Modernist C of E vicars give comfort to the flock despite internal doubts. Is it morally justified to ease the despair of feeble-minded folk at the bleakness of life, by selling them a space-age, fake-science faith about an afterlife of virtual-reality that is a natural phenomenon, allegedly revealed by particle physics? Theist delusions are mostly negative but Natural Afterlife could be blissful and believable delusion.
06h03-BST Wednesday 23 April 2008-CE
Moderate people (if any) of the millions of faiths and sects throughout human history, might be expected to allow that a faith cannot possibly be 100% accurate in its answers to questions such as “What is life all about?” New knowledge brings updates. Should there be an afterlife, mods would be justified and feel relieved at finding that, actually, none of their beliefs held up. (The extremists might simply deny that any of this was happening.)
Modern-day moderates of the Church of England sound weak and waffley when they speak of a “search for God” rather than preaching line and verse certainties. My evangelical but mild father used the common Victorian term ‘modernists’ to describe those who had incorporated Newton and Darwin into their faith. I have nothing but admiration for the modernist vicar giving comfort to the old folk despite his internal doubts.
Given that there are extreme theists with precise, definite, extreme beliefs, and given that they persist in forcing the beliefs on any that come within their power, the secular and moderate worlds might think it to be a good idea to co-operate in the manufacture of a new faith that would “do no harm but an awful lot of good” (in the words of Philip Birch at the demise of Big-L in 1967). That is what Scientific Spiritualism is about. It is not true. So what?
It is based on fantasies by particle physicists, well known, along with astro-physicists, for their capering and jaunting with fake science. So what? The point is that such guff is less dangerous than the tradition garbage about a guy in the sky whom humans are supposed to have offended. SkyGuy may be a hyper-genius, making the atom appear out of nothing and then multiplying it to make a cosmos, but he is only human. He has his pride.
For the over-reaching desire to know the difference between good and evil (that is: make out own choices) we must now suffer, shriek the theist fools. But, they simper, given SkyGuy’s smoochy-poo, lovey-dovey kindness we can escape of deserved eternal torture by loyally attending a place-of-bullshit every rest day, shoving the old spare change in the collection plate, feeling guilty, and believing the most ridiculous, specific, finicky dogma that the mind of moron can spawn.
Smoochy-poo, lovey-dovey kindness? Er, yeah, I mean, the thorns, thistles, predation, mortality, and painful childbirth were FOR OUR OWN GOOD! Have a sense of humour…
I say unto thee: start thine own Natural Afterlife sect (no deity needed, consciousness floats off on the cosmic energy field as a natural phenomenon at the death of the bod) and liberate the sad theist-dominated folk from fear. Death declared stingless after all! Head on out into space! See my sidebar for the page on afterlife.
FIN 19h16
