God Is Dying

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been out of fashion for a long time because he is (unfairly in my opinion) associated with the poisonous ideology of National Socialism. Nietzsche’s philosophy can be quite confronting and unpleasant to modern sensibilities but at its heart lies a rejection of the childish morality of Christianity that has dominated European thinking for more than a millennium. As an atheist, when Nietzsche declared “God is dead” he did not mean that God had literally died; he was talking about a certain conception of God that was out of date.

In his book Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (translated as “The Gay Science” or “The Joyful Pursuit of Knowledge and Understanding”) Nietzsche wrote…

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

The last sentence makes it clear that we must accept the responsibility for our own actions and behaviour rather than loading our “sins” onto a mythical scapegoat in the manner of the primitive shepherds of Ancient Israel.This quote came into my mind this morning when I was watching the news, despite the fact that it is thirty years since I first read Nietzsche as an undergraduate. Sky News UK were reporting on the 34th annual British Social Attitudes Survey which found that 53% of the population now identify as non-religious compared to 41% as Christian and 6% as following other religions. The picture is even more marked when looking at people aged 18-24 where 71% claim to have no religion; the state-subsidised Church of England can claim only 3% of these young adults. It is clear from these findings that Christianity in Britain is dying. Christianity is already a minority pursuit and its various sects will soon be on a par with those religions grouped together under the “other” category in these surveys.

I would contend that this is an altogether positive development. Now is not the place to recite the bloody history of religion – a history of violence, bigotry and hatred – but one would be hard pressed to find another ideology, or group of ideologies, that has done as much harm as religion. Monotheism in particular is an inherently intolerant belief system and the Abrahamic religions are the most intolerant of all monotheisms. It is the belief of this blog that Judaism (a Bronze Age nightmare), Christianity (Santa Claus for grown ups) and Islam (the motherlode of bad ideas) are the same religion with minor differences of emphasis.

All three of the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal and misogynistic…

“When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.” (Deuteronomy 21:10-11)

“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

“And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above them.” (Koran 2:228)

All three are anti-gay…

“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” (Leviticus 20:13)

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1:26-27)

“Of all the creatures in the world, will ye approach males? And leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? Nay, ye are a people transgressing” (Koran 26:165-166)

And all three encourage hostility to outsiders…

“No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation.” (Deuteronomy 23:3)

“But he [Jesus] answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then … he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” (Matthew 15:24-26)

“I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers.” (Koran 8:12)

The only threat I can see to the extinction of these repugnant ideologies comes, perversely, from people who claim to be against misogyny, homophobia and racism. Self-proclaimed “progressives” have allied with the Islamist hard right to label any criticism of their version of the Abrahamic delusion as akin to racism. “Islamophobia” is a cudgel used to browbeat people who would apply the same standards to Islam as to Christianity and Judaism. Unlike the modern day thoughtcrime of “Islamophobia” my spellchecker fails to recognise the words “Christianophobia” and “Judeophobia” – funny that, I don’t think. Don’t agree with me? From the Guardian…

“There is a difference between saying that certain Muslims committed heinous acts and saying that they did so because they were Muslims or that many or most Muslims act in a similar fashion…The blurring of the distinction between bigotry against Muslims and criticisms of Islam is dangerous. On the one hand, it enables many to condemn legitimate criticisms of Islam or of attitudes within Muslim communities as “Islamophobic”. On the other, it permits those who promote hatred to dismiss condemnation of that hatred as stemming from an illegitimate desire to avoid criticism of Islam. Conflating criticism and bigotry makes it more difficult to engage in a rational discussion about where and how to draw the line between the two.”

If you would condemn the first two Abrahamic delusions but make excuses for the third, then identity politics has quite possibly turned you into one of what I mischievously labelled a white supremacist in a previous post.