Before I began this jeremiad, I was very aware that most readers would take umbrage at my remarks.

I may receive hate mail and even death threats. But having considered all that beforehand, I’ve decided that I need to go ahead and express some thoughts and feelings that, to avoid arguments and confrontations, I’ve kept to myself for too many years.

First, I firmly believe and can argue that religion is the single most detrimental factor in our lives. It has often been said that money is the root of all evil. Although that statement may have merit, I personally believe that Religion is the real demon. If there’s a Satan, surely it was he who gave us the dreadful curse of religion.

Religion has caused more contention, more discord and inspired more hatred and, terrible wars of attrition throughout the ages than diseases, economic upheavals, wars, and natural calamities combined.

Having said that, I’m sure a certain small number of thoughtful readers will agree.

Now comes the sticky part.  I feel that even fewer readers will agree with the following.

Like most people throughout the world, I was raised in the beliefs of our particular society. In my case, Christianity. I’m sure that it’s the same story with children born into Judaism, Islam, or any other of the world’s religions.

Not all parents allow religion to have an important role in their lives. They may attend religious services on Easter Sunday, to witness the marriage of a daughter or son.  Even so, their children still cannot escape. Wherever we go, we hear about the power of prayer. Disturbed people station themselves on street corners holding up crude signs, and sometimes calling out with megaphones to inform us that Jesus loves us. If we take public transportation, it is almost certain that at least two out of four trips will punish us with a passenger seated next to us who will inquire whether we’ve been “saved”.

Bibles can often be had at no cost from fervent believers. All this sounds very kind and generous of them. If these people have something worthwhile and are willing to share it, we can only be grateful. Unfortunately, they don’t seem so willing to share their money, their homes or their automobiles. For those gifts, we would be even more grateful.

The world is blessed with magnificent cathedrals that feature stunning stonework and lifelike sculptures. The sculptured naves are awe-inspiring with ornate colorful windows. Talented musicians play and replay the works of Bach and others on dynamic and soul-moving organs. How is it possible, seeing these cathedrals and the exquisite statuary, listening to the organ and the calm murmuring of priests and others ― how is it possible to doubt?

Throughout the world, other awesome places of worship will have created the same effects.  Some of these were painstakingly carved out of volcanic rock and others of stacked stone blocks of inconceivable weight. Many of these structures, symbols of man’s faith, seem so impossible for the peoples of the time that some theorize that aliens must have come here to help. Really? I believe that’s to shortchange the ingenuity and dedication that we poor humans can exhibit when we feel it’s necessary and worthwhile. People have been known to lift automobiles from an injured passenger. Impossible for one person to lift two thousand or more pounds of automobile single-handed. Normally, yes, but —

Imagine this scene: A Charlton Heston type comes out and tells you God has just spoken to him. God wants us to prepare the way for the return of Jesus. We have to provide a new Bentley for Jesus. The prophet himself will take the wheel, and the vehicle should be painted in cream and chocolate. Another thing, Jesus must be honored with a shrine atop Mt. McKinley.  Of course, you’d laugh at such a ridiculous idea or get angry. No matter what your emotion, you’d think this guy was a total nut case. Like God chose to speak only to him with such extravagant ideas. I’m sure! A shrine to honor him atop a mountain? Really?

In every culture, people have felt there must be a God who created this universe and our beautiful earth. It couldn’t just “happen”. It must have a god or gods, the driving force behind it. In ancient times only a few people, namely the priests, could read and write. The vast majority of the earth’s inhabitants could neither read nor write and so were kept in awe of the priesthood and its obvious closeness to God.

The Vikings had their gods. The Greeks had their gods and The Romans borrowed them, giving them different names whether they liked it or not. The Egyptians had their god.

We don’t take those gods seriously today. They’re just fanciful thinking of the ignorant peoples of yesteryear. How quaint all those names such as Thor, Ra, Ares, or Mars. In five hundred or a thousand years will people feel the same way about our religions?

