It certainly seems as if they were meant for each other. Reverence for our Creator and awe at the magnificence of our world have been with us as long as we have been humans. Forms of morality and means of enforcing them have been an essential part of human society from the very beginning. What a perfect fit! We yearn to understand the reasons for our lives, where we came from, and where we are going. We struggle to understand how we can all best fit together so we can all survive together. We keep trying to piece together our beginning, our end, and how we are going to get to our final destination as a species. It seems to be more than a marriage. It seems as if the two are inseparable. We can’t talk about our wonder at the universe, our religions and our God beliefs without also talking about how that Deity wants us to live. Human conduct and human religions appear without question to come from the same pot of stew: who are we, where are we headed, and how should we behave while we are here?
Like most marriages, however, what seems to be destined to live together for an eternity, has baggage we either didn’t know about, or did not pay enough attention to at the beginning of that perfect relationship. Both religion and morality have a dark side. Each fails its partner from time to time, and sometimes abysmally. Each has multiple facets, some of them terribly destructive. Neither serves the human species fully all of the time. Both of them are guilty of cheating on their partners. Whether this marriage can be saved or not is open to question. Some serious counseling is needed, at the least. Both badly need a reality check and renewed devotion to their partner. Both are headed for a nasty divorce, unless they mend their ways.
As far as human morality is concerned, she can best be described as a shifty character. She is never constant, always changing from one period of history to another, and always greatly variant from one society to another, at any one time in history. War crimes trials are always held by the victors, who accuse the losers of evil. The losers are not allowed to hold their own war crimes trials, even though great atrocities were committed on both sides during any conflict. Jews believe it is moral to attack Palestine and Lebanon, because those societies question their self-appointed status as the chosen people. Muslims believe it is moral to guide airplanes into the World Trade Center towers, because they are killing infidels and striking at the Great Satan. Our born-again Christian president states that his God told him that the United States of America should invade Iraq, because it is the moral thing to do, as a Christian nation. Our morality is not constant, our ethics are not constant, and our judgments as to what is right and wrong are completely swayed as to what is in our best interest. We seem to never take into account what will be best for all people when we make our “moral” decisions. We seem to only care about what will satisfy our own greed, jealousy, anger and egocentricity, and then call that decision “moral.” You can’t pin morality down. She will always change, according to who wants her and what they want out of her. She has always been a willing partner in this complicity.
Religion is even worse. He is a big blowhard and hypocrite. He claims to have the answers to all of life’s mysteries, and promises he will do marvelous things for his partner and all those who believe in his stories. And he does indeed have some remarkable stories. He tells us that his father, the great Creator, began the universe, did so with a plan in mind, put humans in charge, made us look like Him, and will manipulate the universe on our behalf. Religion tells us that we are going to live forever. The only great catch is, we have to believe his fancy stories with all our heart, soul and mind. If we do believe his myths, he tells us that we will live forever in pleasure. If we don’t believe a particular set of myths, that being the great majority of us, we are still going to live forever. Unfortunately, we are also going to be tortured forever, for our disbelief. Religion is not a very nice guy. He plans to burn most of us for an eternity. He is also two-faced. He tells the Jews that He is on their side, and has chosen them as the select people who will eventually rule over all other people. He tells the Christians that He is on their side, and that He will help them become dominant over all the world. He tells the Muslims that they should kill anyone who does not believe that Muhammad was the latest and greatest prophet of the human race. He tells other things to other believers, letting them think that they are the possessors of the truth of human existence. Then He stands back to watch us fight and kill each other because our God is on our side. He preaches intolerance and hatred to each group of His followers. He hides behind the morality of his wife, while leading the life of a hateful bigot.
After rational consideration of this marriage, it appears clear that it is time for a divorce. Our religions contain multiple myths, which teach us false guides for our lives. They tell us that we are superior beings, all-powerful, and destined for immortality. They tell us that we personally have God on our side, and only on our side, whichever of many faiths we claim for allegiance. These false beliefs lead us to make terrible mistakes when we deal with other humans. We are, in fact, insignificant as far as the universe is concerned, destined to be eliminated by the universe at some time in the future, and have only one brief life to live. We can only make moral decisions that are right for all of us, when we divorce our morals from the wild false myths of our religions. Only then can we clearly see that we have to treat all humans, all beliefs and all life with respect, so that we can all reach our maximum potential while we are here.