The Enlightenment of the Devil

Dwindling aimlessly in the realm of unbelief, as I am doing recently, I am reading “God and the State” by Bakunin, along with a plethora of other books. A passage from God and the State stood out for me, because it sums up exactly how I feel about Christianity, and it’s obvious contradictions.

The quote:

“The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty-Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves.

He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.”

I wanted to expand on this quote.
What Bakunin is getting at, is the idea that the God of the Bible is a ruthless, heartless, crazed dictator. He wants His subjects to understand that they should not question Him. He holds the ultimate knowledge and they shouldn’t. If anyone disobeys him, as Adam and Eve did, they shall be punished. The Catholic Church similarly seemed to punish anyone throughout the centuries, who fell across ideas and discoveries that ran contrary to their teaching. The Church’s treatment of Galileo is a famous example of the brutality of the Church when its authority is challenged. God had the same superiority complex, and tantrum when humanity demanded educating, in the garden of Eden. He created the concept of sin, He punishes a concept that he created, and then a few thousand years later He sends His one begotten son, to die an horrific death in order to absorb the concept that He created in the first place.

God placed a restriction on knowledge. He demanded obedient slaves, and if they wanted to improve their knowledge, they would be punished. Alongside complete obedience, he demands worship. This seem like a game. It serves no overriding purpose. Pawns are played with. And to make matters worse, those pawns are given curiosity and a yearning for knowledge and self improvement, built into their mentality. This wretched little game played by God, is both pointless, and torturous.

Along comes Satan. A symbol of evil, simply, it seems, because he tempts humanity away from God. I’m not entirely sure why this is considered a great evil. We must first accept that we wish to be next to God, to be tempted from him. And that requires our faculties of reason. Perhaps then, Satan is getting a bit of a bad press. Why is the questioning of authority a bad thing? It seems to me that questioning authority, is the basis of liberty. God wants complete obedience as revealed through scripture. This means any progressive free thinking is entirely forbidden. It means if our conscience tells us that a cute old lesbian couple, deeply in love, are not evil people destined for hell, we are to ignore it and instead choose prejudice as sanctioned by the Bible. If we follow our conscience (a conscience given to us by God in the first place), we are simply being tested by the evil of Satan. It means, Galileo should have been imprisoned for questioning Christian dogma, dogma that plunged Europe into a devastating Dark Age, ruthlessly suppressing all advancement, and discarding advances made by the Greeks. Free thought and curiosity, according to God, is a sin. That is the way of God. Satan, if anything, tells you to think for yourself.

If I am to think that the the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of first born children, sanctioned and executed by God in the book of Exodus, is wrong, I am being tempted by the Devil away from God. I should be condemning those first born children. That is the reality of being close to God.

Further in Exodus, we see God demanding the deaths of anyone who dances around the golden calf. This includes family, children and friends of the group. Exodus 32:28 suggests 3000 people were slaughtered for dancing around a calf. I’d say this God is evil.

In Numbers 31, God commands the total annihilation of the Midianite people (The Midianites were a tribe of Abraham’s descendants through the line of Keturah. This story always struck me as particularly cruel, whenever I read the Bible. I have my copy of the Bible sat on my lap as I write this, and I cannot for the life of me workout how anyone can read it, and not despise this God as we despise people like Hitler and Pol Pot. He seems no different. After the annihilation of the Midianite people, Moses, working on the command of God, says:

“……. kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.”

Kill all the male children, but keep the female children, as long as they’re virgins, for themselves. Nice. 32,000 virgins in all. I am not sure how Christians or Jews can suggest that any children deserve that treatment. The Midianites inhabited a large area. Much of Northern Arabia was Midianite territory at one stage. They were a diverse people.

An authoritarian God, cannot also promote truly ethical values and behaviour. An authoritarian God necessarily negates free will. We must be good because we’re commanded to be good, by the standard of Holy Texts that most of us find the majority of, to be abhorrent to our sense of right and wrong. Morality is not morality, if it is forced and threatened.

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church”, a book of defined Catholicism suggests that Satan exists only because God allows him too. In paragraph 395, it states:

Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries – of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence.

You may be mistaken into thinking that the above is the ramblings of an insane person. You’d be wrong. But only slightly. It is the ramblings of an insane institution; the Church. God allows Satan to exist. God therefore allows what he considers evil to exist. He is not at war with evil, he will never be at war with evil, because he is in complete control at all times. Which suggests, he isn’t all that loving afterall. But we knew that, given that he’s already wiped out a few million people, whilst condemning young virgins to a life of abuse at the hands of his followers (Catholic Priests are carrying on the tradition recently, it would seem).

