The LIE

Well, a lie is a KNOWN untruth, so if X is FALSE but someone BELIEVES that X is TRUE and TELLS you it is true then it is not a lie? The problem arises when X really IS FALSE but someone believes so strongly that X is TRUE that they will try to FORCE you to ALSO believe that X is TRUE - instead of letting you make up your OWN mind. In THIS if nothing else, Christianity is no different from ISLAM.

This is of course what happens in many religions. Muslims are in general totally and completely convinced that Muhammed really DID have a visit from "GOD" on a mountain and that "Allah" really HAS commanded them to spread belief in him over the entire world - by brutal force, murder, rape and enslavement if necessary.

In past centuries people calling themselves Christians believed so totally in their "GOD" that they ALSO felt entitled to murder anyone who denied him. So Christianity and ISLAM are as bad as each other? NO, THEy ARE NOT. The difference between Christianity and ISLAM is that the representative of the latter's "GOD" really DID command disciples to murder, rape and enslave "infidels", whereas the messenger of Chistianity's "GOD" did NOT command that but instead told his followers to "love thy neighbour as thyself". Those who burned witches and "heretics" for denying Christianity were NOT following the command of Jesus, whereas those who did likewise for ISLAM WERE doing EXACTLY what Muhammed (and therefore Allah) commanded them to.

But unfortunately there WAS an UNTRUTH if not LIE at the heart of WHS - that there is a GOD.

There is, sadly, no evidence whatsoever that would stand up in court of
the existence of "GOD" or indeed of ANY kind of ghost or extraterrestrial.

WHY then was "Nisi Dominus Vanum" the school motto? We can no longer ask John Smitherman, but in general, the reason for anyone believing in "God" is very sad.

FACT: EVERYTHING LIVING DIES. We know this from a young age. Having a pet as a child is a good way to understand and perhaps accommodate oneself to the concept of death. But there is no getting away from it: though Death is 100% NORMAL it is still HORRIBLE - both in thought and fact. One understands and even "accepts" this but that does not change the fact that WE WOULD PREFER IT OTHERWISE: not perhaps even principally for ourselves but for loved ones, and even those one never knew but "loved" nonetheless, and whose death brings sadness. I have a long list of people whose death many centuries ago and/or whom I never knew personally saddens me.

EUPHEMISMS? These PROVE that we find death horrible. In social media and elsewhere one usually sees references to people "passing", not dying. "Passing" somehow seems softer, as if they pass to somewhere else. But they do NOT. They no longer exist. They can only "pass" into the ground and rot - or be incinerated into ashes and kept on the mantlepiece or thrown into the sea or air. Then of course is often written "R.I.P"., but in truth those who die are not resting: they simply cease to exist.

DEATH is indeed so horrible that from early times humans have invented something to help them believe in an afterlife to pretend that they will not die. In South America and Ancient Greece, Rome and no doubt thousands of other places all kinds of "Gods" were invented to explain the unexplainable and avoid the in fact "bleedin' obvious". Humans latched onto them as a psychological protection from the horrible thought of Death, which as Mr Keating in "Dead Poets' Society" famously remarked, simply means that we are "food for worms".

A belief in a God avoids the need to face the existentialist facts. Some faiths are so dominant that they eliminate the need to think about death completely - or EVEN how to think about leading one's life. ISLAM, for example, prescribes the entire way of life that a devotee must follow. Any FEAR of death is thus totally avoided. In theory there is no HARM in this if it brings spiritual tranquillity, but it all depends on the nature of the CREED that is followed. The messages of Jesus Christ and Muhammed are complete opposites for start.

The Amish so beautifully portrayed in "Witness" believe totally in "God", but their communities and way of life are full of peace and community spirit - certainly compared to many other societies and religions.

ANIMALS are interesting. Some mammals share over 90% of the DNA of humans. Do THEY go to "Heaven" when they die? I think not, so why  should humans? What is so special about us?

What is staggering is the GALACTIC sum of misery that religion has caused: from sacrifice to an Aztec Sun God in South America to the burning of heretics at the stake by so-called Christians or the mass-murder of those refusing to convert to ISLAM. ALL BASED ON UTTER FANTASY and COWARDICE. COWARDICE? Yes, because it takes courage to accept that DEATH is the utter and final end of our existence, that there IS no afterlife, no SOUL. BELIEVING in the latter is a spiritual tranquillizer - but it is fundamentally dishonest.

Nobody at WHS ever clearly talked about this. Jim Hyde once confided in me that he did not believe in God, but the consequences of that belief were left unsaid - perhaps they were obvious? But sometimes the obvious needs to be spelled out anyway, because what may be obvious to me may not be to you, and of course vice versa.

I never believed in "God" from a very young age, but I had no problem with assemblies and going to Church because Jesus was a role model for eternity and the Christian Church and a message freed of psychopaths eager to burn heretics is rather beautiful. Even as a child I recognized that following the Ten Commandments and the message and example of Jesus Christ really would mean Peace on Earth even if he were not "the Son of God" - as I believe he certainly was not. All this should have been spelled out more clearly in Religious Instruction - which as I recall consisted mostly of discussing things in the Bible and not the fundamental philosophy of it all. A "WHITE" lie, pehaps?