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Dr. Wysong's Blog -
HOLY BOOKS AND RELIGION VS GOD AND CONSCIENCE
PART III

Neither materialism nor evolution can explain the origin of matter, energy, natural laws, life…anything at all other than what humans fabricate using the stolen parts and laws from creation. We are clearly not our own cause, nor can the origin of the world we find ourselves in be explained by spontaneous processes. We need no person or book to explain this to us. It is obvious to anyone with a pulse. (For those who have faith in evolutionary, materialistic, or religious propaganda, Solving The Big Questions As If Thinking Matters [BQ], proves such faith is unwarranted.)

With regard to ethics, it would seem that conscience, not the tens of thousands of religions at war or at odds with each other, is the best means to living an ethical life. Conscience is like an internal gyroscope we sense, that if obeyed, keeps us in balance. Following a construct of rules laid out by others (morality) shifts responsibility away from where it belongs, squarely on our own shoulders. Memorizing and quoting holy book passages does not equate with spirituality and conscience. In fact, following other humans and their books is a form of idolatry and hero worship.

We should never be content in the discharge of any act as duty to the words of others. Believing that following others' rules is our total obligation to morality (deontology), gets us into more trouble than it solves. After all, don’t the terrorists simply follow the words in the Koran? Did not the Jews simply follow the words of the Bible when they practiced genocide, cruelly killing every man, woman, child, and beast…but keeping the “young virgins for themselves”? (Yes, that is actually in the book.)

There are ethical laws in the universe as sure and true as the natural ones, like gravity and inertia. Cruelty, murder, theft, and dishonesty are just plain wrong. The truth of their wrongness no more comes from a book than the truth of 2 + 2 = 4 comes from a book.

Unfortunately, probing and obeying conscience (adulthood) is much more difficult than simply caving to emotion or having faith in the rules and dogma set by others— a sort of permanent adolescence. Children and animals are gullible, dependent, and obey emotion and fear. Adults should use reason guided by facts.

If you say reason cannot be trusted, that’s only because we either improperly use it, do not totally surrender to it, or pervert it with our emotions. It is the only reliable tool we have and the one that is responsible for every human advance. It alone gets us close to reality (God).

It makes no sense to partition the mind with reason on one side and faith on the other. The reason side is used in our jobs and around the home. Then, when the subject of God comes up, a flip is switched forcing all thought to the other side of the partition to be obedient to a faith in who knows what cockamamie idea.

Faith has no grounding in anything other than desire, fear, dependence, and whim. If I say I believe in X which I cannot prove with reason and fact, putting X into any sentence explains nothing. People would never invest their entire life’s savings in something they have no evidence even exists, but they will surrender their mind to an idea that has no basis in reality by giving it the sanctimonious moniker of “faith.”

Religions, with bookish men chasing proofs by attempting to ape the behavior and words of ancients (pursuing the dead into death), rather than seeking truth in the living present (what was true in the past is true today), are no substitute for the individual exercise of conscience. Would people ever blow themselves up in a crowd, murder innocent children, or torture those who do not believe a certain way by probing their own conscience?

No religious claim to knowing what we manifestly do not creates even one ethical principle (as opposed to doctrines about dress, holy days, etc.) that could not be gleaned by conscience alone—in its true and natural state, not usurped and tainted by culture and dogma. (I have repeatedly asked those who insist that religion and holy books are necessary to teach us ethical behavior to present to me even one ethical principle that cannot be obtained by probing conscience. Never have I gotten even a single example.)

In contrast to looking to creation and conscience, religious dogma and doctrine (things of human origin) require study of ancient human manuscripts, which in turn requires immersion in study of human archeology, ancient human Hebrew, human Aramaic, human Greek, and human Latin and vulgate languages, human modes of transmission of human written words, history of the human Constantine (a pagan) who decided which human manuscripts to include in the Bible, an assessment of the influence of preexisting human religions of the Egyptians, Minoans, Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, etc. and their human holy books. Whether one does this leviathan research first hand or relies upon theological cognoscenti, trust in humans is necessary at every step since all documents are human in origin.

Also keep in mind that relying on those with the most book learning means relying on those with the most second hand information.

In this examination, one must answer why religions that predated the Jews and Christians contained stories of god sons (such as Osiris and Adonis), resurrections, atonement, baptism, virgin births, blood sacrifice, good and evil spirits, the golden rule, etc. (See BQ for a thorough analysis.)

Whole lifetimes can be consumed under the presumption that focusing one’s life on such study is somehow more holy, more righteous and ethical, and puts us in better stead with the creator, than actually listening to conscience and trying to be a better person in tending to family, Earth, and fellow humans. In effect, such people trust a human made thing, a book, more than a creator made thing--our mind and conscience. That makes no sense, but neither does it to claim that one has no time for the study to sort all of this out. If a person does not have time or fears the inconvenience and potential insecurity of critical analysis, then they should have no time to believe either.

If one engages openly in the examination of religions and holy books—not simply seeking the affirmation of a cloud nine preexisting belief or hope—humans, not a perfect creator, appear. Humans are bunglers of the creator’s revelation manifest in the creation. After all, it is people who devise imperfect and imprecise interpretative language, letters, and writing. They are the ones who make paper, pens, typewriters, word processors, printing presses, bindings, and books. Humans are the experts to “explain” it all. No book in existence is absent the imperfect finger of humans.

By contrast, the creation, reality (a true reflection and definition of God), and conscience are a perfect and immutable standard that will never fail us in our search for meaning and purpose. If you want to know if there is a God, afterlife, soul, and purpose in life, you need look no further than your own heart and reflection on the reality you experience every day.

One must be extremely cautious about attributing a human made thing, a book (paper, ink, binding, printing press, human invented words, anthropomorphized god), to the creator and letting that substitute for reason and conscience. If that book is found to contradict itself, contradict reality (God), or be unethical, one would be guilty of blasphemy, sacrilege, libel, calumny, and slander.

In the end, if we are to be held accountable, it seems only reasonable that perfect justice (which is what underlies reality) would demand that we take responsibility for ourselves, rather than have only the Nuremberg defense, "I was only following orders—doing what I read and was told."

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The first two videos demonstrate how that we can never be too sure about our conclusions. That applies to what we see, feel, hear, touch…and read. The last video gives a glimpse into the marvels of our world that can only be accounted for by an intelligence and power beyond our comprehension, an intelligence and power that is certainly not anthropocentrically reducible to a book.

Thinking Thought — "Allegiance to and belief in that which you do not put constantly to the test of open inquiry, is one long sin."— R. Wysong

Thinking Word — inditement - \in·dite'ment\ Click for pronunciation -noun: to treat in a literary composition, to compose or write