Paragraph 397 states:

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

- Interesting use of the word ‘freedom‘. You are ‘free‘ to decide whether or not to believe in God’s word, but if you choose not to, you will be punished. That’s like saying to your child “You are free to play with the skateboard indoors, but if you do, I will put your head in the oven.” Freedom isn’t freedom if one of the two available chooses includes awful punishment.

In fact, there are virtually millions upon millions of people condemned to death, and violent deaths at that, by God. I cannot for the life of me find one death ordered by Satan. All he tends to do, is tempt people to question everything this maniac in the sky tells them. Satan, although portrayed in Christian literature (although not so much in the Bible) as the fallen angel turned demon, sent to tempt humanity into evil, seems actually to be the voice of reason. If we were to take the Bible as metaphor, perhaps one could infer that Satan represents reason, and enlightenment, whereas God represents Christian/Islamic dogma and slavery.

The only way we “know” that Satan is evil, is because it is alluded to in the Bible and subsequent Christian texts. Forgive me for saying, but I am not going to rely on the writings of the single most violent and corrupt institution that has existed over the past two thousand years, to lecture me on what is good and what is evil. How hypocritical of them. It also suggests that Satan is far more powerful than God. The entire history of humanity and its suffering, according to Biblical principles, was caused by Satan. The triumph of free thought over mind-dictatorship.

Bakunin points out that Satan is the first great rebel against great an evil authoritative figure. He encourages disobedience and questioning. He is the founder of the enlightenment, millennia before the enlightenment takes place. Satan is the Christian version of Prometheus. A champion of mankind. It would appear that Christianity has taught us, that an entity that gave us the courage to investigate for ourselves, and expand our understanding, and to question everything; is evil. Genocide on a scale that would make Stalin fall to his knees in awe, gets twisted and presented as “good”, whereas educating people away from this nonsense, is presented as “evil”. Christianity is therefore a very regressive force within society. The Catholic Church embodies this regressive nature perfectly.

The Enlightenment, and all the advances it brought with it. The scientific method, political and social rights, evolutionary theory, separation of Church and State….. This is what the Biblical God forbids, and attributes entirely to Satan.

We should perhaps be a little more critical of the Theocratic dictator God whom punishes you for loving the ‘wrong’ person, requires constant worship, and demands complete obedience, and a little less critical of the free thinking, enlightened Devil.

Teo Te Ching: The normality of selfishness

“Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires”
- Lao Tzu

I have a deep love for anyone who dedicates their lives or part of their wealth to Charitable causes. People who can freely reject consumerism and embrace humanitarianism full throttle I not only admire, but I envy quite significantly so that it annoys me just how weak I am in rejecting the pointless life I lead now, and embrace the route they take.
Those, like myself, who do little when we know we should do more, I do not have all that much respect for. In fact, they (and by they, I include myself) lead a worthless life.

Often the reason given for the success of Capitalism and the failure of Communism, is that the human race is inherently selfish; driven by our own self interest. And whilst I utterly disagree with that, it has become the centre piece for the argument in support of deregulated free trade. What this argument fails to accept is two points; firstly that with upward mobility increasing it isn’t just down to free markets, it’s also down to Government interference in the markets – the New Deal springs to mind, as well as social aspects like the Civil Rights act; Secondly, given that i’m going along the Taoist line – upward mobility has the opposite of downward mobility. America appears to classify it’s economic dominance by the wealth of the rich. The fact that 40,000,000 people cannot afford Health insurance, which includes 10,000,000 children is largely ignored because whilst those people are allowed to suffer in silence, people like Bill Gates can have $60bn. What is so horribly wrong and offensive when I suggest that we take $30bn of Bill Gates wealth, and spend it purely on feeding those who cannot afford to feed themselves? Let’s truly give everyone the right to life. Because not everyone can afford to be on the relentless trail of profit. Some, just need to eat.

