Aimee Copeland and Flesh-Eating Disease

 

Aimee Copeland is a beautiful college co-ed who has developed a rare condition called necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease in which the bacteria emit toxins that destroy muscle, fat, and skin tissue. She got it as a result of falling off a zip-line into a small river in Georgia and suffering a gash in her leg. The disease has ravaged her body. She has been battling kidney failure and other organ damage. So far, the doctors have had to amputate one leg and both hands. If the disease continues to spread, she could die. She has shown great bravery while faced with this horrible affliction.

Today her father reported that Aimee is able to breathe without the aid of a ventilator. He said, “I believe God is going to take care of the future." He went on to say, "I just thank God my daughter is alive." When he went to the bank he wound-up hugging everybody at the bank. He said, "Aimee has always been a hugging person, and in a really odd way, I believe that God is sharing Aimee's spirit through me. That's one of the things that has really kept me going."

There is still the possibility the Aimee will die of this unspeakably terrible disease. I wonder whether her father will be able to maintain his optimistic attitude if she does. She is now terribly disabled, missing one leg and two hands, but things could get worse. I hope she gets better.

I suppose that it is natural to thank God for any improvements in Aimee’s condition and to pray to God for to let her live. Belief in God provides a great amount of comfort for people like Mr. Copeland facing catastrophic tragedy. Yet, to me, it is sad that someone like Mr. Copeland goes on worshipping this mythical being called God even though God has allowed this heartbreaking misfortune to destroy the body, and perhaps the life of his daughter Aimee. Does God get credit for every good thing that happens to Aimee, but no blame for the bad things?

If there was a God, an omnipotent creator of the universe, he could not be good. The God worshipped by western religions is supposed to be infinitely good and loving. But any God that would permit a young, innocent girl to suffer with the horrors of necrotizing fasciitis disease, or one of the many other horrible afflictions, would have to be a monster of infinite sadism.

God cannot have it both ways. If he created all things, and if we are to thank him for every improvement in Aimee’s condition, we must condemn him for the horror she has already undergone. If we are to thank God for saving us from fires and tornadoes, we must condemn him for allowing human lives to be destroyed in such catastrophes. If we are to thank him for our daily bread, we must condemn him for world hunger and starvation. If God gets the credit, he also deserves the blame.

What if God does not do bad things? What if they are done by the Devil? It makes no difference. If God is the creator of Heaven, Hell, and all things, he is the creator of Satan. If he is omnipotent and omniscient, but lets the Devil have free reign (See the Book of Job), he is as guilty as Satan. If God can answer Mr. Copeland’s prayer and let Aimee live, he can also prevent Aimee’s disease from happening. If there was a God, and he stood by and let this sweet innocent young woman suffer this torture, he would be unworthy of our worship. He would be a cruel monster.

God does not exist. He is a psychological crutch we use to help us in times of great sorrow. We never think rationally when we rely on God in times of trouble. If he really existed, and if he actually became involved in human life, we would never have the kind of tragedy being suffered by Aimee.

Good Friday--Celebrating A Human Sacrifice

Today is Good Friday, 2012. On this day Christians around the world commemorate the "sacrifice" of a man named Jesus. It is said that the Romans tortured him with whips, made him carry a heavy cross to the hill of Golgotha, and then nailed him to the cross and let him hang there until he died.

The central belief of Christianity is that Jesus was a human sacrifice for mankind. Somehow, Christians have accepted this teaching from an ancient, barbaric time, and still believe it today. They believe that Man committed something called “Original Sin” and that the only way he could achieve salvation from original and other sins was by means of a human sacrifice. They believe that the almighty and eternal God, who is a merciful, loving, and forgiving God, could be appeased only by this hideous bloody and grisly torture and lynching of a human being. Because an ordinary human sacrifice would not be sufficient, the Son of God had to come down to Earth to be the sacrificial victim. He had to be scourged, driven to Golgatha under the weight of the cross, nailed to the cross, pierced with a spear, and slowly suffocated until he bled to death. Crucifixion was one of the most horrible forms of execution ever devised. Yet Christians believe that it must have been pleasing to God.

