It surprises me that
there were people like Thomas Paine over two hundred years ago. I’m not surprised
that people like him could exist. Rather, I’m surprised that if people like
him, who have so articulately and thoroughly disarmed the intellectual violence
of Christianity, have existed for so long, that we still have Christian blood
pumping through our veins. The demise of Christianity is long overdue.
Throughout
much of his writing, Paine uses a concise phrase to flatline the socio-normative
way of considering religion. Paine says something along the lines of: “It is
not incumbent on me to disprove Christian beliefs.” Paine believes that it is
not “Christian God until proven otherwise,” but rather “Deism until proven
otherwise.” I disagree with Paine that Deism is the most natural belief
(instead of Atheism; the idea of any
god is still fantastical), but nonetheless, I agree with him on who holds the
burden of proof in considering the possibilities of Christianity. The burden of
proof lies with the professor of ideas as miraculous as those in The Bible.
Even
the most fundamental of religious zealots must admit that the stories of The
Bible are, to us, things of fantasy. More importantly—because theoretically, bizarre
stories are not necessarily untrue—none
of us have ever witnessed these events. Nor did our parents or their grandparents
or their grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents. We have
convinced ourselves that some of the most absurd stories to have been put on
paper are factual on the basis of nothing more than centuries of hearsay. Maybe
famed lawyer Clarence Darrow puts it best in saying, “I do not believe in God because
I do not believe in Mother Goose.”
So
why is it that we still believe…or really, ever believed? If we are to agree
that preachers of Christianity have the burden of proof and that other than the
miraculous hearsay of The Bible they have no proof, we must surely also agree
that we should have no Christianity (at this point, let me clarify that my pointed
dissonance extends to all forms of theism, not just the Christian adaptation).
Yet, our nation is still predominantly Christian. Yet, all across the world,
people continue to worship the “words” of a tyrannical God, so irresponsible in
his own power that he would create a people, only to obliterate them over and
over again; so insecure that he would order his most faithful follower to
slaughter his own child, just to make sure that his love for God was supreme
(even though God, being omnipotent, would have known the answer); so abusive that
he would create a Hell for those infidels who doubt the eccentric hearsay of
power-hungry religious leaders. Our nation still wholeheartedly subscribes to a
religion that would in the same chapter condemn the hunger for knowledge (Eve
and the forbidden apple), while saving those who offer their virgin daughters to
be raped by a mob (Lot). We still adulate a religion and a God which are so
morally discombobulated and lazy to stand idly by as billions of people through
history have been maimed, tortured, ostracized, raped, assassinated, flayed, enslaved,
and murdered in their name.
In
one of his later chapters, Paine refers to a dark room, abound with furniture.
He uses this room as an analogy to explain how although the rules of the
universe are often imperceptible, they still exist nonetheless. We just need to
light the candle of reason and science, and then we will be able to discover
the truths of our universe, he says. I like the analogy, but it seems to me
that it would be better fit to explain how we ought to expose the perilous
fantasies of The Bible. But has Paine not lit this candle? Have we not been
permitted to see through the patent falsehoods, contradictions, fantasies, calls
to violence and bigotry and slavery and rape, demands to worship a sociopathic
tyrant for centuries now? As we let this candle dwindle away, we come
dangerously closer to extinguishing the light altogether.
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