God is real

Tags

conspiracy, politics, religion

Love is real. The sensation I’m feeling when I think of you, the complete and utter dedication to you, is love. I believe you are the perfect person, and as long as your behavior roughly fits my image of a perfect person, my love for you continues to exist; in my mind. Love is real, as long as I believe it is. Loving God is no different, no matter the name you give him or her. And God will never disappoint – you’ve created God in the image of what you consider perfect.

Fear is just as real. And I’m not talking about fear of tigers, snakes or – Lucifer forbid – spiders. Fear of the devil or a harsh God is real. As long as you truly believe an (almost) all powerful being is pulling the strings, you will find evidence of that everywhere you look. Who could possibly have created all of this? What is the purpose of all our suffering?

Seeing purpose in our suffering makes misery bearable. Life is hard now, but staying put, enduring the pain thrust upon us, will allow us to get into heaven; weathering the pain of the present will bring us eternal bliss by His side. Becoming a martyr for our faith gives reason to the pain this life entails. Discovering such purpose gives us direction in life. It gives our stubborn brain reason to stay the course. To justify this course, we tend to look for confirmation of what we believe in. All random occurrences are seamlessly incorporated into our image of the world – and they get added to the list of reasons why God is real. For this to fit – there needs to be purpose behind every non-orchestrated occurrence.

The Koran, so I’ve been told by devote Muslims, says that when the Euphrat dries, the world will come to an end. Climate change or political action is doing just that. Also the Bible considers this river to be the sprung in paradise – and there are more religions who consider the Tigris and Ephrat to be sacred. At the time these religions were created, the catchment areas of these rivers were the center of the world. It would, of course, be perfectly reasonable to consider that, if the source of water for the center of known civilization dries up, the world would come to an end. However, these rivers are no longer the center of civilization. Therefore, I consider the rivers drying up to be a change in the world’s ecology and not necessarily a sign that all life on earth is under threat. Sidenote: all life on earth may very well be under threat due to climate change, and climate action is urgent – but rivers come and go, it’s not due to the drying of an individual river that we should gear up.

The above is but one example of circumstance being incorporated into purpose. Said purpose is also often put to the test in love relationships; how often hasn’t it felt like you two were meant to meet? The comparison between love and religion isn’t mine; and perhaps not even Ilja Pfeijffer’s. This great Dutch author posed the link convincingly in his romance Peachez. As long as you believe, love is real; and so is God. This does not mean there is purpose behind all action, however much we would love to think so.

I realized early this century (and Karl Popper in 1945) that humans apparently have the need for seeing purpose behind random occurrences. I think this is, because a reason for all our suffering makes life bearable. Purposeful suffering requires an entity that causes this suffering. The entity humanity has been relying upon to fill this purpose has been God – for eons. God, in many forms: from Zeus through Zarathustra to Allah and back through the alphabet. But now, especially in Western Europe, people are turning their backs on religion – because God is, obviously, not all powerful.

And to me – that’s it. The world is chaos. Everybody is pulling their weight to minimize their own suffering – even though, usually, shit hits the fan real hard; there is no entity trying to inflict pain, for their gain. There is no grand purpose; no grand plan, and definitely no eternal bliss after death.

However, this seems really hard for many people to accept. For brevity, I steer clear of what I consider the genetics and evolution behind this desire for purpose; me being a widower has to have purpose, right? There has to be a better world somewhere, a reward for living with all this pain? There has to be an entity that benefits from my suffering – and that will continue to inflict pain upon me in order to remain untouchable?

Having secularized, ever fewer people consider the answer to these questions to be God (or Lucifer). Many people do, however, are sensitive to an answer to these questions. And thankfully there are always those who are ready to provide the answer. And the latest, most encompassing answer is Lizards. Shape-shifting lizards rule us in secret, and inflict suffering upon us – especially the non-believers get hit hard, not for being heretics, but for being naive; and said naivety helps the lizards gain power.

Welcome to the world – the latest and at this time still somewhat disorganized religion: Conspiratism; the consequence of secularization is the rise of conspiracy theories (see also the aforementioned work of Karl Popper). Not because its true, but because humans need random occurrences to be put into a purposeful narrative. Something happens – like the Euphrat drying out – and we make up a story that this is the sign of the world ending. Something happens – like mandatory face masks – and we make up a story that this is because the lizards are exerting their tyranny.

God is real. No matter where you look, what happens, can always be written into the purposeful narrative. Your suffering is for a greater good – sometimes someone else’s good, depending on your religion. But as long as you believe hard enough: God is real.

Conatus scribo

Tags

book, Borse Code, conspiracies, conspiracy

I’ve started a manuscript called Borse Code; it will eventually be a book in Dutch. Occasionally, on some Wednesdays, I will post chapters I’ve written here – in English – to see if they work. Let me know what you think, alright? These attempts are not in chronological order.

“You still believe in conspiracy theories”, she said.

“Conspiracy theories? You think that what I’ve discovered isn’t true?”

