Atheist Meditations

In a recent episode of the BBC America's 'Jekyll' (I'm waiting for the six episode to re-air, as an unforeseeable TiVo accident failed to record it - this we're not talking spoilers here.) the highly animated Mr. Hyde asks his tormentor from the secret organization which has been stalking him from birth if his last statement was a threat against his family. The response is something like, 'Yes, I am threatening your family. Explicitly, emphatically, and earnestly, I am threatening your . . . gaelllllll . . . ' at this point Hyde has slit his throat and is talking him through the difficult process of dying by encouraging him to count backwards from ten.

'Jekyll' does a fine job of cultivating audience pathos for the monster Hyde via a tri-fold strategy. Establishing him as an anti-hero who is still morally/rationally superior to the quasi-government organization that seeks to use him as a weapon. The suffering and challenges of his Dr. Jackman other half, and the sheer maniacal charisma of the lead actor James Nesbitt. In this scene the rationale is crystal clear. Once one has threatened to murder your children, then any act of violence is justified in defense of them. Nesbitt's Mr. Hyde responds to the threat with certainty, violence, and a homicidal flair.

Trust me, all males dream of being able to act in such a way. At least any male whose balls have over a millimeter of 'hang.'

My point is that most moments of moral certainty are transcendent to the point that a villain can exhibit them and instantly be reconciled. The fundamental moral truths; protect your family at any cost, don't shit where you eat, don't harm children - these don't need some religious mumbo-dogma to enforce, they are instinctual and obvious. To the contrary, only those deeply damaged by the plague of religion frequently cross these moral lines. Universal moral codes are just that - universal - and . . .

I've been rambling and don't see this blog striking exactly where I originally intended.,

Religion demands that it be held more sacred than family, thus it devalues family. Religion denies the world of cause and effect that makes 'don't shit where you eat,' obvious. Religion, in the weakness of its premise, has been targeting children in multiple, damaging, ways for endless centuries.

If our ability to think is what separates us from the orangutans., then religion is our primate tail. Caught in an evolutionary trap, but we don't seem to have the will to rid ourselves of it. Wolves caught in a trap during their obviously human orchestrated extermination from the lower forty-eight earned infamy by chewing off their own leg and living on to consume more livestock and slay more pets.

Do you fucking care fiercely enough to live or will you simply,weakly, die?

Religion is the pillow held over your face by the feeble and queer old priest. Do you just lie there while he slowly chokes you to death?

Labels: pseudo-inspirational, Spirituality