Somewhere along the line, compassion died and the morality of self interest became dominant. Suddenly it isn’t Britain or America’s responsibility to lift millions of Third World citizens out of poverty; to feed them; to clothe them; to protect them. We prefer to turn our heads and blame corrupt governments, forgetting nonchalantly that many of those governments we empowered. We chose to ignore that our Western Companies such as Coca Cola have been poisoning water supplies in poverty stricken areas of India, because the profit gained pleases Western shareholders; who appear to be much more important that a few Indian children. And still, there’s an insistence that this system we live by, is the fairest. It isn’t the fairest, it’s merely because we in the West happen to be lucky enough to have been born where we were born, in relative paradise; taught to exploit whenever the opportunity to advance our wealth presents itself. And suddenly we all think if we try hard enough, we can become Bill Gates, rather than the reality that if we try hard enough, chances are all we’ll be able to do is afford a holiday to Spain twice a year instead of once a year, like before the promotion. That’s it. Every so often, a talent is required, like that of Bill Gates, and that person with that talent, is rewarded monstrously. If we lived in a World where we didn’t need Microsoft, in a World where blogging on a site called futiledemocracy.com were heavily rewarded, Bill Gates’ talent would be useless and mine would be incredibly well cashed up…. and Republicans would be shouting about how fair it is that I cash in on my talent. What if a Bill Gates exists in Sudan right now? What if the man with the idea on how to cure Cancer is born in Kenya tomorrow to an Aids ridden family? Are we really relying on the Western World to produce the most intelligent and brave people?

Today, a close friend of mine rang me up to tell me that she’d just been asked to give to charity, and she turned it down. She doesn’t like to give to charity. She then insisted that she doesn’t have the money to give to charity, yet in the next breath told me she’s been shopping in Primark and later in Subway. She vocalises her submission to consumerism; her pointless existence as if it’s perfectly ok. Which, it isn’t. It isn’t fair. It isn’t moral. It’s wrong. And yet, i’m no different. It’s the reason my room is kitted out with an Xbox 360, a TV, this very PC that I use to thunderously smash my confused fist against the keyboard buttons in order to create meaningless blog entries for Republicans and Conservatives to spew their bullshit over. It’s the reason I have books on by Chomsky, John McCain, Franklin Roosevelt. It’s the reason an episode from my series two Lost DVD is on pause. I spent that money on myself, which went to giant companies; which in turn helped to buy a new yaht and a house in Paradise for the Sir Fred Goodwins of the World. It’s wrong, so very wrong. And whilst I’m a horrible hypocrite for buying into it, i’m slowly trying to dig my way out of it. I don’t want to live a life based on the turd of consumerism. And whilst I have fully bought into the Capitalist system, i’m not somebody who will suggest it’s fair and right; I recognise the harshness and the lies hidden behind the system.

We’re lost Spiritually, because we’re found Materialistically.

My very Philosophy on life is that the less you have, the happier you are. The more you give, the more satisfying the result. Work should be undertaken for the community; everyone should be fed, sheltered, educated, and have a minimal standard of health care across the Planet. The moment anyone dies of extreme poverty, is the moment we all drop the chase for profit, and make sure nobody else can possibly die of extreme poverty. Once the Planet is free from poverty. Once Pharmaceutical companies allow their much needed drugs to be widely available in Countries like Mozambique at the same price as they are available in countries that do not need them like Norway; the moment essential resources of poor nations are not snapped up by European and American businessmen at the expense of the native people; the moment the plundering of resources does not harm any one in the way that Coca Cola harmed the water supply of India; the moment the deaths of 60,000,000 people over the space of five years from nothing more than lack of food is recognised as THE most important and inhumane issue facing civilisation instead of just being completely ignored because it’s more important to make sure a crook controlling AIG keeps his obscene pension – when all this is achieved, and only then, should we be allowed to focus on individual profit. We’re all people, we’re all from the same place, and we’re all going to end up in the same place. Why is it such a taboo to suggest we should work together and help each other?

The very same people who insist that Socialism, the redistribution of wealth, giving “free money” to those who haven’t worked for it, is wrong; then go on to tell me how inheritance tax is despicable. Isn’t inherited wealth just a form of inter-family Socialism? The children haven’t worked for that money. They could potentially inherit millions of dollars and not have to work a day in their lives, whilst the child who was born in the hospital bed next to him, has a family who are unable to leave him much at all. The rich only tend to insult the ideals of Socialism, when it threatens their wealth. Otherwise, they’re all for it. The moment we all realise how hypocritical and dreadfully ignorant we are, the better the chance we have at creating a much more equal and just society.

