The Universe Is Not Creation: An Exposé of Religion the Intelligent Believer Paradox Human Relations in a Religion-Free World

By H. Hanson

There is no Creator: Religion is a Fraud, What Now? demonstrates the falsehood and fraud of religion by proving beyond a reasonable doubt the non-existence of a "creator." All but the most timid and ignorant readers should be emboldened to cast off the imaginary crutches "god" and "soul" and break free from laws, rites and "donations" imposed only for submission to fraudulent impostors. In "What Now?," down-to-earth rules of conduct for a world free from philosophical Snake Oil are proposed. Current knowledge makes religion offensively ludicrous, compelling the author's use of unequivocal language and occasional humor and irony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781493186617

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by H. Hanson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/20/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

605090

Contents

Introduction

PART I

ANTECEDENTS

To Prove a Negative

PROPOSITION:

Religious Fraud

The Rest is History

The Beginning of the End

The Parable Blinders

Parable of the Torpedoes

PART II

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

Creation

The Universe

Fish and Fowl

Adam and Eve

The Insidious Snake

A Little Sabbath

The Cain and Abel Show

Noah’s Ark

The Happy (Go-Lucky) End

The Tower of Babel

Absurdities as History

In Genesis:

In Exodus:

Enter Commercial Religion

Mise-en-scène

The Institutionalization of Submission

The Nine-or-so Commandments

God’s Ridiculous Code of Ethics

God Believes in Witches?

God Means Business

In Leviticus:

The Promised Land

Dash to the End of the Old Testament

Social Corollary to the Old Testament

The New Testament

Bible vs. Koran

Jesus vs. Muhammad

PART III

LACK OF PURPOSE IN THE UNIVERSE

Creation Requires a PURPOSE

Task: Find a Purpose for Creation of the Universe

Of Life, Body and Soul

Of Anything

Of God Itself (with a twist)

Billions or More (sic) Purposeless Things (for lack of space, time and memory, only a partial list is presented).

Extinctions

Institutionalization and Eternalization of Poverty

Why?

The Last Torpedo

The Final, WHY?

Salvation

PART IV

WHAT NOW?

Universal Plan for Life

Indoctrination!

The Categorical Imperative

WHAT IF EVERYBODY DID IT?

Sex

Jealousy

Incest

Abortion

War

Legitimized Murder

Playing Politics with Death and Misery

Making War Impossible

OUTLINE OF SEQUENCE AND MECHANICS

The Paradox of Democracy

Dedicated in profound admiration to all who, at any stage in life, can look anyone straight in the eyes and confidently say: I have done no purposeful harm, and the World is better because I lived.

INTRODUCTION

History became a science when it outgrew mere narration and searched for the causes of the facts narrated; when it ceased to accept old narratives as absolute records and judged them by criteria derived from our knowledge of human nature as we see it at present, but modified to accord with past conditions.

W. M. Davis

Introduction to the first issue of National Geographic Magazine,

Vol. 1, No. 1, October 1888

Where the search for truth is the single issue and objective come what may, as in the present case, ambiguity and accommodating semantics serve no purpose. Particularly on the subject of religion, where the truth - claimed by myriad contradictory holier-than-thou interpretations, from convo- luted polytheisms to atheism - has been so elusive.

Consequently, the postulates that emerge from the facts and reasonings contained in this study are unambiguously stated:

There is no Creator

Existence has no Purpose or Meaning

There is no Soul

Cognizance Terminates at Death

There is no True Religion

Commercial Religion is a Fraud

Personal Religion is Shameful

This is no feel-good philosophy, obviously. It will cause anguish, anger, fear and hopelessness in the majority of those who understand it. Many will not even dare read it; many others will be forbidden to read it. Still others will dismiss it a priori, in the ostrich approach, as irrelevant, unfounded, inaccurate, presumptuous, frivolous or gratuitously aggressive. But to an enlightened few, it will mean the real salvation: salvation from living under the burden of blatant lies and tortuous but meaningless rules of conduct demanded by fraudulent impostors.

The ultimate effect or lack thereof that this work may have in the short and long term on social conduct and individual introspection will depend on whether or not it survives the scrutiny and challenges to which it may be subjected, and on the level of intelligence, knowledge and courage - especially courage - of those exposed to it.

