hobbit-humanist

Stay Clear of Credo

Almost every week in my local newspaper there’s a column called ‘Credo’ which is written by leading members of the ecclesiastical community from in and around town. Personally I find it a very patronising little section of the newspaper, thankfully it’s usually tucked out of the way but reading it as I do you always find really unsubtle references to the theme of embracing religion before it’s too late and life after death if you  join their ranks, I’m sure you’ve read such articles before. Such pieces are written to make you feel guilty and evoke other emotions but don’t despair because god and jesus are on hand 24/7 should you want to debase yourself before them and tell them how good they are.

This weeks nugget of Christian knowledge written by Rev David Allen (retired) of the Everyday Champions Church related to diminishing numbers in church and the topic of hell. The basic content of the article mentions that figures have fallen in UK churches because many have become too liberal in their preaching and hell has become taboo and glossed over where as in America statistics show a rise in attendance where ‘hell and judgement are taught as an integral part of regular preaching’. So the conclusion is liberal congregations are failing and the more hard hitting ones are flourishing, he ends the article with ‘We don’t like to think of hell but to ignore it is surely foolish.’

As for my thoughts, its really simple, hell doesn’t exist and neither does heaven. Both imaginary realms are used as the leverage when attempting to win weak minds over, scaremongering in its most base form. Let’s just suppose both heaven and hell do exist and we end up there having embraced god and Christianity. There we stand looking down, knowing people are suffering eternally for whatever reasons they have been judged on. These people could of course be people we are aware of, friends, loved ones or they could be perfectly moral people that like me have chosen to be a humanist or atheist. They could be children or tribes people with no knowledge of god or heaven, no concept of Christianity – all suffering because they didn’t submit to the will of a celestial dictator, a self proclaimed jealous god that allegedly created us, screwed us over then wants us to stroke his ego with total submission …. or else.

Would any sane rational person want the above? If heaven existed and eternal boring immortality awaited, then that’s where the Orwellian big brother sinister stuff really begins. We don’t like dictatorships on earth so who would want a sterile eternal one in some make believe realm? The only way to topple celestial dictators is by not buying into it all, by not being afraid to be your own person and have perfectly normal morals and goals without fear of some mystical reward or punishment system. Let’s stride forward and leave behind intellectual repression from the dark distant past. Lets not be afraid to have an open inquiring minds that dare to question and most of all don’t be afraid to be yourself and be human!