Beyond anguish or intellectual frustration, it brings me such profound sadness – to share a society and inhabit a world with this persistent madness called faith. I find it upsetting and somewhat tragic when seemingly intelligent adults feel and proclaim, that the exquisitely beautiful world they see before them is not enough. Belief in any form of ‘spiritual’ ‘realm’ sees in the manifestation of the world a need to justify, explain, ‘make sense’ of it all through reference to a notion beyond it. Another world, an invisible domain outside reason and cognition, is called upon to somehow legitimise man’s existence, to somehow validate the very existence of the world and wider universe. It is a bizarre move, a surreal standpoint to support. A claim that something we cannot see, do not know of with our sensory and intellectual faculties, have no conscious awareness of whatsoever, can supersede the vast known world laid bare before us. Yet it is a claim that so many ordinary folk hold dear, a claim so much of an everyday occurrence that it has become divorced from its menacingly absurd nonsensical true face. Faith is still, for many, a seemingly normal thing to possess. This normalisation of religious belief is something I find objectionable, dangerous and ultimately indefensible.

 

Claiming that the vastness, breadth and unfathomable beauty of the perceivable universe is just ‘not enough’, that more is desired and more exists, is, for me, arrogance and acute shortsightedness on an unimaginable scale. Jumping to religious dogma without any second thought, as millions do, followed by grand claims of ‘created bys,’ ‘thankful fors’ and ‘praise be to invisible deities that live somewhere else in unknown forms and doing unknown things with their time outside of time'(!)  is utterly mad. And yet casually consult the average human on the street, on the bus, or in the workplace about this thing called ‘faith’ and the majority will claim to have it, as though this unfathomably obscure thing was as commonplace and acceptable as wearing clothes or eating breakfast.

 

Through the centuries religion has dominated thinking to the extent that even today the cultural norm is to ‘believe’ while the word ‘spirit’ (spiritual, spirituality) is tossed around as though it were an accepted and normalised concept. But it shocks me every time I hear it, and over the course of my life has deeply troubled me. Superstition, a notion that often befriends the word ‘spiritual’, conjures up all manner of strange other-worldliness. Ghosts, the paranormal, magic, communion with the dead, astrology, the afterlife etc. are for me, pure entertainment in the form of fantasy films, TV shows, books and works of art, but never have I once ‘believed’ in any of it, or thought that they contained secret or hidden truths, not since I grew up, anyway. And not since I discovered, through education, the riches that science, literature, art, and philosophy have to offer.

 

It frightens and baffles me to think that for millions of believers, the world is not enough and that reality (used here in the everyday, practical sense of the word) is a problem to be solved by recourse to the super-natural as opposed to the natural; through scientific enquiry and real-world investigation. Our existence, and the existence of everything in the known universe, is not a problem needing resolution. It cannot all be explained through the conjuring up of alien forces at work mysteriously and mystically behind the scenes. Man has only been on the planet for a few thousand years so it seems quite obvious to me that we are still in our infancy concerning the unfathomably complex workings and turnings of the solar system and beyond. It terrifies, where it should inspire. It makes people turn to magic and superstition, where it should lead them to learning and experiment. The thought of our own death fills us with panic where is should lead us to appreciation of the very possibility of life.

 

From the advent of conscious thought, fear and terror of mortality has lead, inevitably, to myth, make-believe and the invention of Gods. In attempts to make sense of things we have constructed all manner of complex, ritualistic, religious customs and ideologies, great tomes have been written, laws erected, monsters summoned – to give us a false sense of control, a false set of meanings and a false comfort blanket to hide under in the dark. But these are nothing more than lies, fictions and grand self-delusions. Cute fairy tales once they leave childhood and move into the adult world suddenly turn malignant. Dogmatic ideologies, wars and cultural quarrelling, religious interference in society and science, the orchestration of state control, and the stagnation of human endeavour due to distractions from fabricated beings are all testimony to the malignancy of faith. This is why I am so vehemently against the normalisation of it within society. Having spent time in religious and non-religious countries it is evident that the latter are not hotbeds of immorality and existential despair, as the former would have us believe, but on the contrary, are places where individual freedoms enable people to experiment with living and construct their own identities and meanings out of authentic engagement with the world.

 

The plain truth is that we are not children and we are not in our intellectual infancy. Somewhere between Galileo and The European Enlightenment, the stirrings of knowledge broke free from the chains of empty faith. Yet, centuries later it seems we still have not broken free entirely. For many, the teachings of science and philosophy are insufficient and bring little comfort, despite them having stone by stone desacralized the monuments of faith and opened up comprehension and appreciation of the human condition. Many people still want more. But what is this wanting more? In my mind it is a slovenly greed for simplistic, ready-made answers. An arrogant self-aggrandisement rooted in the ego’s desire for everlasting life where a glittering heaven awaits. From where I’m sitting, a laziness and existential cowardice pervades the man of faith and superstition. For it is far easier to accept the basic dogmas bequeathed to you by culture, parents, ‘holy’ books and sombre men dressed in pantomime costume, than to question, research, delve, decipher, dismiss and deconstruct on your own. And it is far easier to dream of angels and life everlasting than to stare into the abyss alone. Philosophy, science, mathematics are never easy after all. So perhaps the man of faith, aside from being lazy and a little scared, is perhaps also guilty of a fundamental disinterest. For me, this prospect is saddest of all.