Human sacrifice was an integral part of much early worship of the gods. Today many religions still use an altar, but the first altars were used to sacrifice human and animal victims. References in literature to the sacrifice of human individuals harks back to the days when this was a routine and deeply reverent practice. In the story of the Trojan War, Agamemnon tells his wife to prepare his daughter for her marriage. He then takes her to the shore and sacrifices her to the gods in order to obtain favorable winds for his trip to Troy. You can be sure that the story is not pure whimsy. Human sacrifice was well known in ancient Greece, as it was in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Canaan, and Israel. At the time of Jesus, human sacrifice was a recent memory.

It is clear that back in the early history of the Israelites, human sacrifice was customary. Consider the stories of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22:1-19, Japhthah and his daughter in Judges 11:30-31, King Ahaz and his son in 2 Chronicles 28:3, and King Manasseh and his son in 2 Chronicles 33:6. Later in their history, the Israelites turned away from human sacrifice and declared it an abomination.
Nevertheless, the New Testament repeatedly refers to the idea that Jesus was a sacrifice for Mankind. For example, John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the World;” John 2:2, “He is propitiation for the sins of the world;” Matthew 20, “Á ransom for many;” Matthew 26:28, “This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins;” Hebrews 9:23-28,“Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;” (See also Philippians 2:17, 4:18; Romans 12:1, 15:16; 1Peter 1:18-19, 2:5; Ephesians 1:7; and Titus 2:14).

The dogma that Jesus was crucified as a form of atonement for Man’s sins did not become established as a doctrine of the very early Church until the fourth century AD. Saint Augustine (354-430), who laid down many of the Church's doctrines, including the doctrine of atonement, said that man was doomed to Hell until Jesus redeemed him. He regarded Jesus’ sacrifice “Not as payment of a debt due to God, but as an act of justice to the Devil in discharge of his fair and lawful claims.”

Like many other aspects of Christianity, the idea of propitiating god with a human sacrifice, and even having the god himself be the sacrificial victim, was not new when the Church dreamed up this explanation of Jesus’ crucifixion. It was borrowed from old pagan myths. I have mentioned the human sacrifices carried out by early Israelites. The Canaanites sacrificed to the gods, and the prophets inveighed against the sacrificing of Canaanite children to Moloch (See Samuel 17:17; Jeremiah 7:31; Ezekiel 16:20, 20:26).

In Egypt, the priests performed human sacrifice when the Pharaoh died. The Pharaoh was believed to be a god. His family and servants were buried alive with him. Eventually the priests started substituting animals, dolls and other forms of art for living victims. In ancient Mesopotamia archeologists have found the tombs of kings with entire households that were buried alive when the king was interred.

In India, it was the custom to perform human sacrifice in order to guarantee a good harvest and appease the gods. The victim was believed to be the god sacrificing himself, in the form of a man, to himself as a god. The ancient Khonds of India believed that their sacrificial victim died for all mankind and became a god.

The ancient Greeks sacrificed a criminal at Rhodes after putting him in royal robes. They did this in memory of the sacrifice by Kronos of his “Only begotten Son.” Themistocles sacrificed Persian youths to Dionysus.

Now here we are in the 21st Century, still believing in gods and still believing that this almighty being we call God could be appeased only by this inhuman sacrifice of Jesus. We are supposed to worship this God because by this sacrifice he enabled us to be saved from the punishment we are due on account of a sin committed--not by us--but by our earliest ancestors. We are supposed to believe in this God because he performed the circus trick of rising from the dead. We are supposed to love this god because he cured a few sick people while letting the great mass of men go on suffering throughout history. We are supposed to adore this god even though he allowed the unimaginable holocaust of World War II, even though he allows millions of humans to die each year of horrible diseases, even though he allows millions of people each year to suffer and die in tornados, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes. Well, thanks God. Thanks for nothing.

Christmas and the Pleasures of LIfe

I have often written about the sorrows of life. Buddhists start with the proposition that life is sorrow and that the only way to deal with it is to relieve oneself from the craving and attachment which are the sources of sorrow. I believe that the Buddhists have a very realistic way of looking at the world. I doubt that you can be happy if you always expect that everything will be wonderful. If you recognize that life is sorrow, you can begin to appreciate the things that lift us out of sorrow and bring us happiness and pleasure.

