The God Problem - A Status Report

[Background: A whistle-blower has smuggled several recordings out of a two-week strategic planning event. The twist? It was organized by a global cartel of industry magnates and finance moguls seeking ways to continue molding public opinion in ways that will tighten their economic and political stranglehold on the world. The following is the transcript of one session.]

Before you all go to your breakout groups for the SWOT analysis, I’ve been asked for a brief status report on what we’re calling “The God Problem” to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Because god is a problem. No, I mean a big problem. A problem that just won’t go away. It has seemingly been around for as long as we have been human and shows no signs of letting up, despite our best-laid plans and our most strenuous efforts. So you guys have your work cut out for you.

How did we get here? The story of the god problem can be told in three major chapters or phases: its conflict with the state, with science, and with industry.

[There is a general rustle and clatter as the participants get ready to take notes.]

God v. State

To understand the god problem in relation to the state, we need to go back 10 to 15 millennia. As our original extended family bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers grew and multiplied, putting increasing pressure on limited space and resources, they were forced to unite into tribes for their very survival.

That’s where the god problem began. Each clan had had a god to represent its unique identity, to personify its highest aspirations, where they came from, who they were and, more importantly, who they could become. But now, which of these clan gods would they choose to represent their tribal life? They could have solved the problem by just tossing them all out, but did they?

Nope.

More often than not, one of them—or a whole new god—became supreme over all the rest and, most times, eventually replaced them entirely. This new, improved god became the focal point of the tribal identity, the highest expression of all they held dearest, all the of the best qualities they most admired in each other and in the world.

Sounds relatively simple so far, but it did not end there.

When further growth and expansion forced us to join our warring tribes into city-states, the same problem arose, but on a greater scale. Once again, instead of just chucking our gods entirely—the most expedient solution proposed by some thinkers—, we either merged them into collective narratives or came up with even greater gods to represent these kingdoms.

As our city-states extended their hegemonies in one failed attempt after another to build empires around themselves, they often tried to impose their state-sanctioned gods on the conquered peoples. You know, to assimilate them into the central identity.

This rarely worked.

We finally figured out (or apparently are still learning) that empire as a social technology just didn’t work, that it was much smarter to unite our city-states into nation-states. We’re talking recent history here, mind you, a mere 500 years ago on average.

And here is where the god problem really got sticky.

Would a diversity of gods be allowed? If so, how to build a national identity? Or would each nation-state have only one god to represent its collective identity? How to achieve that? Through education? Through legislation? What about when different nation-states had the same god? Did that challenge the uniqueness of each country’s identity? Remember that nations are “imagined communities,” so their character always depends on how we shape their citizen’s imagination.

To complicate things further, most religious groups were multi-national, creating the potential for conflicting loyalties between their nation and their community of faith. Not a few of such groups were persecuted within their own countries, and not a few countries joined with others to war against those represented by other gods.

In sum, god and nation were rarely complementary, often opposed, and the need to dispose of gods altogether got serious attention by major thinkers. Atheism started gaining traction. Not the sort of atheism that Christians were accused of for rejecting the Greco-Roman gods. Not even the kind of intellectual atheism that merely questioned god as a rational proposition. You know, the “god is dead” garden variety? No, I mean a militant atheism that saw god as a real menace that needed to be stamped out entirely. Religion and state were incompatible. The state had to become the only god, and its political-economic ideologies its only religions.

God v. Science

The second phase began with modernity, when the god problem came into conflict with science. You see, originally, philosophy was science. But scholars could just as easily study metaphysics as they could natural philosophy. 

Fun fact: It was as recently as 1833 when William Whewell, a British philosopher and historian of science, first proposed the term “scientist” to replace “philosopher”, although that took a while to catch on.

In any case, the scientific method was rapidly evolving, but its practitioners didn’t see how it could be applied to metaphysical realities. So instead of admitting that the method had its limitations, they just opted to restrict scientific inquiry to the physical or material world, leaving everything else to philosophy.

That’s how science and philosophy became two completely different beasts.

But they did not stop there. You see, our newly coined “scientists” were greedy. They wanted the prestige of being the only sources of knowledge, the ultimate authorities on truth, the new priests of a secular religion. So they did what self-respecting person would do. They claimed that nothing non-physical or non-material even existed. Problem solved.

Not clear? Ok, let’s say this whiteboard is all of reality, and material existence is everything within this circle here. Science became materialistic by claiming that anything falling outside of this circle wasn’t just unavailable to their method, but that it actually never existed in the first place.

Never mind that materialism itself was a metaphysical belief with no grounding in logic, much less in any actual science. It was reality that was limited, not the their method. That’s how science became known as much for its method as for its object of study: the material world. Out went god. Out went the mineral, vegetable, animal and human spirits. And with them, out went religion.

You see? Greed really IS good!

