Je Suis Charlie (8/365)

January 8, 2015 – I still cannot adequately express my anger about what happened in Paris yesterday.

I’m not an artist, I can’t draw very well, and I’m no cartoonist, so I can’t draw what I see in my mind.

A pen and an empty page are the best I can manage.

That and my anger at any and all organized religion.

And a photograph.

I truly believe that society would be better off without religion. Religion, by it’s very definition, is about judgement. And judgement breeds intolerance.

We are told that we should tolerate religious views.

And isn’t that ironic, given how violently intolerant current and historical religion is?

We are told that the religious should be entitled to discriminate against anything that they don’t believe in (homosexuality, birth control, abortion).

No religion is any better or worse than any other, and those who express that their version of whatever religion is a softer, gentler belief is merely hiding from the historical truth of whatever formal dogma they choose to relate to.

Religion doesn’t make anyone a better person. Ethical behaviour is not a religious construct. In reality, religion allows atrocities to be “forgiven” through admission and penance.

How ludicrous!

I can’t help but express contempt of all organized religion. Anyone who tells me that their religion isn’t “like that” hasn’t closely read their own “book” or they are happily cherry picking only the parts that appeal to them. Religion seeks to quell curiosity and represses questions, so many follow blindly, or cling to the bits that make sense to them.

Salman Rushdie writes: “Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”

Was I always an atheist?

No.

As I got older I stopped believing in fairy tales. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, God. They are all human constructs designed to exert some degree of behavioural control.

Why must we respect that which doesn’t respect?

As I aged I became more comfortable in understanding that we are all here for awhile, and while we are here we should be the best we can be and contribute to the best of our abilities.

And when our lives are over, that’s it. Our energy is reallocated to the universe, ready to be changed and reused.

It’s the First Law of Thermodynamics, the law of energy conservation.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, merely changed from one form to another.

Why do we need fairy tales to make us feel better about something that is already so amazing?

Why do we need more than that?

Je Suis Charlie…..