One of the things that brings us pleasure is the feast of Christmas. While Christmas is a religious festival, and I am a nonbeliever, nevertheless, I appreciate how much pleasure it brings us. It is celebrated at the time of the winter solstice, when nights are long and days are short. It is a time when many people feel depressed by Seasonal Affect Disorder. I’m sure that Christmas, and all of the ancient festivals that preceded it, were created to help people overcome the feelings of depression that accompany the season. Even if we don’t believe in the sacred holiday of Jesus birth, we should celebrate Christmas with all our hearts.

Moreover, there is good reason to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. He may not have been God, or the Son of God, but as depicted in the Gospels and tradition he was a beautiful person whose teachings still affect the world. How could this holy man in the tiny country of Israel have so profoundly influenced history? It has to be his teaching. Although it is difficult for mankind to follow his teachings, they give us a goal to reach. Just reading the Sermon on the Mount is enough to guarantee his place in history. I gladly celebrate his birthday on Christmas day.

I have written about how we are all born with an evolutionary tendency toward optimism. It is a genetic adaptation that is, no doubt, partially responsible for our survival as a species. Somehow, in the face of tragedy, disappointment, pain, and sorrow, we are able to hope for better things to come. Somehow in the face of old age and its accompanying disintegration and eventual death, we are able to go on living and even enjoy ourselves. You would think that we would all be profoundly depressed at our coming fate, but most people are able to go through old age without too much sorrow.

One of the reasons that we are able to face the sorrows of life and the problem of aging is because of the many pleasures in life. In another essay I wrote: “It is wonderful to enjoy the pleasure of love and sex, to feel the beauty of a lovely spring day, to appreciate great art, literature, film, and theater, to take joy in the play of young children, to take pleasure in food and drink, to dance, to sing, to laugh, and sometimes, even to cry. Bart Ehrman tells us that we should confront the evil in the world by enjoying life, and that part of that enjoyment should be the helping of other people. Perhaps that is the answer to depression.”

Opposed to all the sorrow in the world there are things that make us feel that life is sweet. Even for someone in his 70s, like me, there are things that sweeten the day and lift me up. When I get up in the morning, I go into the kitchen and make coffee. I sit by the window drinking the coffee and looking out at the bird feeders and bird house in our back yard. Drinking coffee, made the way I like it, gives me great pleasure. I don’t know why the birds make me happy, but they do. One time when Julie and I were watching a squirrel try to climb a Sheppard’s crook that held a bird feeder, and that we had greased to prevent squirrels from climbing, Julie’s daughter came in and, seeing what we were doing, said: “You two need to get a life!” Nevertheless, watching birds gather around the feeder and watching a bird go in and out of the bird house in the yard gives me a thrill.

Almost all people love beautiful weather. When you look around on the first really beautiful Spring day, you will notice that people are smiling and have a bounce in their steps. I can remember certain days at Lake George in New York when the sheer beauty of the day, the lake, and the mountains filled me with rapture. Over the period of my life, there are particular days that stand out in my mind because they were so lovely. I’m sure that evolution has given us a love of the natural things of the world. We feel connected to the earth because we come out of the earth and are an integral part of it.

For me, one of the great pleasures of life has been reading books. Even back when I read difficult, abstruse texts, I enjoyed it. I always came away with the feeling that I was learning something. I read novels and page-turners for the sheer enjoyment. I have read many of the world’s greatest books, and I feel that they have enriched my life. One thing all my reading has given me is the ability to write well. One of my greatest joys in life has been the ability to write newspaper columns. I have also written a book, though it has not been published.

I find that a compliment to my love of reading and writing is the pleasure I take in computers and the internet. The word-processing capacity of computers has made my writing much easier, faster, and better. I was thrilled the first time I was able to get on the internet and get information from around the world. E-mail has enabled me to stay in contact with my children, family, and friends wherever they might be. Each new development gives me, and most other people, great delight. Now through Skype I am able to see and talk to my children who live far away. I may not be up-to-date on all technological developments, but I can appreciate how much enjoyment they give the people who are.

I have always enjoyed looking at great art. I don’t know why, but when I am in a museum, a wonderful feeling overcomes me as I look at the brilliant creations of great artists.