The intelligent, knowledgeable and courageous will comprehend the enormity of the conclusions to which it leads but will cope stoically. They will be the ones who make the new Practical Rules of Conduct for a world free from the philosophical equivalent of Snake Oil. A few such rules are essayed herein under Part IV, What Now? And it will be from this group that more definitive, analytical and scientifically precise works on the subject will develop.

The intelligent and knowledgeable but pusillanimous, having a capacity for objective analysis, will comprehend it, but faintness of heart may prevent them from coping with it. Some may commit suicide. Their lineage, however, will evolve into people who, not taught to depend on imaginary crutches (god and soul), will be generally unconcerned with them, like children who outgrow their fear of the dark.

Those of impaired intelligence due to lack of knowledge will simply not grasp it. Little will change for them and their influence on society will be negligible despite the inevitable blind violent reactions of a few. Their lineage, however, given the eventual universal focus on pragmatic secular education, will evolve into people oblivious to religious concerns, as those in the preceding case.

Predictably, some religious leaders whose incomes and social or political position are derived from ministering to, or governing their followers, and some people, intelligent or otherwise, publicly committed to upholding a religion, may comprehend it and even cope with it inwardly. But, self-conscious about their exposed illegitimacy and tarnished prestige, and apprehensive about the fragility of their modus vivendi, they will resort to all kinds of rhetoric and sophisms (the otherwise among them, even to physical violence) in futile attempts to disprove or silence the stated postulates.

Eventually, humanity will greatly benefit from the elimination of convoluted, wildly disparate and manifestly absurd notions of god and soul acquired in the infancy of human intelligence. Exposure of the social injury caused by coerced belief in such absurdities should encourage the development to full maturity of the collective mind that entered adolescence with the thinking of Nicolaus Coperni-cus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Charles Darwin.

Note 1) In order to be entirely free of constraints in dealing with a subject that can go from the dramatic and cruel to the ludicrous and puerile, emphatic unequivocal language, a degree of literary lightness and a sprinkle of colloquialisms are used throughout this study as each subject may spontaneously elicit (with apologies to translators).

Note 2) Religion is a fiercely explosive subject with a very sensitive detonator. Double entendres and humor in a critique of religion can turn civilized discourse into blind rage and physical aggression. Yet, with the unswerving integrity, conviction and dedication of William Lloyd Garrison, who against all odds clamored for the abolition of slavery in America, I borrow his forceful expression of commitment: I shall not equivocate, I shall not excuse, I shall not retreat a single inch….and I shall be heard! Hopefully, those who do hear this and disagree will abide by Voltaire’s rule on civilized discourse:

I do not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.

H. H.

PART I

ANTECEDENTS

TO PROVE A NEGATIVE

Theologians, philosophers, sociologists and intellectuals in general agree with the statement: You cannot prove a negative. A graphic description by James Randi, an intellectual in the profession of theatrical magic who very successfully set out (c.1985) to expose and denounce faith healers, spiritists, magicians and other charlatans and quacks, clearly illustrates the concept: Giving himself the imaginary task of proving that reindeer cannot fly (a negative) he described pushing a number of them one by one off a high cliff. The first one fell like a rock to the bottom of the cliff; it did not fly. The second one performed just as poorly, and so on. After having pushed all of them over the cliff, he noted that what had been proven was that THOSE reindeer could not fly - adding wryly, with scientific orthodoxy, or chose not to-but not that reindeer cannot fly.

To take the experiment to its logical scientific conclusion, he would have had to continue pushing reindeer off the cliff until one actually flew, defeating his argument, or all the reindeer in the world were at the bottom of the cliff, partially proving his point because, having used a physical negative for the experiment, the possibility would remain that previous generations of reindeer could or could not fly.

