A
Petition to God Slayers
This
is a petition to all the God Slayers out there. I will not ask you to stop
slaying the Gods who live in the homes of your relatives, peers, or neighbors.
I only ask that you think about why they exist.
Like
you, I am free from the tyranny of Gods. My fate is something I control. I am grateful for this
freedom. I imagine you are too. I don’t think you are the warmongers the media make
you out to be. You do not slay Gods for sport. You slay Gods because Gods are delusions.
They do not exist. They are excuses for events and phenomenon that have real
causes. You believe the idea of
God and magic robs the individual of agency over his or her own fate. Gods are
tyrants of fate. You want people to be free. After all, if “Sam” didn’t explain
everything with that one silly delusion, she might be able to see the actual causes. She might be able to change her fate.
The
rejection of God and other forms of magic is agency, control, and autonomy.
It’s freedom. The question I raise, is what allows us to take this freedom.
I
think the common assumption is that our freedom
from God is taken through knowledge. That through rationality and empirical
evidence we can coolly assess that God do not exist. The belief in God(s) is
then seen as stemming from ignorance. In our information driven society
knowledge equates to (some) social mobility and power. From this perspective,
belief in God (sustained ignorance) limits individual growth, progress, and is
detrimental.
I want to suggest
an alternative theory.
The
problem I see with tying a belief in God to a state of ignorance is that it
ignores function of supernatural explanation in human life. Supernatural
explanations serve to provide psychological relief in the face of uncertainty. For
example, prehistoric humans see lighting; it is terrifying, random, and
completely unknown. So they create a God/supernatural force to explain it.
Now this is where you kick in and say, “but we can actually explain it.” Yes—in
that case—but what other sources of uncertainty in human life? What about Death. Gods provide psychological relief for the phenomenon
of death and its uncertainty. You are able to cut ties with Gods and other forms of
supernatural explanation, not because of a higher level of knowledge, but
because of a higher level of affluence. You do not actively grapple the uncertainty of death, thus you have no
immediate need of Gods or other supernatural explanations for protection.
If
you are reading this, the assumption I am making is that you: live in an
affluent country, have a high degree of education, nutrition, and economic
opportunity. If all these things, or even some of them, are true, then Death is
not immediacy in your life. You don’t worry about your death or the
death of your loved ones on a daily basis. Life divorced from death is pretty much a novelty of the 20th
century. A novelty afforded to those with significant privilege. I expect to live into my 80s, if not
much farther. I do not worry about dying tomorrow, or in the next five years. I
imagine you don’t either. Our lives lack the all encompassing uncertainty that
demands supernatural explanation.
Now
try to imagine the type of people who need Gods. Their lives have limited agency.
They are old, seeing death potentially looming over the next decade of their
lives, or young and lacking the education or material resources to see
socio-economic progression as possible. There are people who must eat fast food
daily. There are people who must work jobs of hard labor for decades. People whose life expectancies will
reflect these limited opportunities. If a person grows up in an environment
where friends, children, and community members dying is a common occurrence, where
living to 50 is impressive, Death is a constant reality, a reality they must in someway grapple with.
My
petition to God Slayers is not to embrace God, but to understand why other
people do.
It
is not that they are waiting to be pulled from ignorance. God and supernatural
explanation are necessary given the circumstance of their life. You might find
someday, when you are old and dying, or if your community suffers the
unexpected residency of death that you too demand an explanation. God gives some
control to people whose lives afford them little other options for control. It
is unfair to ask people to abandon this explanation when you have no
alternative to give them.
The
rational/empirical explanation is not an alternative, because it does not provide
comfort. What it provides is a potential for transformation. For some people that is comforting, but it can also be a tremendous burden trying to actualize that potential. One more thing to fail at. Also, we must accept that some
situations are beyond immediate transformation. In such situations, it's cruel to tell people their suffering
is due to their own ignorance/inefficiency, because ending that suffering is a
historical rather than personal endeavor.
What is the harm in believing in Gods? I agree that Gods and other
supernatural forces are delusions, fictions of various cultures. But fiction isn't irrevocably harmful. We
tend to conflate “Truth” and “Goodness” but the two are separate entities. Having the truth doesn't mean you will not do harm. It does not make you good. There are plenty of
people who posses correct explanations and use them for immense harm; there are plenty who live in fiction and
are tender, loving, agents.
If
your parents, children, friends, believe in God or other supernatural
explanations. Why is it so bad? In most cases these explanations are not actively
harming people. They provide the comforts of nostalgia and routine to the chaos
of life. The cases where they are harmful are extremes that should not be used
as representations of the whole. If you really think your friend’s belief is
hurting them, I guess that is a different matter, but I would be careful about
making such a judgment. It
is impossible to know the screws and bolts that hold another person together. I
know for a fact that without a great deal of fictions I consume on a regular
basis I would find it hard to motivate my life. God may be a delusion, but not
all delusions are bad. Before you brandish your sword, use that gift of
rationality to weigh the actual
costs and benefits.
Lastly,
I would encourage you to reflect about why you are a God Slayer. I used to be
God Slayer. The reason I attack Gods was not to help people, it was for an ego boost. It made me feel secure about myself and powerful to think I could slay
Gods. I am not saying this is your motivation, but I would ask you to think
about it. The hardest thing to do is to sheath a sword. We gain wondrous
weapons, and feel compelled to use them. It can seem that if we put them down
for a second they will rust. I say this not just about intellect and reason,
but muscle, and charm as well. There are many skills that make a person
powerful. These skills become weapons to attack the ideas and meaning of
others. There are times when attack is necessary, but to attack everything is not
the pursuit of truth, it is violence.