I love good movies. My taste in movies may not be that of a sophisticated movie-buff, but I do get a lot of enjoyment out of certain movies, especially action movies.

I also love sports, especially football, basketball, and baseball. It is a relaxing delight to watch a sports event which takes your mind off all the worries in life. When the sports event becomes a white-knuckle thriller, it is even better. I think that the reason we root for local teams is because that heightens our enjoyment of the contest.

I get a lot of pleasure out of humor—my own and other people’s. I love to tell jokes and stories, and zing one-liners at people. I think that humor is for me, and for many people like me, a way of dealing with the hard things of life. If we can turn things around and upside-down, they are not so scary. When I was a kid, my favorite performers on television were the comedians. I loved The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Jackie Gleason Show, and Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar. As a young man I felt that shows like Monte Python’s Flying Circus were created just for me. I have always loved shows like MASH, Cheers, and Seinfeld. Laughter is a kind of drug that releases tension.

The greatest source of pleasure in my later years has been music, especially the lovely melodies of classical artists. Lately I have been listening to more and more, and discovering beautiful pieces of which I was unaware. I have listed many of them in the profile on my blogs, and will not do so here. Needless to say, there are some compositions that can lift me out of this world. There have been times when a beautiful piece of music has brought me to tears. I am not ashamed at those tears. I also love many popular songs and have made lists of my favorites. I envy the lucky people who can sit down at a piano or pick-up a violin and play their favorite music. For them music must be a special and powerful pleasure.

Perhaps the highest form of pleasure is love. We love our parents, our brothers and sisters, our children and grandchildren and even our dearest friends. It is likely that this love is programmed into us as an evolutionary adaptation. But it is still one of great joys of life. I never thought that I would care if I had grandchildren, but when my daughter called me one day and said that she was having a baby, my whole body filled with happiness.

There is also the kind of love we feel for our lovers. Even apart from the sexual pleasures we get from these relationships, there is a powerful psychological gratification to them. When you add sex to a very good love affair, it is almost transcendental. Nature has given us sexual pleasure as a way to increase our procreation of the species. Like many of the gifts of nature, this is a marvelous one. I feel sorry for those people who go through life without ever experiencing it.
There are many other things in life that bring us happiness and pleasure. Among them are good conversation, recognition of our accomplishments, talent, success, respect, prosperity, good health, and good children. One thing that Bart Ehrman mentions is helping other people. We may not have a lot of money to donate to charity or energy to work at some charitable endeavor, but when we do something for other people it always gives us a sense of self-worth. Thus, we should consider it one of the pleasures of life, one of the best. It is good because self-worth, self-love, self-respect are some of the things that can really make our lives better. If we have them, we can face the terrors of life with confidence and courage.

We are all fighting to overcome the sorrows of life. Each day brings more news of the hardships faced by people. It can make us depressed, but we can also find pleasure if we concentrate on the things that bring us happiness. One of those things is the season of Christmas. Most people love the season of Christmas, the lovely decorations in stores and at home, the beautiful Christmas Carols, the Christmas trees, the high spirits of people, and the giving and receiving of gifts. It is a wonderful way to celebrate the birthday of a good, kind, loving, wonderful man, Jesus of Nazareth. Merry Christmas!

The Birth of Jesus

Now as we approach the Christmas holiday we should take a look at the true history of Jesus' birth. Scholars agree that the story of the Nativity is fictitious. This does not mean that we should not celebrate Christmas, but it does mean that there is nothing wrong with taking Christ out of Christmas. People have celebrated the winter solstice for thousands of years. Long before the birth of Jesus, people celebrated the birth of other pagan gods at the winter solstice. The winter solstice is a bleak time of year when the days are short and the nights are long. People have always needed something to pick-up their spirits at this time of year. That is the true purpose of Christmas, and the real reason why we celebrate Jesus' birth at this time of year. Here is the true story of Jesus' birth.

In the first place, the story says that Caesar ordered a census to levy taxes and that Joseph, as a descendent of David, had to travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, to register (Luke 2:1-5). This was supposed to fulfill the prophecy that the “Messiah” would be “from the house of David.” The story is inherently preposterous!