You can’t prove a negative, has been used by religious proponents for millennia: You cannot prove that God does NOT exist. It has served them well, abetted, of course, by the fact that most people can’t handle the non-existence of a god and prefer to leave well enough alone. Or some, when pressed, bestir themselves to contrive convoluted, irrational and absurd lucubrations in support of the existence of a god, such as God is mysterious in his ways,everything happens for a reason, the perfect order of the universe could not have just happened, God’s intelligence is beyond human comprehension, therefore it is presumptuous to question it. The latter is particularly devious, offensive, egregious and the last refuge of scoundrels - and wimps. So question it:

You are told that in the face of a glaring absurdity, you must force your mind to ignore your observations and blindly accept a priori that because God exists, the absurdity does not. You must have faith, is the command. Must? Why? Because to persist in your observations would open Pandora’s Box. Well, let’s do just that. Let’s persist in observations that can no longer be ignored. Let’s finally muster the courage to open the Box. You may find your worst fears realized: that it contains NOTHING.

True, you can’t prove a negative……DIRECTLY. But you can prove it INDIRECTLY, by the Aristotelian principle of Reductio Ad Absurdum, which states: A proposition is proven false if the premises on which it is based lead to contradiction or absurdity.

It is quite possible that had Aristotle lived in the 19th Century, when the sciences of astrophysics, anthropology, paleontology and geology, and the theory of evolution were developing, he would have applied reductio ad absurdum to religion.

As the reasonings contained herein will attempt to demonstrate, every pronouncement in every form of religion, imposing or suggesting the existence of a Supreme Being Creator of the Universe, under any name, is a contradiction and/or an absurdity, and therefore false.

PROPOSITION:

At the present level of subjective and objective awareness of the human brain and the consequent intellectual, scientific and technologic development, religion in every aspect, of every denomination; all conceptualizations of a supreme being creator of all things and lord of life, and all descriptions of an eternal soul, are aberrant and repugnant insults to informed intelligence, and their COMMERCIALIZATION constitutes an identifiable and demonstrable FRAUD whose absurdities must be exposed and whose abuses must be proscribed.

Its absurdities must be exposed, because the elemental philosophical abhorrence of falsehood requires it, as in Galileo’s muted but defiant, E pur, si muove.

Its abuses must be proscribed, because the social unacceptability of fraud requires it, just as the sale of Snake Oil and the sale of protection by mobsters were proscribed. "Protection" by mobsters, by the way, is the equivalent of salvation by priests. Think about it.

Definition of Fraud

The Britannica-Webster dictionary defines fraud as: DECEIT; esp: misrepresentation intended to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right. Clearly, there are two parts to the definition: Deceit/ misrepresentation, and intended to induce another to part with something of value.

The second part of the definition may seem inconclusive when applied to religion, since inducing another to just part with something of value is not the objective of the intent, which is actually the transferal of the value to the inducer.

And because the religious inducer does not, and indeed cannot, deliver any value, but deceives the other into believing in a vague future delivery of an impossible value in exchange (salvation, indulgence, forgiveness, heaven, eternal bliss, etc.), the action is a deceit or misrepresentation.

RELIGIOUS FRAUD

All religious organizations are guilty of fraud. They all induce their followers, congregations, faithful, parishioners, etc., to transfer value to them one way or another, without delivering any value in return. There are, of course, notable exceptions within some religious organizations that provide tangible values such as schooling in secular arts and sciences for a semblance of legitimacy, but always with religious strings attached - and always for money.

Judeo-Christians adopted tithing, one tenth of income, collecting it by hook or by crook for centuries. Though it is no longer enforced (cheating was rampant and could not be verified), other ways were found, such as idiot-baiting sales of indulgence for the souls in Purgatory, fees for the ministering of sacraments, etc., and, of course, the obligat-ion of attending church services at which contributions are collected.

The magnificent cathedrals, basilicas and shrines built in the Middle Ages were actually investments in fixed assets, designed to attract (hence the architectural grandiosity, the artwork and the music) and accommodate, large numbers of unbathed contributors (hence the high ceilings and ceremonial incense). For Catholics, attending Mass, which they more accurately refer to as sacrifice rather than service, is an obligation whose non-compliance is a mortal sin. Negotiable, of course.

Today, thanks to television, Christian evangelists, preachers, healers, etc., of every denomination have managed to extend the reach of their shameless and outrageous solicitation of donations, contributions and love offerings, far beyond the capacity of thousands of cathedrals. Big business.

