Dear Theophilus, 

In your last letter, you say that it is fine to talk about the intricate points of theology and what it means to be a person and so on, but the fundamental question of the validity of all that I had to say hangs on whether there is a God. You raise some important objections to belief and I think what you have to say is so important and so widespread that before we come to considering some of the points, I'd like to summarize what you had to say.

You argue that there has been no direct communication from God and if God existed, then it would seem that this kind of communication would arise. If one were to look at religion, one would see a woeful history of bigotry, persecution, benightedness cheering on hypocrisy and decrying enlightenment. Discoveries within science have shown that man is insignificant and in fact, the whole of our planet Earth is of little importance in the progress of things in the universe.

What religion has encouraged has been intolerance and hatred. Anyone with a differing opinion or view is cast in the light of someone damned. The weight of guilt has been placed on the shoulders of humanity by religions and the untold misery caused by psychological breakdown because of the curse of religion has been huge over the span of history.

Take a look at what are called the sacred texts and revelation. The books contain primitive views of the world and are far from what we see to be true in the universe. Some fairy tale about man's fall and sin and guilt have caused immeasurable harm and damage to the development of a healthy humanity. It is ludicrous to claim, as Christianity does, that some action of some individual in the past has somehow influenced the situation in which I find myself. And read those texts for yourself. They are filled with such horror and violence that they would be banned from those who are under eighteen from reading them.

And what a picture they paint of the deity. Capricious, demanding subservience from humans, this deity orders the death of thousands of innocents, all done in the name of the deity. Ingenious 'explanations' have been devised to explain the inconsistencies of God's behavior and to excuse Him from the wrongs that have been committed under His orders.

Science in the twentieth century has given a coherent and rational picture of the origins of humanity without any need for divine intervention. Through evolution, through the principle of the survival of the fittest, through the changes that are incorporated to give advantage to certain members of species, a vast picture of the evolution of the universe and of life has been derived through data by the biological sciences. Consider how futile some of the arguments of the theists have been in this area. Some have claimed that God has used the tool of evolution to attain his goal of creating humans in His 'image'. But what about all the dead end lines of evolution where species have come to nothing and disappeared? Or, what about all those members who have been defective? It seems that either God is incompetent or simply mean, experimenting on life forms to get what He wants.

What have religions attained? Have they ushered in a society which has shown us something radically different? Have they altered history so that humanity is no longer suffering as it has in the past?

Look at societies where religion has been dominant. Social progress has been slow and fatalism has been encouraged with some promise of pie in the sky in some after death life. Religion has often worked hand in glove with governments in suppressing people and getting them to accept the decisions of the state as if they were decisions in accord with the wishes of God. Religion has discouraged education and has encouraged blind acceptance without challenging the authority of those who are in power. If anyone has the audacity to question the Church, they are branded as heretics and anathemas are proclaimed against them as if the will of God were an open book to those who are in power.

Religion has encouraged fanaticism and irrationalism. Examples in Ireland and the Muslim world are sufficient to support this statement.

What we needed God to explain in the past, is now being explained by science. As we learn more about the world, and are able to explain more and more of the phenomena that we come across, we find that the idea of God becomes more and more irrelevant. The biggest argument against the existence of God is the world. It is so imperfect, with species coming into existence and then being extinguished. Is this support for the existence of an all-wise deity? The crime and pain and death are surely so prevalent that no one could agree that this world is created by a benevolent God. It seems to me that the explanation given to us of some fall and the world being now damaged, and because of this we suffer, is totally legendary with no historical or archaeological support. The alternative explanation tried in religion is to propose that some malevolent power, such as Satan exists, and he causes the problems in the world. This again is legendary and mythical because we do not know if the devil even exists.

It is boggling to most people that if God exists, we do not get any more definite, clear evidence of his existence. Why is His existence so ambiguous to us? If God existed, it stands to reason that He could make Himself more known to us and avoid all this arguing and doubt. It seems that the clearest explanation for this observation is that God does not exist.

It is clear, in terms of motives why man has invented the concept of God. Faced with an intolerant and hostile universe, prone to sickness and death, man has needed something to allay his fears and this comes through the invention of a so-called god. This gives man hope in the face of difficulties, but the fact that it gives hope does not mean that it is true. Strong support for the fact that religions are man's inventions comes from the fact that there is more than one religion and they have differing accounts as to man and his place in the universe. Some religions claim there is only one God; others claim that there are many. Some teach re-incarnation; others do not. I could go on and on with all the contradictory teachings and this seems strange if religions are not man's inventions. For me, the real clincher will be when life is created by man and, with the announcement of cloning, it seems that this day has come significantly closer. When that happens, the hypothesis of God will become totally unnecessary and man will have to face the stark truth about the universe. He, man is a product of chance and the universe as such has no meaning and no purpose. All meanings and goals are simply man's inventions to make life bearable. And we will then see religions for what they truly are - inventions of man which man has now outgrown.

Man tends to over-estimate his value in terms of his importance for the universe. But the lie of this is clearly indicated by the fact that even a minor occurrence can change a man so much, that it becomes doubtful if there is anything lasting or permanent in man. Ingesting a little bit of a psychedelic compound will change a man so much that he is hardly recognizable. Doesn't this show that we are simply glorified chemical factories with many complicated reaction occurring? Change one of these, and the whole personality changes. Much of what we do, feel and think is simply the result of chemical reactions that occur within us. Damage the brain, and no communication, no thought occurs, again showing that all that there is, is locked into physical structures directed by chemical reactions.

If life were organized along rational lines, with no religious fanaticism, the world would become a truly better place. Tolerance and respect would become operative and man would get off his pedestal, that there is something special about man, and we would find our proper place within nature without any outstanding claims on our part for our species. The universe is simply something that happened by chance and will disappear. This is the sign of man's nobility: to become aware of this and to participate rationally in the universe as it unfolds along the paths of impersonal laws. Religions, in claiming that man should give up the ego, were darkly hinting at this fact but this was sugared over with promises of life after death so as to make the idea of a greater good, the development of the universe, more palatable for people. It is not we as individuals who count; it is the whole drama of the universe evolving and eventually dying to arise again, in a new form that is the grand drama of existence and we should be grateful that we have been given the opportunity to participate in this.

This is the noble picture painted for us by science and supported by the weight of much evidence. What science claims, it supports with evidence that is open to all and that is challengeable by all. This is the fresh breath of tolerance that science breathes on us and which calls on us to emulate this attitude in our behavior with nature.

Yours,

Bar-Abbas

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