The life I have been living, since leaving religion, is a life of freedom and possibilities. With this in mind I decided (quite some time ago) to take some (believe it or not) biblical advice directly from St Paul - try everything, keep the good. Well, having been a saint (or as close to one as one can get) for such a long time, my life had been one of devotion and obedience, and having been such a religious fanatic, I missed out on a lot of living.
Now if you
look at the bible and especially the apostles, like Paul and John the
Revelator, you will notice that they literally tried everything, and some of
the bad habits seem to have stuck. There is evidence that I will share with you
further on.
When I
stepped out of the box, I really did try almost everything at least once
and since I know what it feels like to be drunk, for example, it won’t happen
again. There’s a thing called moderation and that is what I stick to now. But I
did want to know what it feels like to be high on weed (cannabis) just once,
and seeing as I didn’t like smoking, we decided to make some choc-chip weed
cookies.
Now what
I’m about to tell you is the absolute truth. When the batch came out of the
oven I tried my first cookie with a cup of Earl Grey tea (my favorite). I
waited for a while and nothing noticeable happened, so I tried a few more.
Unfortunately, I am the most impatient person around. Eventually I felt
a little light headed and went outside to relieve myself in the fresh air and
that’s when I first saw it - a massive white rhino grazing on our front lawn. I
went back into the house and sat down next to a big African lion in my lounge.
I was confronted by the Big Five everywhere I looked. But to crown it all I
looked out toward the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea having seven
heads and ten horns. And the beast was like a leopard and it had feet like a
bear, and, oh my god, where had I heard this before? John, were you smoking
weed?
Anyway, it
was a long, long night and the next morning, which took a millennium to reach,
I took the remaining choc-chip cookies, put them in a plastic bag and threw
them in the trash. “F*** this,” I said, “John can keep it.” On the following
Friday when I put out the trash, the proverbial shit hit the fan. One of the vagabonds
scavenging through the garbage found the stale cookies and devoured the whole
bloody lot, in one go. Boy, did I have my hands full with him. I eventually
loaded him into the back of my pickup and drove him far away from our home,
dropping him in a vineyard so that it would take him some time to find his way
out of the labyrinth. The poor man. I can just imagine what he went through.
Paul had it
wrong once again. Some things are not worth trying … not even once.
Someone
asked me the other day, how I perceive good and evil, and what I use as a moral
compass, being an unbeliever. Uggghh!! Here we go again. Here’s my question:
Are all believers good and are all non-believers evil, by default?
A survey in the UK revealed the following:
- 50% of the population are non-religious
- 20% are Christian
- 30% are Muslim
- 3% are indecisive
This means,
there are about 1.5 times as many non-believers as Christians. So, according to
those who believe that good morals can only come from religion, there should be
loads of non-believers in prison, and hardly any believers.
A national
survey of the prison population, however, found that 40% of the inmates were in
fact Christian, 30% Muslim and 27% were non-religious. So actually, the
proportion of religious inmates is disproportionally high to the general
population and the non-religious disproportionally low, showing that believers
are almost twice as likely to be in prison for a criminal offense than a
non-believer.
My point is
that you don’t need religion to have a moral compass. You do, however, need
religion to cover up not having one. Morality and altruism spring from
empathy, societal norms and personal principles, not from acknowledging a
higher power. Doing good does not require belief. Sometimes good people make
bad choices. It doesn’t mean they are bad people, just that they are human.
Before I
give my final answer, I would like to demonstrate the concept of good and evil
using biblical references:
Back to old
John, the weed smoker. In Revelation 12 vs 7 – 9 he says: “Now war broke out in
heaven.” Huh? Sorry, where? In heaven! And here I thought it was the perfect,
sinless place.
If you go
back to the beginning of the bible, God said that he made man in his image,
according to his likeness, and let them have dominion over the earth. So, God
makes man in his image and immediately there’s a test to their obedience. They
could eat from all the trees in the garden, except the tree of knowledge of
good and evil, and if they did, they would die. Enter the snake. It says that
the serpent was more cunning than any of the other creatures which God made.
Now we have a talking snake, putting doubt into Eve’s heart (although she might
have been smoking some weed or eating shrooms), telling her to question God’s
command because he knows that if they eat the fruit, they will become like him,
knowing good and evil. Mmmm
Now
obviously poor Eve was deceived and the couple did the unforgiveable. In
Genesis 3 vs 22 God says that, “man has now become like one of us, knowing good
and evil.” And they got banished. The point is, where did evil start?
Definitely not on earth with poor Adam and Eve. No, they were victims.
There are
about one hundred references to the fact that Lucifer was cast out of heaven.
Isaiah wrote about God in chapter 45 vs 7: “I form the light and create
darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.”
So, why
would people ask me where I got my moral values from? Or, how do I define
good and evil?
Humans have
created religions around these two – good and evil. Good is what we think of as
morally right and desirable qualities and evil as profoundly immoral, wicked
and undesirable.
This is my opinion on the matter: Morality is
based on empathy, compassion, reciprocity, and the well-being of sentient
beings. Actions that promote happiness, reduce suffering, and enhance the
flourishing of individuals and communities are generally considered good, while
those that cause harm, pain, or hinder well-being are deemed evil or immoral.
The absence
of a belief in a higher power doesn't diminish the importance of moral behavior
for an unbeliever. Instead, it underscores the responsibility of individuals to
make ethical decisions based on reason, critical thinking, and consideration of
the consequences of their actions.
Being good is a matter of conscience and common decency: Do not purposefully harm any person, or any living creature, or nature (unless it’s a spider). That’s it. The opposite is evil.
That’s my moral compass. That’s my opinion of good and
evil.
Point made.
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