There is no evidence that Augustus Caesar ordered a worldwide census at the time of Jesus’ birth. There was a census under Quirinius, the Governor of Syria (Luke 2:2), but that occurred after the death of Caesar and years after the birth of Jesus. The late Raymond E. Brown, S.S., a Catholic priest, internationally regarded as the dean of New Testament scholars, and former Professor of Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, said in his magesterial "The Birth of the Messiah," “Luke’s reference to a general census of the Empire under Augustus which affected Palestine before the death of Herod the Great is almost certainly wrong.” Said Brown, “Luke begins his story with a reference to a census of the whole world ordered by Augustus, conducted by Quirinius, and affecting Joseph, a Galilean inhabitant of Nazareth, so that he had to go to his ancestral city. This supplied the occasion for the birth of of Jesus in Bethlehem....this information is dubious on every score...We have no evidence of one census under Augustus that covered the whole Empire, nor of a census requirement that people be registered in their ancestral cities.” In a census, they counted people at their place of domicile, not where they were born. They would not have required Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. The Romans cared nothing for genealogies. They would have wanted him to stay in Nazareth and be counted where he lived.

The distinguished biblical scholar, E.P. Sanders, points out that David lived 42 generations before Jesus. He asks, why would would the Romans require Joseph to register for a tax in the town (Bethlehem) of an ancestor who lived 42 generations earlier? He describes Luke’s story of the Nativity as “Fantastic!” Bart D. Ehrman asks, “Can it be possible that everyone in the empire was to return to the place their ancestors lived a thousand years earlier?”

Another mistake by the authors of the Gospels is that they place the census of Quirinius and the birth of Jesus during the Reign of Herod. Scholars know that Herod was already dead at the time of Quirinius’census. Raymond E. Brown says, “...the one and only census conducted while Quirinius was legate in Syria affected only Judea, not Galilee, and took place in A.D. 6-7, a good ten years after the death of Herod the Great.” Moreover, Caesar would not have taxed Judea while Herod was king. And, at the time of Jesus’ birth, Bethlehem would have been in an area that was exempt from taxation.

The world's most highly recognized biblical scholar, a Catholic priest named John P. Meier, notes that it would have been impossible for Mary to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem in an advanced state of pregnancy. Meier says, “Somewhere aroung 7-6 B.C. a Jew named Yeshua, a shortened form of the Hebrew Yehoshua (Joshua), was born in the hillside town of Nazareth in lower Galilee. The Infancy Narritive traditions that locate his birth in Bethlehem of Judea (traditions isolated in chap. 2 of Matthew and Luke respectively) are probably later Chriustian theological dramatizations of the belief that Jesus was the royal Davidic Messiah.”

Jesus obviously was not born in Bethlehem. He was not born on December 25 either. Nobody knows the date on which Jesus was born, but it definitely was not December 25That was the date of the birth of the Greek/Roman god Mithras. The story of Mithras is similar to the story of Jesus.

Mithras was the god of light, or the Sun, and was born of a virgin. He was identified with a bull who had to die as a sacrifice for all humanity. His worshippers believed that Mithras promised resurrection from the dead and that he ascended into heaven. The worship of Mithras included forgiveness of sin by baptism of initiates and a communion of bread and wine to commemorate Mithras’ last meal on earth.

The early fathers of the Christian Church did not know the date when Jesus had been born, so up until the fourth century AD there was no celebration of Christmas. The worship of Mithras presented a real problem for the Church fathers because of the similarities to the worship of Jesus. There were pagan festivals around the time of the winter solstice, such as the Roman feast called Saturnalia which was dedicated to the god Saturn. In around 353 AD, the church fathers decided to combat Mithraism and other pagan holidays by celebrating the birth of Jesus on Mithras’ birthday, December 25. Merry Mithramas!

Born In The Wrong Century

Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong century. I am an atheist who has spent his life studying religion and theology, and has written a book entitled “The Case Against God, A Lawyer Examines the Evidence” (Which is available on Kindle), and yet I do not fully understand why so many people believe in God. I realize that there are millions of atheists like me, and that there are probably millions of people who share most of my beliefs. I know that the number of atheists continues to grow around the world, but I am still puzzled by the prevalence of religion in our society. Why is this so?