According to Commondreams.org , the average CEO takes home wages 300 times heavier than their workers. Are those CEOs 300 times more important? Do they work 300 times harder? Now i’m not sure where in the doctrine of fairness, it was written that the wealth created by those workers, was fairly distributed when it went to pay the CEO 300 times more money than themselves but where ever it was, it was wrong. I’d go further, and suggest that this isn’t Capitalism, this is Corporate Communism. It’s a bunch of small Communist companies, in which the bottom of the pit are exploited to feed the extravagances of the top few. It’s the reason that 40% of the World’s wealth is owned by 1% of the population. What if we took 30% of that away from them, and gave it feed the hungry? Why should we wait for people to be charitable? Is 1% of the population earning almost half the wealth of the World, the trickle down affect that Thatcher and Reagan promoted? When is that 40% going to trickle down? Because there’s an entire Continent over the sea called Africa that seems to have been forgotten.

Do I believe my life would be much worse, if I “Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, and had few desires“…. no. I don’t believe that humanity is inherently selfish and addicted to the very core of consumerist sentiment so much so that we can’t let go. Nor do I believe that once that consumerist sentiment has burrowed deep within you, is it simple to let go. I’d be the first to admit that i’d struggle with TV, my Wii Fit, a bike, my books, and my PC. I’d struggle hugely. But that doesn’t mean I need all those things. It certainly doesn’t mean I should be free to have those things whilst others die unnecessarily. My greed and my selfishness embodies that of Western society as a whole. We all know consumerism is detremental, we all know that climate change is down to our excessive consumption of green house gases due to the fact that we take the car the short journey down the road because we cannot be arsed to walk; we all know that the food we waste is nothing short of criminal given that millions are dying every year for lack of that food; we all know that whilst we sit in relative luxury we are happy to blindly defend a system that is inherently unfair, unjust, corrupt and murderous by nature….. because to do otherwise, would be hypocritical of us at best, and threaten our luxurious lifestyles at worst.

I believe we’ve all had it drummed into our minds for far too long, generation after generation, told that free market capitalism, exploitation is fair and just. That we should just ignore those less fortunate because it’s probably their fault. We should just turn our heads to the African child dying in the street, because his or her government, who the child has never heard of or seen before is corrupt, that we should embrace it, because the alternative would mean we can’t have that Xbox game we want as the money would go to someone who actually needs it, and for some reason, that would be inexcusably wrong and immoral. It is, in short, utter bullshit, and we all know it, we just don’t all admit it.

Am I embracing my own Philosophy? Practising what I preach? No. Would I complain if a man came to my house, took my Xbox and sold it, then showed by a photo of a child who can now eat because the money he made went to feeding that child? No. I’d nominate that man for a Knighthood. He’s a better man than me.

I want I want I want

I want to be a writer, paid to lay my mind out with a sea of words that make you put the book to one side, and think about what was just said, relating it to your own inner most thoughts in the same way that Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg have done for me. Like Keats, I want my “name writ in water”.

I want to be a Photographer who’s photos make you realise that a split second in time, the essence of a moment forever passed has been captured forever, for the World to see.

I want to be a Philosopher trying to make sense of the World, abandoning all of my untrustworthy, lugubrious pre-conceptions about life and reforming them on my own, with nothing taught by anyone else, like a modern day Descartes.

I want to be a Politican, dedicated to helping those less fortunate, the down and outs, the people who do not succumb to the fetish for money, the ones who want to live but feel abandoned by a flawed system. The ones who need that little bit of support, who do not have it in them to be bank managers, but are still people.

I want to be a journalist, bringing the World into the small homes of a hungry-for-news British public. A decent journalist, not the type who will destroy lives just to bag a story on Britney Spears and earn a fortune in the process.

I want to be a charity worker in Africa, who notices that it isn’t just a case of “teaching a man to fish and he’ll learn to feed his family over time”, that these people need direct help now. Who, even if he helps one person live a better life, knows it’s worth it, much more so than slaving in an office in Leicester every day for no good reason.

I want to be a musician, who’s songs inspire a generation. A Dylan of the new fast World, who creates a legacy, whose canvas is silence to be painted on by sound.

I want to be a Premiership footballer, who fights to bring Leicester back into the Premiership and has Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United, not to mention Barcelona and Real Madrid all fighting to buy me.

I want everything and nothing. I want to be free to live a different life every so often, never getting too comfortable for too long. I want to go from girl to girl, and never get bored, until I find that one person who keeps the excitement alive and tames me. I want the poetic life that lies dormant within everyone, ready to explode like a star that cannot possibly hold itself in the same place a second longer. I want to find my sense of spirit and make peace with it, after chasing it for so long.