God v. Industry  

But unbeknownst to even these god-fearing god-forsakers, there would be an even more nail-biting plot twist in this story. You see, the industrial revolution opened up a whole new can of worms. Mass production enabled us to produce way more than the market could absorb, so we had to find a way to get people to buy more stuff.

[There is a pause here as the speaker tries to find his place in the presentation.]

Yes, here it is. It all started with Freud. Yup. Sigmund himself. You see, SF had a nephew by the name of Edward Bernays, not to be confused with Béarnaise. That’s a French sauce. This guy was a Viennese-cum-American-cum-propagandist… oops, I meant to say “public relations expert.” [Sarcastic laughter from the participants.]

Anyway, our friend Eddie figured that if people were motivated by deep, dark subconscious desires, as his uncle claimed, he could mine those hidden gems to make them buy stuff they didn’t need. Everything from dixie cups to luxury cars. Oh, and cigarettes. Lots and lots of cigarettes. Small stuff, yes, but great for keeping the wheels of manufacture turning.

Great for his pocketbook, too, apparently. [Approving chuckles.] I know, right?

Well, the idea caught on like wildfire, and soon propag… um… advertising became a burgeoning business, getting people to buy, buy, buy, and then buy some more. Consumerism had been born. Business was booming. Industrialists had found a way to siphon back their workers’ wages by selling them stuff at inflated prices with the promise that it would make them happy, popular, sexy, hip, whatever.

But there was a hitch.

You see, god and spirit may have become taboo topics in scientific circles, but the masses still clung to them. And many religious groups of the time were tricking folks into believing that true happiness came from contentment, not unbridled desire; from modesty, not vanity; from service to others, not selfish pursuits; from love of the sublime, not lust after stuff. This kind of thinking was not ideal for business. In fact, it flew in the face of everything Eddie B and his ilk were working so hard to achieve.

Our analysts realized that if we could just take away people’s faith in god as the ultimate good, remove the afterlife from the equation, and deprive them of the sense of community that religion gave them, then people would lose their sense of purpose and meaning in life, sink into hopelessness, and be easy prey for our efforts to promise them purpose and hope through the consumption of stuff.

It was genius!

[Someone makes an inaudible comment here.]

Yes, I was getting to that. We tried setting up prosperity churches in major urban centers. You know, to tell people that god actually wanted them to be filthy rich and have all the stuff their little hearts desired? But their real impact on the economy was limited at best—mostly filling our pockets as investors in the churches—so they didn’t move the culture needle much. 

Surprisingly, what did get measurable results was promoting the new-age brand of non-religious spirituality. We managed to steer a significant proportion of the population away from anti-consumerist forms of religion and made a killing in crystals and scented candles to boot. [Laughter.]

But even that didn’t go far enough. We wanted more. So much more. [The participants shift in their seats in anticipation.]

Luckily, atheism had already been catching on during the god-versus-state and god-versus-science phases, as I explained, so we just had to fan that flame to burn away this one remaining stumbling block to a fully mature consumerist society. There were NGOs to finance or make flounder, songs to push up or down the charts, books to promote or make flop, movies to sponsor or archive, speakers to give prime-time or snub, teachers to hire or fire, depending on whose line they toed.

So much to do, and so little time...

[Someone asks an inaudible question.]

That's right. After studying a score and more civilizations throughout history, Arnold Toynbee found—in ten massive tomes, no less—that religion had played a key role in sparking their birth and building up to their golden ages. This could have been a real thorn in our side, but we were the ones pulling the strings, remember? We just needed to ignore him and others inspired by his work… well, actually, to ignore the entire upward curve of religion as a civilizing force per se, and bury all that under an avalanche of studies focusing on its downward curve during the decline of those civilizations.

Problem solved.

One advantage here was that, during its messy divorce from philosophy, science had already been baptized into the materialistic worldview, which had taken firm root in the scientific community and was easy pickings for our campaign to pooh-pooh all things religious. Given that, who would dare take Toynbee and his ilk seriously?

Nobody who cherished their academic prestige, at least, that’s for sure. [Knowing chuckles.]

Speaking of logic, we learned long ago that it was not one of our strengths. Why? Well, on the one hand, because every system of logic known to man, including relational logic—the basis for all computer hardware and software—has concluded that there is no way for a “first cause” or “prime mover” NOT to exist. On the other hand, there is no logical way to prove tht god does not exist. And believe me, we've tried. So we don't even go there anymore. Instead, our efforts are better spent using rhetoric to make our point, especially the kind that involves logical fallacies. Those are the most effective, because most people don't realize they're fallacies, so they think they're logical. 

I mean, how many stayed awake during logic class? [Laughter.] Besides, logic is just a silly game that philosophers play in their downtime, right? At least we’ve made darn sure people see it that way.

