"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in
all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak;
a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist,
infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic,
capriciously malevolent bully" (from "The God Delusion", by Richard Dawkins).
Lest you think Dawkins himself deluded, a gentle poet from Amherst also
remarked on God's approval when frost beheaded a flower.
What a way to start a chapter! We could also say that Dawkins had verbally
abused God. Is that possible? Because if so, then God is a victim and, being
surely older than Moses, a victim of Elder abuse. Should we now put God into
an institution? But that has already been done. He has been institutionalized
for centuries, in various creeds and beliefs and dogmas and traditions and
rites and ceremonies and laws and commandments. Nobody really looks at
God any more, only at the gold and silver accoutrements that accrue to
believers, only to fables written by others. My friend says she has "God envy":
others get relief from their anxieties by turning to religious panaceas; she, as a
non-believer, doesn't get the stairway to heaven.
Dawkins' words would please my English teacher, because they clamor for attention, but they wouldn't please many other people. Why is it that we cling
so fiercely to the word, the word of god or anyone else? Does the word, any word, change the reality? Maybe because so often in history the word of the
dominant power group is treated as gospel and woe be to anyone who
dissents. (We have made certain that dissenters don't fare very well, haven't we? Dissenters are dangerous and might even be contagious.) What ferocious
power we give to words, just as
centuries ago our ancestors gave power to rocks and animal spirits.
In the sacking of Baghdad a few years ago, literally thousands of
precious letters, library books, and documents were destroyed, not unlike the
burning of Baghdad by the grandson of Genghis Khan in the 13th century. At that
time it was said that "the Tigris River ran black with the ink of books".
The political scene all over the world today runs black with the ink of deception,
especially if black is the color of your true love's dogma. Never mind that the
dogma is ungenerous and self-serving. Never mind that the words frequently
misstate the facts. Just say it, say it again, say it loud, and pretty soon the crowds will be saying it with you. You might even begin to believe it yourself.
I don't think that most people will say Dawkins' words aloud. Those ideas are
simply too provocative, too far from the gospel of St. Elephant and Sir Donkey. They invoke centuries of
censorship and flirt dangerously with the idea
that the Bullies of Baghdad, or Boston, or Bosnia, might be wrong.
They couldn't be wrong.
Could they?
Because if they are wrong, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average would plunge ten thousand points, religious real estate might have to pay
taxes and save the national debt, and Lourdes might declare bankruptcy.
If Dawkins is right, we might have to think,
rather than rote repeat. We might have to acknowledge how little we know,
and how much deception has been foisted upon us by those who know just as
little but are afraid to admit it. If Dawkins is even a little bit right, how would we
justify dropping the atom bomb, holding slaves, denying legitimacy to certain
lovers and not others, torturing, bombing, napalming - all in the name of the
one and only truth. My truth, of course, not yours. My word!
c. Corinne Whitaker 2011