Why Embracement Is Wrong
If they embrace and adopt either of the two major religions of the Western world (Judaism and Christianity), both are anti-sexual in the extreme. It is this life-negative emphasis that is antagonistic to any viewpoint affirming and validating the life-positive aspects of that great mystery we call existence. These true believers must, of necessity, abandon the scientific method that demands that an extraordinary claim (like the existence of God) demands extraordinary evidence.
Unsurprisingly, gays are no more immune to the seductive allure of survival beyond the grave than anyone else. Succumbing to that tragically false hope readily explains why such a vast majority of our gay brothers and sisters are so eager to jump onto the I want to live forever bandwagon.
How Dare We
In the words of the late, great Harvard paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould, it is only humankind’s extreme hubris to think that we and our insignificant planet earth are important at all in an unimaginably vast, indifferent universe with no benevolent purpose.
Only our unbounded egotism deludes us into believing that a supernatural being or creator would be concerned with our affairs since our existence on earth represents only a miniscule fraction of the overall age of the planet.
Gould convincingly argues that since we are the only species in the animal kingdom aware of our own mortality, religion serves as a powerful coping mechanism in dealing with the unpleasant certainty of our eventual demise.
A Suggested Addition
When born-again Troy Perry, the Christian Metropolitan Community Church founder and pastor, penned his apologetic tome and autobiography, he should have included a parenthetical addition to his title:
The Lord is my shepherd. He knows Im gay (and he promises me everlasting life).
For a truly hilarious insider’s look at how religion maximally exploits humankind’s fear and dread of death and persistent denial of our inevitable, individual extinction and oblivion, read Rev. Charles Merrill Smith’s wonderful spoof:
The Pearly Gates Syndicate, or How to Buy Real Estate in Heaven.
In my indictment of religion as antithetical to true liberation, I wish to focus squarely on two issues: birth control and morality.
Birth Control and Gay Sex
as Two Sides of the Same Coin
A survey of the history of the birth control movement reveals that every single argument advanced against birth control was identical to every single argument opposing gay sex. It was obscene, indecent, immoral, unnatural, sinful, contrary to God’s plan and a threat to civilization.
For those reasons, historically, only leaders from outside the stream of religious orthodoxy were able to perceive the universal benefits to be gained from the regulation of human fertility as a way to rescue our little planet from the ravages of overpopulation, pollution and total ecological disaster.
It Would Have Been Enough
Whereas the disavowal of religion served to fortify the marvelous accomplishments of Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow, Luther Burbank, Mark Twain and countless others, if it had done nothing else but foster the magnificent pioneering work of Margaret Sanger and her heroic fight for birth control, it would have made what should prove inevitably to be the single most important contribution to civilization.
Contrariwise, if religion had done nothing more reprehensible than to thwart the birth control movement, it would deserve the most severe denunciation and condemnation. The fanatical, anti-life views of the Judeo-Christian traditionalists had to suppress birth control since it dealt with a subject they held to be as innately disgusting and revolting as gay sex. And although both birth control and gay sex were equally demonized and criminalized, homosexuality also had the dubious distinction of being pathologized, at least until 1973 when the American Psychiatric Assn. finally decided we gays were sick no more.
In Summation
The life-affirmative philosophy of the birth control movement could not be better summed up than it was by America’s great agnostic orator, Robert Ingersoll.
There is but one hope, he said. Ignorance, poverty and vice must stop populating the world. This cannot be done by moral suasion. This cannot be done by talk or example. This cannot be done by force, physical or moral. To accomplish this, there is but one way. Science, the only possible savior of mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother.
Morality
What excuse can gays offer for being duped into the something-for-nothing syndrome so typical of the Judeo-Christian tradition?
They both speciously guarantee a reward in a future life. But of what worth is the person who lives a good life only because there will be a reward or, what is possibly worse, an avoidance of punishment.
Let us, instead, lead a moral life and relate humanely to other human beings because of a sincere wish to live the best possible life in this, the only world we can ever really be sure of.
Next-World Sloganeering
With increasing frequency, lapel pins and bumper stickers are popping up everywhere with these two catchy slogans:
1) Heaven, the Ultimate Bribe.
2) Hell, the Ultimate Blackmail.
We have had enough of the cults of shame and guilt, and the violence of vicarious atonement, most especially the symbolic cannibalism of the communion ritual when communicants ingest bread and wine as the body and blood of their savior, Jesus Christ, to expiate their sins, since Christian theology teaches that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
An Unbelievers Treatment
Robert Ingersoll on the negative impact of religion:
I oppose the Church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades women; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the natural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the impossible and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men to sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance and laughs at good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of.
The Key Is Fear
What, after all, is religion? It is fear. Fear builds the altar and offers the sacrifice. Fear erects the cathedral and bows the head of man in worship. Fear bends the knees and utters the prayer. Fear pretends to love. Religion teaches the slave virtues obedience, humility, self-denial, forgiveness, non-resistance.
Lips, religious and fearful, tremblingly repeat this passage Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. This is the abyss of degradation.
Religion does not teach self-reliance, independence, manliness, courage, self-defense. Religion makes God a master and man his serf. The master cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet.
A Reasonable Solution?
Instead of living a life based on superstitious appeal to the supernatural and the false hope of eternal life, let us opt instead to build a life in the here and now based only on reason.