And I’m not just talking about the argument to ignorance… you know, saying that the lack of empirical evidence of god is proof that it doesn’t exist? Not many believers will swallow that one. Most likely, they’ll just turn it around and claim that our lack of evidence that god doesn’t exist is proof of its existence. Luckily, we have other, more interesting devices available.

Take cherry-picking, for example. You can just find the worst cases of believers who have done horrible things, and then emphasize those. Never mind that they are only like one in a million. If you frame it right, you can make it sound like a common trait. Of course, lots of non-believers also misbehave, but they're not supposed to be moral, and believers are, right? You can also cherry-pick the most outlandish beliefs or practices that any believer might have, and then frame all believers in those terms.

Another good example is REframing. It's been easy enough for us to reframe historic events like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Irish Troubles, and today's nationalist struggles as being provoked by religion. You know, instead of acknowledging they were sparked by economic, political and racist interests masquerading under the guise of religion to muster popular support. Religion is the perfect scapegoat. By reframing conflicts as religious, we increased our arms sales and made more people spurn religion instead of questioning the economic and political motivations behind them. Win-win-win!

A third rhetorical approach that has worked well is the appeal to authority—popularizing quotes by famous people who have pooh-poohed god and religion. For example, Thomas Paine said, “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and to monopolize power and profit.” That’s the sort of quote we want to circulate, not the kind that point the finger at our transnational corporations as human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and to monopolize power and profit. We need people to think they can do without religion, not to realize they can do without us.

Quotes by scientists work much better, though, because most people just assume that if they're experts in one area, they know what they're talking about in others.

Now, in your deliberations, remember: Religion has a way of reaching the deepest fibers of the human psyche, so to get people to support our cause, we need to convince them that it is somehow related to their religion, and they will defend it with their lives. So, I’m not saying that religion doesn’t have its uses, mind you. When you foster a culture of us-versus-them, false dichotomies and “twosidesisms,” you need to be ready to manipulate both sides of the issue, not just one. Divide and conquer, remember?

Never let a good crisis go to waste. Especially when you are the one creating the crisis. For example, let’s see how we started the creationism vs. evolutionism culture war. The key here was realizing that you only need one symbolic ‘happening’ to bring an issue into sharp focus in the public mind. Like the Civil Rights movement did in Selma, remember?

Anyway, back in 1925, our diligent attorneys dug up an archaic Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. So, we found a Dayton high school teacher, poor old John Scopes, who was teaching evolution, and got local preachers to rile up the community about it. Then we convinced some local business owners to take the case to court—it would advertise their town—and deployed our corporate media. They branded it the “Monkey Trial” for added effect, and made it an over-night media sensation, pitting creationism against evolutionism in a dramatic courtroom battle. See how it works? This one tiny event was enough to spark a wildfire that swept across the nation and spread around the world.

Easy-peasy.

Yeah, they may have had a bit too much fun with it, but the upshot was that now nobody could sit on the fence; everyone had to pick a side. Never mind that the old “god of the gaps” notion had already been replaced in most thinking minds with the view that god’s unchanging will was the source of all natural laws, including evolution.

People love simple binaries. Complexity is a drag… too much work. [Laughter.]

Now, even historic events such as Galileo’s discussion with the priests could be totally reframed. No longer would it be a debate between cutting-edge Islamic science and ancient Mesopotamian legends. Now it could be reframed as simply a fight between science and religion. Period. Folks ate up this simpler narrative.

[Inaudible comment.]

Ok, yeah, the most popular alternative to creation—that everything just happened to explode from non-existence into existence, from nothing into everything, from nowhere into everywhere, in a “big bang” that just happened to materialize for no reason, and then just happened to randomly organize itself into increasingly complex arrangements, from atoms to life to consciousness itself, all despite the law of entropy, like a fully functioning city being created by a sandstorm in the desert—that was a bit of a stretch, but it gave us a beginning, a starting point, so we made sure it got a lot of attention. 

The more plausible “flame” or “jet” model says that the universe is a cyclical system with matter jetting out one end then folding back onto itself at the other end, only to jet out again in a never-ending process. But it failed to explain how this system got started in the first place, so we didn’t promote it, and few have even heard of it. We needed something—anything—to replace creation with, remember? Plus, the “big bang” fit perfectly with the by-then-popular metaphysical belief that nothing immaterial could exist, so would anyone mind if our favorite theory had a few minor inconsistencies? Was anyone even paying attention?

Probably not.

More importantly, we now had the wherewithal to make belief in god—any god—sound lame, old-fashioned, retrograde, and just plain dumb, like believing in unicorns and fairies, or calling spirits ghosts... logical fallacies be damned. Most people wouldn’t recognize a false equivalence or false analogy if you hit them over the head with it. [A couple of participants chuckle, followed by the rest who apparently hadn’t understood but followed their lead.] Conversely, we made atheism sound modern, smart, and hip. And what self-respecting person doesn’t want to be seen as modern, smart and hip?