I recognize that we all think that we are correct in our opinions and beliefs. People who believe in God are often quite certain that nonbelievers are terribly mistaken or downright evil. Atheists think that believers are terribly mistaken or downright stupid. How can we be sure that we are right?

I recently listened to several televangelists on T.V. On the same day I also listened to the channel that broadcasts the thinking of the Catholic Church. The Catholic channel was quite moderate and thoughtful, but it was nevertheless focused on this being whom I believe to be mythical—God. I find that most people with whom I speak believe in some kind of God, even if not in one of the organized religions. The televangelists, unlike the Catholics, speak to the ignorance of their listeners. Their silver-tongued orators appeal to their listeners’ emotions, prejudices, and hates. But their message is not substantively different from the message of the quiet thoughtful priests and laymen of the Catholic channel. It is that there is a God who created, controls, and continues life on Earth and in heaven. It is that we should love and worship that God because he is all loving and good. The thing that amazes me is not that the yokel televangelists believe in God and spread their ignorance around the world, but that moderate and intelligent priests and philosophers like the speakers on the Catholic channel hold a set of beliefs about God that is as absurd as the beliefs of the rednecks.

On the same day I also listened to the PBS science show, NOVA, and heard a discussion of the possibility of a multi-universe or “Multiverse” by the physicist and writer, Brian Greene. Green postulated that there may be an infinite number of universes out there, which would mean that statistically speaking, there would probably be a universe exactly like ours with everything the same as in this universe, including our galaxy, solar system, planet, humans, and an identical reproduction of each of us. This gives rise to the question of whether, if I were to die, I would continue to live in another universe, and therefore be immortal. I have never believed in life after death, but I recognize that the idea is not forbidden by the laws of physics. This does not, however, change my core belief that there is no life after death.

For most of the people in the world there is no philosophical postulate like the one by Brian Greene. They simply feel that after we die our soul goes to heaven and lives eternally in heaven with great glory and happiness. I know that there is no basis for such thinking, and I am absolutely certain that it is wrong. I am also quite certain that death means the end of all life, memory, thinking, feeling, everything. I am firmly convinced that even if the Multiverse concept is correct, this life of mine, this brain, this body, this mind and memory, this being, will, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist. Even if an exact reproduction of me were to exist in a different universe, and even if that being continued to exist long after I am dead, I am certain that I would not experience that life or know about it.

My perplexity about the beliefs of others is that I do not understand how they can go on believing in God or anything supernatural without having even a scintilla of evidence to support such beliefs. After I lost all belief in God, I became able to see the many absurdities that surround religion, absurdities that I had previously taken for granted, like belief in the sacredness of holy water or the usefulness of blessing the throats on the feast of St. Blaise. I took for granted that God was situated in the sanctuary of the Catholic Church, and that you had to genuflect each time you walked in front of it. I took for granted that a priest on the alter had the power to change ordinary bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ—and that for some reason, the most important thing you could ever do was eat Christ’s body and blood.

I recognize that I am simply one person who insists that his atheism is correct, but I also recognize that my ideas are supported by many brilliant people. Most of the world’s leading scientists do not believe in God. Most of the highly intellectual thinkers in the world are atheists. Thus, I am not alone. I’m sure that most of those scientists have the same problem I have understanding why so many people believe in and worship a non-existent being.

It is amazing to me that people pray to God for help of some kind or other. There has never been any evidence that God answers prayers. People pray to God for health, but there is not a single case that anyone’s health was ever helped by the hand of God. People point to the Bible as evidence that God has performed miracles, but study of the Bible reveals that it is simply a book of myths with practically no historical value (See my book, “The Case Against God”). There is no evidence of any kind that God or anybody else ever performed miracles.

If millions of people around the world agree with me, why do I feel that I was born in the wrong century? Perhaps it is because I am mystified by the fact that so many other people continue to believe in God and in all the accessories of religion. I would think that it is self-evident that there is no God. I would think that all of the things surrounding religion are so absurd that uneducated, simple, even stupid people would recognize the facts. But as I watch television, I see intelligent priests and laymen seriously discussing concepts like prayers for the poor souls in Purgatory, prayers to the saints, devotion to the Virgin Mary, and the healing powers of places like Fatima and Lourdes. To me, such talk is incredibly stupid, yet the people who engage in it do not seem like stupid people.