Thousands of believers of people “know” the Bible is the word of God. It is perfect, immutable and is to be taken literally. Thousands of others believe as well but don’t take it quite so literally, making allowances here and there to make it a better fit for their lifestyles.

The King James Version is a marvelous document. It was simply and clearly written. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest works in the English language.  But no matter how well-written the Bible and other sacred works may be, that doesn’t make the content true. Even if parts of it were once true, they’ve almost certainly been so altered over time that we can hardly begin to speculate what, if anything, really took place.

There have been a number of classroom experiments to test the accuracy of the last statement. The instructor whispers a short phrase into the ear of a student. The student is then required to whisper this phrase into the ear of the next student and so on, and every time, by the time the last student repeats the phrase back to the instructor, it is completely different. Every time! That’s just within a period of perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Imagine what a phrase might look like after years of translations, hand-lettered copies by scribes and oral communication over a millennium would look like.

We can pass over Genesis as being no more than one man’s simplified explanation for our existence here on earth. It is patently no more believable than an Æsop fable. We pass over the tale of Moses being found floating in the Nile and then later receiving the ten commandments on two stones. (In the Mel Brooks version, there were three stones and fifteen commandments but Moses dropped one and it broke up. (Well played, Mr. Brooks. Well played.)

Jesus may well have been a real person. However, the story of his early life, upbringing, his exploits and eventual death on a cross have been written and rewritten so many times, that just as that classroom of students, there’s absolutely no way for us to know exactly what, if anything, happened. It should be remembered that all the versions, were written long after the time of Jesus — and almost certainly by authors who were born after Jesus died. Christianity itself would likely have died shortly after Jesus but for Paul. It was actually he who brought Christianity to the world with a passion.

Another thing that makes me smile sadly. Throughout the world, there appears to have been anti-Semitism. At times this subsides, but never goes away, and at other times, it rises to the surface like scum on boiling water. Pogroms,  Nazis; these are outstanding examples of our cruelty to our brothers.  But even today, this anti-Semitic wave continues to come to the surface in greater and lesser waves and continues today.

In many cases, Jews have been reviled because they keep to themselves, have their own religion and generally have been successful in business.

In the case of Christians, this resentment toward Jews comes primarily from the belief that they killed Jesus. What most people forget is that Jesus, according to the Bible,- was tried and killed by the Romans, and more importantly, it should be remembered that the cornerstones of the Christian church, Jesus, Peter, and Paul, were all Jews.

What is generally believed to have been a meteor was sent directly from God. It lies inside a beautiful structure designed to protect it and is open to a very few when there are no crowds. Thousands of faithful save their money for years just to make one trip to Mecca to pray before this sacred monument without even seeing it. Strangely, a majority of the world believes this is a shrine to Mohammad but actually, it is a shrine to Abraham.

The Ark of the Covenant is supposed to contain the Ten Commandments. If it ever existed, we can confidently file it along with Amelia Earhart’s aircraft, The Lost Dutchman Mine and the buried treasure on Oak Island. In any case, we don’t have it. A guardian lives in an Ethiopian shrine where it is widely believed the Ark of the Covenant presently resides. His sworn duty is to guard it. We may never know what he’s guarding since no one is allowed to enter the shrine. If it is still around I think it would be more beneficial if it were on display in a museum or a temple.

Sects come and go. They always have and as one loses popularity, two others spring up to replace it. Some are just plain goofy. Some such as that Jim Jones tragedy, are destructive. Scientology which started as a self-improvement program quickly became a religious money-making machine. I can only speculate but I believe Mr. Hubbard, in his pseudo-scientific genius, suddenly saw the financial benefits offered to churches. By reorganizing as a religious institute he no longer had to pay taxes for self-help courses.

