Painting by Reg Mombasa

By David L Rowlands

(This article was first offered to the ABC for publication in response to
Joel Hodge’s latest article, “Christianity can teach us the meaning
of life”. As Aunty has apparently declined to publish it, I have
decided to publish it here instead; and also at Astyages’s Weblog.)

This article is a direct response to Joel Hodge’s latest article on the
Drum/Unleashed. It seems to me that he should not be allowed to get
away with using the ABC to preach a lot of immediately observable and
easily disputable falsehoods.

As someone in the comments section to his article has already pointed
out, the upshot of this article appears to be “Okay, chaplains have
been caught out preaching and proselytizing in direct contravention
of the guidelines; so what, it’s probably good for you…”

It is apparently impossible even for Joel to imagine that atheists might
actually have every right not only to be atheists, but also to bring
their children up as atheists if they so choose. Part of this right
is the ability to send their children to a supposedly secular state
school without fear that their children will be exposed to preaching
and proselytizing by arrogant and self-serving religions.

Joel also appears, when it suits him, to think that all ‘beliefs’ are of
equal value; suggesting that scientific conclusions and discoveries
made with the use of logic and reason are somehow of equal value to
fairy stories about sky-pixies and the like; that metaphysical
suppositions about an imagined life after death are somehow equal to
scientific theories formulated after much empirical observation and
reasoned analysis; that magical rituals like cannibalistic human
sacrifices are somehow as efficacious as scientific processes.

Then, using this supposed equivalence as the basis of his argument that
christianity – and only christianity – should be taught in schools, because, as he puts it in his title, “Religious education can help uncover the meaning of
life…”

Now, Joel evidently also feels that christianity is not only the sole
perspective capable of delivering the ‘meaning of life’, but that it
is completely adequate to the task, though he himself, however,
declines to actually enlighten us as to what he feels the ‘meaning of
life’ to be’.

As soon as I realized this, the thought occurred to me that if I could
therefore find just one single lesson in life (and spiritual growth),
that christianity was simply not capable of teaching, then this would
serve to defeat the pitiful argument he uses to explain why it should
be that christianity – and only christianity – is allowed to break such protective guidelines in order to gain free and unfettered access to our children’s minds;
often in spite of the expressed wishes of parents.

I didn’t have to think very hard about it at all; indeed the answer
came to me as immediately obvious:

There is one lesson, taught by many ancient Greek traditions, that could
never be taught by christianity: that the only people who are actually worth
‘saving’, in any sense of the word, are those who have the kind of
courage it takes to defy the very gods themselves. This is the inner
meaning of Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus steals Zeus’ cattle and injures
Poseidon’s son, the Cyclops, Polyphemus. It is for these reasons that
Odysseus is made to wander for another ten years before he finally
arrives home, more in spite of the opposition of the gods, than as
the result of their help.

Another god who is traditionally defied in several of the greek epics is
Hades, the god of death. Following the tradition established by the
Sumerian legend of Gilgamesh, Orpheus, Heracles, and Odysseus all
descend into the underworld only to return to life again after
completing their respective missions in the underworld. Again the
message is that true heroism requires one to have the kind of courage
which will defy not only death itself, but even the god of death…

Christianity, with its omnipresent fear of death and the twin psychological levers
it derives from this fear (the carrot and stick it calls heaven and
hell) cannot possibly teach this; to be unafraid of dying is
something they fear to cultivate within the hearts of their believers
because christianity depends on that very fear as its means of social control. This is also why the early christians embellished on the Greek notions of ‘Tartarus’ in
order to create ‘Hell’ and thus make death even more scarey.

A third god, or rather, goddess, who is defied is Calypso. That Odysseus
declines her offer of immortality (ie. ‘godhood’) and insists on
returning to his human wife, Penelope, is particularly significant:

Here Homer is telling us that it is humanity that human beings should strive to achieve; not godhood; another lesson christianity is incapable of teaching.

The ultimate lesson in all these stories tells us that there are times
when, not only is it necessary to defy the gods, but when any other
path will lead to destruction; when only defiance of the gods will suffice…

And, just as it is only when a teenage boy finally learns to start to stand up to his father and defend himself and his opinions against the dictates of someone who
has thus far been a godlike figure, in order to assert his own will,
that the teenager finally ‘grows up’ into full manhood, just so the
Greek heroes show us that it is only when we learn to stand up to our
gods that we achieve our full humanity.

This is something that christianity is fundamentally incapable of teaching
because it is anathema to them. The same god who can even get his
followers to find any and every possible excuse for why he allows the
continuation of evil in this world, cannot be allowed to be defied,
for fear of limiting, and hence disproving his omnipotence. Of
course, since this lesson is one thing the christian god can’t teach,
this lesson itself disproves that omnipotence; if Epicurus’ famous
formulation has not already dispensed with it perfectly adequately.

But even though I have just proven that there is at least one lesson that
christianity is totally incapable of teaching (in fact, I’ve given
three examples!), there is a much more powerful argument for keeping
religion out of our state schools: the right of atheistic parents to
send their kids to a secular school for a secular education without
any fear that they are going to be proselytized at by mind-benders
who make a virtue of dispensing with reason and logic and  teach
children to do the same. Christians demand their right to freedom of
religion; fine! Let them have it… there are already plenty of
schools where they can send their kids if they think schools ought to
support their religion; but give us atheists and agnostics our
freedom from religion.

Or do atheists have no rights at all?

🙂