent becomes the exploitation of all things to maximum advantage. Our new insanities are harsher than anything hitherto existent, not just discovered. No society has ever previously starved itself for fashion. Although masked by consumer credit card debt, life savings are spent on frivolities. Repressed by fear and dwelling upon minor insecurities, drugs are the preferred means of enabling social skills. Even religion is better than progress. At least, a decadent slave religion acknowledges a certain lack of freedom, rather than really pathetic rebellion. Religion has been superseded along with its repressive traits. Although, this author fully admits a relatively high degree of prejudice regarding organized religion, and finds spirituality an un-relatable concept, it must be fully admitted to be orders of rank higher than sterile rationality. At least the bible is good literature. The rational extreme is best set aside by any possible means. Of course, the nihilistic attitude spawned may be as eventually devastating. The brink may be avoided by discarding the rational extreme quickly. The remaining institutions may be dealt with shortly thereafter...

For many whom do not require faith for sustaining their existence, religious institutions are a onerous weight which must be removed or even destroyed. The psychological experience of spirituality is akin to concrete shoes. Many lesson the impact of organized faith by either backlash or apathy against anything preached. If those idiots believe such garbage, it is thought, then everything for which they even remotely stand is worthless. Hostility is a powerful driving force. Apathy allows one to ignore it. A higher power is little concern. One may go to the occasional church ceremony feeling stifled and resentful, or simply regard it as a chore like doing laundry. Actions may be dictated, but never the thoughts of a truly free mind where nothing is forbidden and everything permitted. Unfortunately, for those worshiping progress, economics appears the mediocre substitute for religion. The sheep are exploited for maximum, rather than moral advantage. Since this picture will never change, religion is the lesser evil for the masses. Despite the glitter of consumerist society, religion is simply less stifling. Besides, the lessening of institutional religious power in the western world has been steadily occurring for over a century and will not be regained on the old levels. The days of religious dominance are ending. Decadent Christianity only fragments. Islam and Judaism are no danger, being concerned with obedience rather than meekness, but one cannot expect the miraculous. The herd will someday wither away, but the process is still uncertain and may be mitigated. God is not dead, just changed form with the world, and will never return in a previous guise. However, one can pretend otherwise for the edification of idiots...

Of course, this new god need not be the old decadent Christian deity, being the main reason progress was accepted as liege in the first place. Some myths are better than others. However, herd animals crave the false security of the familiar, therefore the mask must be the same. Perhaps, the relevant matter concerns faith, but religion does appear a better way of instilling herd unity than the mechanisms of progress. On the other hand, religion leaves a bad taste in the mouth, which deserves supersession in a form other than progress. Everything nauseating becomes a matter of degree. The old worn arguments, which states that without God, life is meaningless is entirely valid for peasants. The 19th century Nihilists are a primary example which utilized this rationalization for destructive ends, because existence had become meaningless in this scheme. Hence, their opponents in turn pointed to their actions as the philosophical necessity for the existence of god. Both circular wheels-within-wheels arguments discards any consideration of individual conscience concerning thought and deed. The external and internal are completely partitioned by anti-natural beliefs. Morality is only necessary for those either disconnected with reality or ignorant peasants. One need only look around the North American continent for examples. A hillbilly is not the same as a suburbanite. A sufficiently advanced personality, with a firm grounding in reality, is not governed by weakness. The issue becomes conscience, thereby moving beyond good and evil. Some modern psychologists, among others, propagate stagnation by classifying everything beyond a certain mean as abnormal. Anti-social is traded for immoral, still keeping the herd in line, only far more mediocre. O' how very little truly ever changes...

The Christian religion, through its own decadence, spawned its successor progress. Religion was no longer capable of filling a void in many lives. Christianity is still an institution in the west, but real faith is disappearing. Capitalists, Marxists and eventually Christians alike seized upon progress as the remedy for all their ills. Instead, only a new disease produced more. Perhaps, humanity is not so far above the great apes as we would like to believe...

1996 - January 1, 2001