Joseph Smith was evidently a guy with a lot of charm and personality. He claimed to have been given some golden plates. No one was allowed to see them, and then, behind a curtain, he translated the writings which a friend on the other side of the curtain wrote down ― all this screams scam from the rooftops to anyone with the least degree of sophistication. Eventually, Mr. Smith managed to get the book printed (with very bad grammar which was later re-edited. Better than any sleeping pill, The Book of Mormon is arguably the dullest reading available, being nothing more than a mixture of imaginative activities that “came to pass” mingled with biblical jargon about more activities that “came to pass”, and some believe, a good part of it “came to pass” from a plagiarized unpublished manuscript of a novel. Whatever. His preaching and his “new-found” testament to the Bible caught on with a number of citizens.

With the rapid growth of his new congregation, resentment from more dedicated members of organized churches caused the party to head west where they built a small temple.

History shows us that it’s quite normal for sect leaders to have sex with chosen female members. (That may even be included in their job description). Mr. Smith, being no exception, received a ‘message’ from God that he should marry, or be sealed to the female members for time and eternity.

That worked until polygamy became illegal in the United States. Even today, some break-away groups continue the practice, making it a cornerstone of their own interpretation of the original doctrines.

Popes come and go with a disturbing history of venal practices over the centuries. At one time public postings in some countries allowed sinners to look up their particular sin and find the price in money to absolve it.

As the Romans borrowed the Greek gods, we borrowed the Jewish god as did the Muslims. Today, these are considered the three great religions, although there are many others all over the world.

And there are the miracles. We had the visions in Portugal. Why would the Virgin Mary choose children to visit rather than an adult? She should have known people would scoff at the words of children.

Our Lady of Guadalupe. Rather than go to the archbishop, Mary chose to visit an ignorant peasant, young Juan Diego. She wanted him to pass along her desire that a church be built on that site in her honor. Sounds perfectly normal to me. We can only speculate on her reasons for going to a young peasant that no one would believe rather than to the archbishop who had the power to build the church. We can only speculate too, why she would want a church to be erected on that desolate hill in her honor. Come on! Eventually, thanks to Juan’s fervor, the church was built and today is arguably the most visited sacred site for Christians in the world.  One economic perk is that all the way up the hill a veritable flea market stretches along the way, with gambling included.

It seems that even today, with our greater understanding of the workings of the world and our universe, we still take comfort in having a god to turn to, especially when the going gets tough. Meanwhile, we ignore God’s way of expressing his love by allowing us to experience all the terrible afflictions he sends down on us like a plague of locusts. As to prayer, well, perhaps he’s too busy to read them or maybe all our prayer-mail goes into the round spam folder. After all, he has a lot of universes to keep track of. Or maybe interference from the Klingons who keep things messed up “out there”.

One benefit, if transitory, is offered by attending religious services. That is when people attend services, it isn’t so much the worship that counts but rather the camaraderie, the peaceful gathering of people together, shaking hands and playing “nice”. They hopefully come away with the sense that we’re all children of this, our Mother Earth. We are all brothers and we are ― or should be ― our brothers’ keepers.

Sadly, once we leave the services, this warm blanket of brotherhood quickly slips from our shoulders as we step over a sleeping drunk on the sidewalk and pretend not to notice a mendicant as we head for a nice restaurant to show off our “Sunday Best”.

This vast and unknowable universe (and apparently there are countless universes all operating concurrently, ) may well have an intelligent force or forces behind it. Call it God or what you will. No matter. I can’t believe any being more intelligent than we are would want or need to have anyone worshiping him or her or it or whatever.

I’m sure most scientists would agree that we’ve barely scratched at the surface of the secrets of the universe. I don’t believe we’ll ever really know how or why (if there is a why) it ever came into being. I am sure of one thing: there are true wonders in the universe that we cannot even imagine.

That’s just the way things look to me. I believe we have a long way yet to go before we deserve the kind and loving god some wishful person invented many millennia ago.

That’s just the way things look to me.