If you couldn’t convince people to be outright atheists, at least you could get them to be agnostics. Not the old-fashioned sort who claimed that the ultimate truth was unknowable but who eagerly sought as much of it as they could find, mind you. No, indeed. We’re talking the new, improved agnostic. The “I don’t know and I don’t care” variety. I mean, how cool is that? It had the added value that agnostics didn’t need to think too hard. All they had to do was criticize other people’s ideas without coming up with—and committing to—any of their own.

It was win-win… a double win for us, I mean.

And hey, if that doesn't work? You always have cynicism to fall back on. That's a great way to keep people from even thinking about challenging the status quo. Why try if everything is going to hell in a handbasket and you’ll be dead soon anyway? By the way, your efforts to promote pessimistic views of human nature worked wonders here, folks. With your help, everything is now seen to be broken, meaningless, hopeless. Life is short, so just enjoy it while you can. YOLO is totally a thing now.

Oh, another hitch came when, in 1974, Dr. Raymond Moody’s book “Life after Life” somehow hit the best-seller list. (How did that one get past us?) It triggered a flurry of comings-out around the world as hundreds, thousands, then tens of thousands felt it was now safe to share their own near-death experiences.

But not to worry. Such accounts could easily be written off as subjective and therefore non-scientific. I mean, subjective accounts are scientific enough when it comes to diagnosing mental health issues and prescribing anti-depressants, anxiolytics, painkillers and the like. That’s just good, kajillion-dollar business. Which, by the way, was heavily bolstered by the deliciously devastating psychological impacts of all the work we’ve reviewed so far. 

But who ever made money from a near-death experience? I mean, aside from the odd book contract or speaking gig… but really? [Derisive laughter.]

Hey, science is supposed to fuel production, and letting people go around thinking there's an afterlife isn’t great for business. Next thing you know, they’ll stop buying stuff they don’t need in their race to get ahead in the “whoever has more stuff when they die wins” game, and they’ll start concentrating on spiritual nonsense like love, compassion, truth, justice, shit like that.

Can’t have that. There’s work to do. There’s money to be made.

[The speaker sighs thoughtfully, pauses to look around the room, then takes a deep breath.]

So anyway, here we are, and the god problem still hasn’t gone away. Instead, it seems to be getting worse. That’s why your job today is of such vital importance. In your breakout groups, you will be looking at our present strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and designing strategies for the future of this vital struggle.

Because the fact is, throughout the process I’ve summarized, the concept of god has been evolving despite our best efforts to keep it centered on the vindictive old grandpa with a long white beard and a bad temper. God has been taking on more abstract forms that defy all description. For example, in his proof based on relational logic, Hatcher just posits a G factor, refusing to define G other than to say that it’s the ultimate cause of all causes, non-polytheistic, and non-pantheistic. Even many atheists are now saying they believe in some supreme power in the universe, although they resist calling it god.

Making god that abstract risks seeing all particular gods as diverse expressions of one universal god, regardless of the different names given them in the past. God is getting out of hand. We thought we could control it, but it’s changing faster than we can keep up. If god were a species, it would be the most adaptable species on the planet. And as we all know, adaptable species evolve and survive. No matter what you throw at them, they take it in stride and come back stronger. Like those pesky bacteria and viruses.

To make matters worse, there is a growing consensus that all religions can be seen as different paths toward that one god, or even successive steps in a process of progressive revelation by which that one god has guided and educated humanity throughout history.

Why is this a threat? Because seeing all gods as one, and all religions as part of the same process, could lead to perceiving all humanity as one, too. This, in turn, could make us go from seeing only nations as “imagined communities” to seeing the entire world as one imagined community. History has shown that the evolution of god and of our socio-political arrangements go hand in hand. One universal god could lead to universalism in the economic and political spheres as well.

We need to avoid this at all costs. The effects could be devastating. It would make it possible to achieve the political unity of the entire planet. Several movements are already working towards a global federation of nations with a world constitution and a democratic legal system, complete with legislative, executive and judicial branches. This would establish an international rule of law, which would put an end to our transnational corporate dictatorship by which we control not only the global marketplace but every national government on the planet. 

There would be nowhere to run, no place to hide. I cannot overstate how much of a threat this would pose. 

Now, some have suggested that if god is so adaptable, maybe we just should accept that it won’t go extinct and learn to live with it.

FIE!

I say failure is not an option. We must FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! And when they shoot us down, we must pick ourselves up and fight some more! [He fist-pumps and the audience follows suit, cheering.]

Thank you! [Applause.]

[He goes back to his seat as those nearby slap him on the back, while the facilitator takes the stage and starts giving instructions for the breakout groups to work on their strategic planning vis-à-vis the god problem. Unfortunately, we do not have recordings of what transpired in those groups or their final reports.]