I am not surprised by the hillbilly televangelists roaring out against sin in their southern drawls, but I am simply amazed to see priests of the Catholic Church draped in elaborate vestments, carrying out ancient rites in gigantic cathedrals, surrounded by golden statues, crucifixes, chalices, and other sacred items of priceless metals. It is as if God would want to be worshipped with an elaborate and dazzling display of finery.

A friend of mine said that one day there will be no churches and that places like St. Peter’s Basilica will be museums. I am sure that he is right, but I still wonder why it is not like that today.

Depression

I have long suspected that depression might be the most realistic way of feeling. I have written about the many sorrows, tragedies, and horrors of life, and have often wondered why depression is classified as a mental illness. Illness is something that is not normal. Depression should be considered a normal way of feeling, thinking, and behaving. Anybody who takes a hard look at life realizes that as we age, if we don’t die young, we go through a long period of physical, and often mental, disintegration. In old age we become more and more reliant upon doctors, surgeries, treatments, therapies, medications, and hospitals. In the end, we die, often in great pain and agony. Some of us may think that there is life after death, but that is most unlikely.

Even if we are especially blessed with a life full of riches, good health, respect from the community, and fine children, we still have to go through the degeneration of old age and the ultimate insult of death.

When we look around us we see a world overflowing with misery. I have written about the massive amount of tragedy in the world resulting from poverty, disease, starvation, war, accidents, natural disasters, lack of clothing and shelter, mental illness, pain, addiction, sexual abuse, crime, envy, cruelty, sadism, dishonesty, deceit, disloyalty, treachery, infidelity, political tyranny, bigotry, ignorance, and many other causes of sorrow. Nobody goes through life without experiencing some of these evils. Yet most of us find that life is sweet, and we have a desire to go on living and not to die. One would think that it would be quite natural to want to commit suicide, but that is looked upon as a horrible thing. Why?

In an article by Tali Sharot in the June 6, 2011, issue of Time Magazine entitled: “The Optimism Bias,” the author, a cognitive scientist, finds that we are all genetically programmed with optimism. She says that without a neural mechanism generating optimism, all humans would be mildly depressed. In other words, even though the events of life should make us depressed, we tend to look for a silver lining because of an evolutionary adaptation of our brain which makes us optimistic even in the face of horror and tragedy. This is a tremendously important finding about human nature. It is actually this genetic tendency toward optimism that keeps the human species alive. Without it we might all commit suicide.

Tali Sharot’s finding helps explain the existence of religion in our world. A number of cognitive scientists, including Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer, and David Sloan Wilson, claim that religion is an evolutionary adaptation. Humans go on believing in gods, heavens, paradises, and life after death, despite the complete absence of evidence for their existence. I assume that such beliefs help to relieve us of the crushing grief surrounding the death of a loved one. They help us to deal with the dismal prospect of our own death. In the usual religious funeral services, the pastor will assure the relatives that the deceased “is in a better place.” Most people are unable to deal with the likelihood that such beliefs are overly optimistic and unwarranted.

One of the most terrible tragedies that can occur to a family is the death of a young child. While such a death destroys the life of some parents and siblings, others are somehow able to deal with it. They may be comforted by the belief that the child went to heaven and is living a life of wonder and beauty in the presence of God. If such people were able to critically examine such beliefs I think they would wind-up in deep despair. They would realize that there is no rational basis for such beliefs. The genetically built-in predisposition toward optimism enables such persons to get around the enormous grief of death and to go on living.

Despite this neural predilection for optimism, millions of people in America and around the world are depressed. The use of antidepressant medicine is widespread. Some critics claim that we use far too many antidepressants. I don’t agree. If the sorrows of the world are as prevalent as I think, it is surprising that there are not more people on such medications. Even depressed people want to go on living and do try to find happiness. The genetic predisposition toward optimism makes them eager to find some good even in bad situations. Nobody wants to be unhappy.

