January
20,
2010, Volume 17 Nr. 5, Issue 256
I
Know You Don't Believe But...
Haiti - God Intervenes Again
Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski
In the devastation that is Haiti
as a result of the earthquakes of January 2010 the mother of a
child survivor rescued after being buried too many days under
the rubble was asked how the child survived? She answered
by saying that, "It was God". I can see the
heads billions around the world nodding in agreement and many
believers in the United States of America chiming in with,
"Praise the Lord!" A far better response might
be: Why did God slaughter one of the poorest people on earth and
reduce their heretofore feeble existence to chaos, starvation,
thirst, injury, pain, disease, despair and death?
- The obvious answer is no
answer at all: he didn't. There is no God.
-
- A family member recently
called and expressed horror of the events in Haiti. A
believer they had this to say, "I know you don't
believe in God but after what happened in Haiti why would
anyone believe?" Indeed, why would anyone believe?
-
- In the book, "Why Would
Anyone Believe in God", by Justin L. Barrett, the
author writes, "Avoiding religious people altogether so
that you do not hear their stories would avoid troublesome
'evidence' that seems to support God." Barret
implies correctly that the mythology of God is perpetuated
by those whose personal accounts of apparently miraculous
outcomes contribute to a powerful feedback loop that
self-creates "evidence" fostering the delusion of
divine existence and intervention. Combining this God
delusion feedback loop with mistakenly juxtaposing
cause-and-effect for causation and one "sees"
God's hand everywhere. The earthquake disaster, after
all, was an "act of God". Was it not?
Of course it wasn't.
-
- If the rescued buried Haitian
survived as a result of an act of God and the earthquake
itself was an "act of God" then God is a mass
executioner, a murderer and a sadist who maims, kills, and
selectively issues reprieves from "his"
wrath. What nonsense? And yet, billions of
people around the planet believe in this monstrous
Santa-Claus-for-adults entity called God. Worse, they
are willing by the mega-millions throughout history to kill
and be killed in God's name. Often, they kill others
in God's name who want to kill them in God's name. If any
belief deserves scorn it is this one - that God
exists. And yet, humanity en masse gives this dictator
and butcher in-celestia - amnesty.
Iikka Pyysiainen in the book,
"Supernatural Agents: Why We believe in Souls, Gods, and
Budhas" proffers that supernatural beliefs are natural to
human beings in that humans have a tendency to attribute desires
and beliefs to others along with the inherent automatic and
intuitive proclivity of accepting the supernatural as interested
in human activity and events. The proclivity to believe
in such supernatural agents is natural being reinforced by
generations telling themselves the same absurd explanations for
things they have no explanations for. But, human beings
have progressed well beyond accepting fairytales as fact.
We have jettisoned the make-believe pretend world of
supernatural explanations. Evidently, most of us have not.
- Consider this theater of the
absurd. The "reverend", Pat Roberston, of
The Christian Broadcasting Networks' "700 Club"
blamed the earthquake and its devastation in Haiti on a pact
that the Haitians had made with the devil. Robertson points
to the legend about the Haitian revolutionary, Jacques
Dessalines. Dessalines purportedly led a revolt
against the occupying French Army. To defeat the French
Dessalines enters into a pact with the devil who presents
himself as a voodoo deity. This "unholy"
alliance supposedly consummates on August 14, 1791 at
Bois-caiman near Cap-Haitien where Satan promises a victory
over the French (which takes place in 1803). Pat Roberston
contends that as a result God places a curse on the
country. Wonderful. Millions of Haitian people
since that time have suffered and continue to suffer in
Haiti as a result of this vindictive thug in the sky that
Pat Robertson believes in - the thug that Roberston talks
to. They make good bed fellows, don't they? Pat
and God.
-
- Pat Robertson, the pathetic
"reverend" and multi-million dollar business man
peddling faith (and diamonds through his tax exempt diamond
mining operations in Zaire) is proof positive that religion
is a disease of the mind and those that profess it are
diseased in their thinking, or worse, lying
criminals.
-
- While Dr. Robertson's
organization does provide humanitarian relief in Haiti it's
main impetus in that endeavor is fostering his brand of
religion and, perhaps, steering the Haitian people away from
their Roman Catholicism which he considers to be the world's
biggest false religion. So according to Pat Robertson,
Haiti is (at least) twice cursed: first by making a pact
with Satan and then, for being (eighty-percent) Roman
Catholic. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church also claims
to be the "one true" religion. These two
mentally deficient (but there are hundreds more)
institutions suffer from the self-inflicted delusions of
self-aggrandizement. And, billions of people kneel and
pray at their altars and houses of whoreship - to the
exploitation of human gullibility.
Religion is a culture industry
and God sells just as sex sells. At least for the latter,
there is a realistic expectation of realizing satisfaction. With
religion one has to die to achieve release. Religion operates
with its business model standardizing the God product in the
mass marketplace. Pandering God in churches is the
sociological equivalent of extolling rock-and-rock in a rock
concert. Today's mega churches pander to their attending
fans just as mega concerts bring to the audience performances
they come to expect. Instead of raising lit lighters in
the air there are hands and crucifixes raised and swaying to the
rhythm of salvation. To the religion industry the
"religious" faithful are nothing more than consumers
sucking up a product cleverly marketed. God and salvation
are packaged, advertised, sold, consumed and regurgitated over
and over and again. And getting enough is never
enough. That promise comes later, you know, when you're
dead and given your "just" reward after bending at the
heel of the boots of the Lord. Smells like
deofascism. Looks like deofascism. It is
deofascism.
Those in the religio-hierarchy,
you know them, they are the invited to the White House.
They live in mansions, or in a city-state recognized as a
separate country. They attain power and influence not by
virtue of their relationship to God. Rather, they attain
power by virtue of their relationship to the money they abscond
with from gullible and mesmerized consumers of
hockey-puck. The religio-hierarchichists insultingly refer
to the gullible as their flock. And this flock of sheep
are easily herded for harvesting as willing subjects fleeced for
their fiduciary wool and milk of allegiance.
- Belief in God is easy to
understand. It is an element common to all societies
whereby traditions (and the status quo) are enforced (and
maintained) as part of the operating societal structures for
the purpose of controlling people and having them part with
their money, wealth and freedom. Religion is the
institutionalization of this control. And that
which threatens this control is (of course) branded
Satanic. There is nothing that is as Satanic as
another religion. Oh wait. Yes. There is. It is the
atheist!
-
- Competing religions are
Satanic in that they threaten by presenting a competing
religious paradigm that menaces to take away power and
market share (followers). Atheism, however, is far
more Satanic in that it threatens to expose The Big Cheese.
Mega-religio-business is not going to let The Big Cheese be
exposed for the fraud that it is as down goes the entire
business model.
And so, here we are at the cusp
of the 2nd decade of the 21st century still putting our faith in
the fairytales of our ignorant and naive ancestors. As
long as we do, we will continue to have God causing earthquakes
and natural disasters and the suffering that comes along with
it. We will continue to have wars and pestilence for God
know what's best for us and we, mere pukes in his deo-schema for
the universe like it that way.
©
2010 Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski
Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski is co-editor and co-publisher of Metaphoria
along with his life partner and wife, JeanneE. He is 30-year
veteran retired teacher and a member of Veterans For Peace.
His writings have appeared in Metaphoria,
Dissident Voice, After
Downing Street, Buzzflash,
Counterpunch, Thomas
Paine's Corner, Omni
Center, Rutland
Herald, Times Argus,
and others.
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