Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Apathy at its most extreme

Whenever I go on my daily walks I like to think about all kinds of things, including reasons why I'm an atheist. Don't get me wrong, it's not some reaffirming practice or anything, I just like to think about different things, and on my walk I often pass homes with religious symbols in their yards. There's one home that has a giant wooden cross in the front yard that is still covered in green tinsel and lights from Christmas. So naturally my mind drifts to religion and why I'm so opposed to it, etc.

One thing I thought of was if Jesus were alive today and persecuted like he supposedly was 2,000 years ago, that person would have an electric chair or a huge syringe in their front yard. Imagine people wearing little Ol' Sparky around their necks and tattooed on their arms. Hilarious.

But something else burrowed into my brain today as I hit Mile Marker No. 2. Since evolution is fact, and many religions accept this, that means Homo sapiens have been walking on the planet for about 200K years, communicating and using tools. The late great Christopher Hitchens was famous for mentioning this on his book tours and debates. He even granted an error of 100K years and would say humans have been in our current form for at least 100K years.

And I'll borrow from him again and reflect on his perspective toward god's apathy. He made the most excellent point that if god were real, that means he watched us struggle, kill each other, live in complete fear of weather, animals, natural disasters and almost die out as a species (we were down to about 40K people at one point) for about 94K years (I agree with 200K years so it's really more like 194K years) and he did nothing. He watched indifferently and chose not to reveal himself until about 6,000 years ago, and when he did, he did it as a burning bush, a talking donkey and in one-on-ones with highly suspect characters from the OT.

Then, about 2,000 years ago, another version of "god" appears in the womb of a teenage girl and lives for 33 years without knowledge of microbial disease, germs, etc., before dying to save the people he didn't give a damn about for nearly 200K years. Why all of this doesn't seem highly peculiar to more people is beyond confusing. If god were real, why can't he just live among us now, for all time? Why can't he just be here guiding us? If he's immortal then this would be a piece of cake. There is no reason why a god couldn't walk among us and make his presence known. And why doesn't he do this? Because we made him up. It's so obvious, but the indoctrination blinders are thick so too many people can't see it.

Any god that didn't care about humans for nearly 200K years doesn't deserve my worship, respect or attention.

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