Our gene for optimism might help explain many of the ways we seek to find pleasure. Today I was listening to some beautiful music. It made me feel wonderful--as have so many beautiful pieces of music. Perhaps music is one of our ways of coping with the sadness of life. During times of depression and sorrow I have often turned to music. One piece that has soothed me is the slow movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. While I do not believe in God, I remember the line in the movie Amadeus where Salieri looks at the scores of Mozart and complains that somehow this must be the voice of God. There are times in great music when it almost seems that the beauty comes from something supernatural.

It is a good thing that we are blessed with a gene that veils the sorrows of life. It enables us to go on living, and sometimes to feel great bliss in the midst of all the bad things of life. It is wonderful to enjoy the pleasure of love and sex, to feel the beauty of a lovely spring day, to appreciate great art, literature, film, and theater, to take joy in the play of young children, to take pleasure in food and drink, to dance, to sing, to laugh, and sometimes, even to cry. Bart Ehrman tells us that we should confront the evil in the world by enjoying life, and that part of that enjoyment should be the helping of other people. Perhaps that is the answer to depression.

WHY DO CATHOLICS GO ON BELIEVING?

When I was a young boy I wanted to be a Catholic Priest. It seemed like a sure way to gain prestige and honor throughout one’s life. I went into the Catholic Seminary, but while I was there it occurred to me that there may be no such thing as God and that I may be wasting my life. I left the seminary and began a lifelong search for the truth about God. Ultimately, I concluded that there is no such thing as God, and that all teaching about him is an illusion.

Today, as I drive by Catholic Churches on Sunday the parking lots are filled with cars. It is plain to see that millions of Americans still believe in the Church and still go to weekly mass. It astonishes me to think that with all of the scandals and errors of the Church, there are still a lot of people who want to believe that this is the true religion.

People do not seem to be bothered by the silliness of a Pope strolling around magnificent cathedrals clad in lustrous medieval vestments and wearing a fabulous medieval crown. They are not turned off by the absurdity of a Pope claiming to be infallible on matters of faith and morals. They are not in the least bothered by the claim that Catholic priests can turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.

Catholics go on believing even when their rational faculties are attacked by the most bizarre claims of the Church. When the Shroud of Turin was exposed as a Thirteenth Century forgery, believers refused to accept the evidence and continued to venerate the cloth. When the James Ossuary was proven to be a fraud, believers continued to insist that it was the receptacle of the bones of James, the brother of Jesus.

Catholics who study history seem unfazed by the many atrocities and abominations committed by the Catholic Church in the name of God. They hear about the Crusades and their slaughter of innocent Jews and Moslems. They read about Medici Popes with their rampaging greed and lust. They read about the Inquisition and its sheer horror. They read about the expulsion of Jews from Spain in the 1400s and the Church’s confinement of Rome’s Jews to a place called the Ghetto. They learn of Pope Pius XII’s failure to speak out against the Nazi terror and the aid given by Catholic priests to escaping Nazis who were being sought after World War II for crimes against humanity.

When the Catholic Church forbade the use of contraceptives, millions of Catholics went on attending mass while continuing to use the forbidden birth control devices and pills. When it was revealed that thousands of Catholic priests had practiced child molestation on tens of thousands of victims over several decades and that the hierarchy had protected the priests and failed to enforce the laws against this abomination, Catholics simply continued to attend mass in the dioceses where such priests and bishops fester.

Catholics have a powerful need to believe in their Church even in the face of the worst scandals and happenings. In my book, "The Case Against God: A Lawyer Examines the Evidence" (now available on Kindle), I discuss the reasons why people go on believing in God despite the absence of evidence for his existence. This need to believe in God makes them able to believe in the Catholic Church with all of its disgrace, dishonor, and scandal. Catholics are taught that the Church is more than just the popes and clergy. It is the body of Christ, and therefore even when a bad priest (say a pedophile) says mass, he is capable of turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.

As I noted in a previous blog, the “sacrifice” of the mass is actually a reprise of a bloody and disgusting lynching and murder of Jesus as a human sacrifice to propitiate a loving God on account of humanity’s sins. The whole basis of the mass is an affront to human intelligence.

Somewhere in my youth, after leaving the seminary, I began to realize these things and stopped considering myself a Catholic. I don’t fully understand why most thinking Catholics do not do likewise.