 

Of course there is also ignorance – that ugly, loaded word. I do not count the millions born outside of western Europe, who by chance of geography are, from birth, coerced into a set of beliefs, forced to practise particular patterns of behaviour, who would have to turn away from everything and everyone they love to set themselves free. I only count those born here, who out of scientific illiteracy combined with conscious choice, choose the path of faith over knowledge and wonder. Education is free and instantly accessible. Information, books and documentaries are but a chat, click, clip or library trip away. And you do not need a university education to come to the conclusions I have, in fact, it was a long time before university that knowledge about religious fictions arrived at my door. A lot of turning away from faith is simple common sense. As simple, in fact, as recognising the absurdity of talking snakes, virgin births and burning bushes. And nobody has ever claimed that atheism and mental liberty is easy, on the contrary. But living itself is not easy, and neither is freedom. But a life lived in the recognition that there is no God, no afterlife, no ultimate meaning or answers to the big questions, is infinitely richer, fuller, exciting, rewarding and authentic.

 

But what of all the ‘good’ things religion brings and religious people do I hear the minions cry? What of the countless charities, communities, counsel and comfort brought to the suffering masses? My answer is also very simple. Look at the countries suffering at the hands of religiously inspired regimes, look at the power and wealth of the Catholic Church, the corruption lurking behind the scenes, the endless hypocrisy, the secret abuse, the disrespect and inequality of women in Islamic countries, the bloody histories of faith – together it paints a very bleak picture. I have always liked this quote by the American physicist Steven Weinberg: ‘Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.’ Religion has never made people good or made the world a better place to live in. Communities can still come together on the basis of shared interests and ‘doing good’ without the central focus of a cold, dusty church or an austere gender-divided mosque on the outskirts of town. Besides, moralities built atop the covenants of the Bible or the Qu’ran are actually pretty frightful and, ironically, far from ‘moral’.

 

Believers sometimes also claim that religiously inspired experiences provide some kind of unique insight into the ‘truth’ of things – that spiritual contemplation gives them access to something ‘higher,’ something more profound and deeper than what ordinary conscious experience can offer. I would say that they are possibly just misunderstanding or mislabelling their experience – perhaps higher or deeper consciousness or encountering the interconnectedness of all things is merely an intense, acutely beautiful experience of the vast, mysterious nature of Being and being in possession of a conscious mind. What a man of faith would claim is awareness of God I would say is heightened awareness of living.

 

Poetry, art, music, dance, science, travel, companionship, family, spending time in nature and with animals, romantic love – all contain profound, elevating, transformative power. We do not need myth, make-believe or something outside reality and the earth to appreciate being alive. In fact, I would go as far as to say that defining human experiences as other-worldly, of-spirit, or divine actually removes one from the meaningful and beautiful experiences of living, removes us from reality and belittles and degrades man’s place on the earth. I would say to a believer – why bury yourself in fantasy and myth, why believe in worlds invisible and theologies illogical when you can walk through a forest, fall in love or gaze at the infinite sky in sheer astonishment at the immense grandeur of it all? Isn’t there enough magic and mystery in nature, the human mind and in the stars? Why this need to invent fantastical stories? Why the desperate desire to conjure up bizarre monsters and mythologies based on nothing more than fear, conjecture, misinformation, ignorance, culture, and contradiction?

 

But why not let people just believe what they want? What harm does it do? Who am I to take comfort and culture away from people? But leaning on something which is not there, trusting in something which does not exist, is never going to lead to virtue, and it hasn’t. Too long has religion been tolerated, too long has it been left to fester like a cancer – spreading its malignant roots across the face of the earth. Too long has it obstructed human progress and distracted us from the project of living. Too long has it oppressed, suppressed, judged, condemned, condescended, abused, killed and exploited. Faith is not innocent. Faith is not admirable, harmless, virtuous or benign. Faith should not be normalised or accepted as though it were as innocuous as sleeping, eating and walking. It is at heart a flawed and inauthentic response to the world, a faulty perception of the universe – ugly, twisted, often wicked, and fails to fully comprehend the breadth, depth and potential of human life. Simply put, religious belief is rooted in immaturity and shows a lack of vision, curiosity and learning.

 

Believers, when encountered, should be challenged and questioned about their beliefs in exactly the same way as we challenge people who deny evolution, deny the necessity and safety of vaccinations, and who deny the earth is round. Unsubstantiated claims need to be attacked full-on with all the weaponry of rational, critical thought. I would say directly to the believer and person of faith: pick up a pen, paintbrush, instrument or book, go for long walks across mountain, field or forest, travel and see new things as often as you can, debate and discuss, watch the night sky, see the trillion stars, learn something new, study, create something – for you will find more meaning in one hour of such pursuits than you will in a lifetime of empty prayers.