“Indeed, I don’t think it’s true. As a rule of thumb, you should check how many people have to be sworn to secrecy in order to keep it a world wide secret. And that number in your theory is simply too great.”

“Five.”

“Five?”

“Yes, five. The rest is dead. Who those five are I will show you in a minute. But first I’ll address your allergy for conspiracies.” He started to get worked up, but he didn’t get the chance to finish. She interrupted him.

“Conspiracies are a result of atheism. In the past, the inexplicable chaos that this world is, was explained as the will of God, or whichever deity was locally revered. This chaos was structured referencing the different holy scriptures. And despite contradictions…” She interrupted herself. “Did you know there are supposedly people in India who believe contradictory things can co-exist – they explain it as the will of the gods; you may not understand it, but they – the gods – certainly will. But I digress. Religion structures the world, shapes this chaos surrounding us into something recognisable. Religion makes it manageable, and as long as everyone in a community believes in the same religion, it is easy to talk about it; it’s easy to explain to each other the order in the chaos – as everyone is talking from the same frame of reference. It takes a special kind of intelligence to be able to accept this chaos without religion! The desire for structure is deeply rooted in us. And when religion disappears, the average human searches for something new that provides guidance. And conspiracy theories are a grateful victim for this guidance. Science is not, because any good scientist will immediately admit that they know very little for certain. No scientific research is phrased with the certainty that conspiracy theories are. The latter tell you what the truth is, the former what research shows that the truth may be. The former portray the world as a structured place, with evil rich people at the top, who control us like puppets – just like an all mighty God does for the religious. And now you have concocted the latest chapter in the conspiracy gospel: Hailey has been developed by abuse and murder.”

“Your comparison with the Bible is…”

“I never mentioned the Bible.”

“That’s childish. You talked about religion and holy scriptures. The gospel even! I just add a name to it, and suddenly you haven’t said it. Don’t argue like a coward; stand for what you say. And have the same respect I’ve given you: let me finish.”

Silence.

“Your comparison with the Bible is accurate. In the Bible you can find a lot of decent advice, and a lot of nonsense. At the core the Bible is good, the explanation of the Bible isn’t always. The core of conspiracy theories was, at the turn of this century, that the richest of the rich in this world were enriching themselves shamelessly; and in the process they supposedly had the desire to control the poor; their goal is absolute power, and leaving the common man in hopeless poverty – and at the same time giving these poor the illusion of freedom. But that freedom was of course limited, because anyone who complained about it, would be exiled into the damned corner of crazies and conspiracy theorists. In that corner you can also find the crazies who claim that Finland doesn’t exist. Being associated with them is an easy way to exile a theory into the ridiculous.”

“Chemtrails.”

“Exactly. To make a theory seem ridiculous, all you need to say is that it looks like a chemtrails-theory. And nobody worth their salt azwill believe it any more – except the crazies. Serious thinkers, the rare intelligent people, no longer dare burn their fingers on the topic. And then the average people remain; which automatically means that you’ll also find incoherent, average studies that are easily discredited. But twenty years later an intelligent person like Piketty climbs in the pen and shows with statistics and numbers that the rich actually are enriching themselves. Shamelessly.”

He stopped. He had composed this rant on the spot. The conclusion of this story needn’t be verbalised, right?

“Sooo… You’re saying you’re one of those rare intelligent people and that Piketty is crazy.”

“You really should go into politics. You are a master in twisting words and misinterpreting conclusions. No, I am not a rare intelligent person. I can barely understand what Piketty writes, let alone that we operate at the same level. I’m only saying that at the core a narrative that appears like a conspiracy theory, needn’t be trashed automatically.

Around the turn of the century they were called the Illuminati, who were supposedly enriching themselves shamelessly. Following that accusation, the most outlandish and insane theories were added to it – for example that the Illuminati were one well-greased organisation. They aren’t – the world is chaos. But like I started saying, people desire order, so they make the order up. But the fact that the richest of the rich are mercilessly enriching themselves, was true. And John Keane added to that story how they are controlling the masses.”

“And you’re now going to tell me that you have a solution for a better world?”

“Who do you think I am? Karl Marx? Of course not! I am not one of the rare intelligent, did I tell you that? I have only discovered something isn’t right about Hailey – and I’d like this truth to be publicly known. I haven’t made anything up; I have refrained to add a motivation to the theory that would be swallowed by the conspiracy crazies like cake. No, the motivation of Stork and his cronies is just enrichment. But to get there, they don’t shy away from torture and murder.”

Silence. They both drank their coffee.

“Your passionate story made me forget for a moment why we were here. Hailey – that’s why we are here. Thank you for reminding me. I still think that you’ve made up a conspiracy theory. But you have argued passionately and convincingly why the core of your story could be true. I will take your story to the most intelligent person I know. And if he is convinced that your story is true, you can write it up in one coherent article and publish it; and I will pay for it.”

“And who might that person be?”