They amass huge tax exempt fortunes purportedly for God in exchange for which they offer rambling sermons about salvation, the kingdom of God, the love of Jesus, even the body and blood of Christ (subliminal cannibalism) among many other well known undeliverable vagaries. Big fraud.

For Muslims, the donation of Zakat (Koran-mandated yearly alms giving) is not just an obligation, but also one of the five Pillars of Islam (the third). It too, has been extracted from the faithful in many ways, sometimes compulsorily, sometimes voluntarily. One of the reasons for Islam’s constant struggle for totalitarian political power is that it permits the extraction of money by taxation rather than donation, to pay for construction and maintenance of mosques, livelihood of religious leaders, etc., things that provide nothing of value to the contributors. On the contrary, Islam, when in a position of political power, is notorious for depriving its adherents of basic human rights that today are taken for granted by every other social system including China, who, though accused by other nations of violating human rights, is idyllic by comparison.

It is amazing, indeed outrageous, that the civilized world stands indifferently by as Islamic regimes still abuse their people to the point of publicly stoning (!) adulterers to death, ordering the murder (!) of writers for making innocuous statements, condemning apostates to death, depriving women of the right to full education, to drive a car, to dress comfortably, and ordering people to drop to the floor on their hands and knees in prayer facing a geographical point, five times a day. It takes a grotesquely twisted brain process (blind faith) to believe that such abuses can somehow serve a conceptual almighty god.

More amazing even is the fact that in the age of instant global communication, the mapping of the human genome, the understanding of astrophysics from E pur, si muove to Black Holes and neutrinos and physical contact with extraterrestrial bodies; the harnessing of nuclear power, the development of computers capable of performing three trillion operations per second; and of retreat from basic postulates of The Bible by the Catholic pope (under pressure of overwhelming evidence), there are now over a billion Muslims (and counting) who submit to such abuse and indignity. And pay Zakat for it. And kill for it. It is no coincidence that the word Islam means precisely that: to submit.

Hinduism, the oldest but least organized of the four major religions - and the only one that still stratifies its followers into castes of different value - also obtains funds in many ways, one of which is through donations which its adherents deposit in collection boxes placed for that purpose in temples. And, true to type, individual swamis, gurus, teachers and holy men prey on the naïveté and/or ignorance of people from whom they extract whatever the market will bear - in exchange for making them bathe ceremonially in a river of filth to cleanse their soul and treat cows with religious reverence (among hundreds of ritualistic practices).

Three examples (selected for their notoriety, contempora-neousness and ample documentation) of outrageous voracity on the part of Christian, Hindu and Muslim religious leaders, and unbelievable ignorance and stupidity of their victims should glaringly highlight the fraud fostered by religion:

1977.- James Warren (Jim) Jones, self-styled God. With the promise of a blissful life on Earth and salvation after death, he had each of 1,000 followers turn over to him not just voluntary contributions, not just a tenth of their income, but all their possessions, cash, properties, savings, jewelry, etc. Then he took them to Guyana, South America where he founded a town he called (what else?) Jonestown, only to murder them all by making them drink potassium cyanide when he realized that his fraud was about to be exposed, being himself killed by gunfire.

1985.- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Hindu swami, philosopher, holy man and also self-styled God. Formed a spiritual commune in the state of Oregon, U.S.A., with funds taken from his followers whom he stripped of all their possessions. Promising salvation, resurrection, internal and eternal peace, meditation, and other absurd déjà vus, he had them toiling in the fields while he, adding insult to injury, granted them the joy of seeing him as he was chauffeured past them in a different Rolls Royce (from his collection of 93) every day. Soon some of his adherents decided they had had enough, defected and denounced him. He somehow avoided prosecution for fraud, but was expelled as an illegal alien, upon which he tried to sell his commune for $50 million. His followers had nothing left to sell.

1996.- A report by the New York Times News Service that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune, describes a horrifying example of the cruelty level and abject indignity to which religion can still subject its victims, claiming to do the work of God: In Senegal, West Africa, Islamic leaders called marabouts take possession not only of every physical belonging their hapless charges may have, but also of their entire life, practicing what can only be described as - yes, it must be said: SLAVERY! They are made to beg in the streets from dawn to dusk with no other remuneration