The First Pillar: Legalised Revenge Repudiated
If I believe in free will I will not force that belief on anyone. A dog does not
have free will but feels free. That is why it is able to be happy. We could be
the same. The free will belief cannot be proved. There are many people who do
not believe in free will or who think they do but don’t really and their rights
must be respected so they should not be treated as free beings for that is
abusing them just like treating an adult as a child is abuse. There are many
more who believe that though we are free we are partly forced to do what we do
by psychological forces so that nobody is in a position to judge anybody. An
inner force could have made a person who was planning to commit a murder go out
and do it so that the person is only partly to blame but not guilty of murder.
To accuse a person of doing wrong of their own free will is to slander and
despise them. Free will is a theory and should be kept out of the law. To judge
people as guilty and to punish them accordingly is revenge, trying to make a
wrong and what is intended to be a wrong to be a right.
We regard then such doctrines as that God punishes rightly, and that Jesus took
the punishment for our sins and that the law should take revenge on wrongdoers
to be evil and an incitement to hatred and oppose them. The teaching that we
must love sinners but not their sins implies that sinners are evil for you
cannot say that John painted a bad picture without saying that John is bad as
well. The only exception is if you deny free will for then it is the forces that
make John act not John that are to be blamed. This teaching is a sneaky
incitement to hatred.
The purpose of the law returning evil for evil should not be to punish but to
deter, correct and reform and make the criminal make amends to society. We will
carry on as when we believed in punishment except we have a different motive.
That’s the only difference.
Disbelief in free will need not make us change our lives because if we are
unfree beings unfree will is not stopping us being normal people. It’s the
attitude that is important. It is a charitable attitude we are trying to
preserve here.
The Second Pillar: Marriage is Abuse
I believe that marriage is an empty contract, it’s null and void. Marriage must
not be sanctioned by the state or protected by it. Marriage contravenes the rule
that the state must not take orders from the Church. Marriage suggests that some
higher power has decreed that sexual intercourse between husband and wife is the
norm so it is a religious construct.
Marriage attempts to bind by law what should be bound by affection alone so it
is manipulative and deceitful. It tries to make people choose each other the
once when they should be choosing each other every day.
All the alleged benefits of marriage can be gained without it provided the law
is set up right.
When you get married it is because of how you felt about the person in the past
and how you feel in the present but how can you intend to stay with that person
forever for you don’t know what changes will happen? In short, you can’t really
mean the vows though you think you do.
Marriage implies that divorce is wrong for your spouse is closer to you than
your mother and father and you can’t divorce them so you can’t divorce your
spouse. It’s a prison.
Marriage implies that society and the Church have the right to control your sex
life and tell you when to have babies because it is asking them for permission.
You could use an alternative but you don’t you just legitimise your sexual union
in the eyes the law which is looking for permission. In fact, it is none of
their business. Marriage insults one-parent families and is discriminatory by
inferring that these are not the ideal. The truth is, any family situation can
be a success if people try hard enough. Sexual tastes vary from person to person
just like our taste for food and drink does and marriage discriminates against
those who don’t like intercourse for it is necessary for marriage to be
recognised as valid. It discriminates against homosexuals though if sex is
consensual and reasonably safe it is not wrong. It discriminates against those
who thrive in non-monogamous relationships – and encourages those for whom
monogamy would not be normal to imagine that monogamy is for them which has
usually disastrous results.
The Third Pillar, Be Free Spirits
I believe that God even if he exists and even if I take comfort from him I must
not take orders from him. If I refuse to kill an enemy because I see it as wrong
then that is better than not killing because God commands that I must not kill.
It is better to need no commands but to know what is right. If you don’t need a
commander you don’t need a God and are a grown-up.
We have to be entirely to blame for evil for if God is to blame he is not good
or God for then he is a failure. We can’t take orders from God then for that
would involve obeying his command to promote belief in free will or sin which is
a deliberate crime against him.
When it is my judgment that decrees that if I should listen to God or not it
follows that I should think independently as long as I try to be as informed as
possible. I should not let God tell me what to think. If he is good he will
understand. This is practical Atheism. It’s living as if there was no God and
always trying to do what is best for others without worrying about him – he can
look out for himself.
What prayer can do, positive thinking training can do better. If you love
yourself you don’t need prayer or God for then you have the power to heal
yourself emotionally and need fear nothing and no one and survive their attacks.
Prayer is offensive because it says only God can help so it demands to be put
first.
Miracles, like the resurrection of Christ, are promoted by religion as evidence
that God wants us to surrender to him. The truth is that nothing has the right
to ask that. Another thing, religion is surrender to God but its leaders get all
the benefits of this and there is no doubt that religion is intrinsically
demeaning no matter how much good seems to do. God is necessarily a king so
anything that loves him must be seeking to enslave us to the men who claim to
represent him. Nobody has any business telling me what to think. They may
suggest if I want to hear it but that is all.
The Fourth Pillar, Love the only Law
I must learn to enjoy helping others. I must be a cheerful giver of my time, my
ear and my honesty. I must be as optimistic as possible because that gives me
greater contentment and worry will not stop bad things happening and is a waste
of energy.
I cannot help others unless I like them or helping them at least a tiny bit. The
liking causes the action. Liking is getting pleasure from something so liking is
a selfish act. So when I help others it is because I love myself that I do so
therefore all love is really simply self-love. I love myself alone in the sense
that I value them and I love others in the sense that I value what I get out of
them and work for their benefit because it pleases me.
I must love my neighbour not as myself but love myself by loving my neighbour.
By loving yourself alone you love your neighbour because that is the only way
you can be of maximal benefit to your neighbour.
Love your neighbour as yourself means you must withhold some love from yourself
for your neighbour. It is designed to destroy your self-confidence so that you
become a slave of religion and society. We like to define love as liking helping
others and being good for them. That is what all forms of Humanism mean by love
– and human beings want love to mean that. That means that when you love
yourself you love others the only way you can. The paradox is that loving others
is loving yourself alone.
Animal rights must be implemented. Animals have the right not to suffer. The
Humanist must hold that the killing at least of the higher animals except when
human life is threatened is evil.
Humanists must make their own decisions on Euthanasia and Abortion. As a rule,
as long as something is prevented from abuse as much as possible it should be
tolerated if enough good people don’t see anything wrong with it. That is why we
must agree with the legalisation of abortion for it is possible that those who
are convinced that it is not murder in the early months are right.
Increasing human happiness is what matters not the will of God. We can’t be sure
what he wants so we will make our decisions without him.
The Fifth Pillar, Clip the Wings of Religion
Religion is men telling me how to live and influencing me in the name of God.
Nobody wants God unless they find him attractive which means they are only after
their own gratification so their feelings are the real God for they are the real
goal. Therefore to serve God is really to serve the men who make the rules in
his name. Do not be manipulated but be free of religion.
I must promote secularism (separation of religion and state) because it looks at
problems and their solutions only on the human level. I must resolve to correct
anyone who opposes secularism. If we start bringing in gods and magic into our
politics we will end up getting nowhere for no two people can agree on what
their deities want us to do so it is simpler to keep the state secular. It’s
hard enough to decide and do the right thing when you take one world into
account without involving God’s world as well. There is no other way. It is not
enough to stop the Church meddling in the affairs of the state – the Church will
still be able to manipulate the state if it has an undue influence on the
people. The taxpayer should not have to pay the state and the Church to let the
Church spread its propaganda in the schools to the vulnerable and easily
conditioned. It is important to get people to look with clarity at all issues
from as many angles as possible so the secular voice must be raised caringly but
loudly and firmly.