An-Nihil-ation of Religion (a Riddle)
An-Nihil-ation of Religion (A Riddle)
Prologue
I don't often read the ethos, because the debates here seem to consist mostly of heated arguments about religion. I am very interested in philosophy, and in my opinion there is nothing more detrimental to philosophy than religious dogma. It was the intellectual limitations imposed by religious prejudices that ruined Descartes Meditations, for example. The last thing people who like religion want is to think freely and reflect upon open-ended questions, which is what philosophy – the love of truth – is all about. In the age of the free market, the cultural and intellectual lowest common denominator is ruler of all. This applies not only to the arts and media, but to schools of thought also.
Most people would get pretty angry if they subscribed to a religion, only to find that it did not fulfil the following criteria:
1)A popular religion, like a successful politician, must confirm the prejudices and pander to the preconceived mindset of its subscribers / customers / followers / supporters.
2)To be a successful product in today's competitive marketplace, a religion (not unlike a newspaper, or a television news service) must tell its customers that they are always right, and that everybody else is wrong (with all the implications that follow regarding hell, damnation, paradise, and all of that infantile rubbish).
3)Just as a platinum-selling pop icon or a blockbuster movie must under no circumstances presume to challenge or disturb the mental slothfulness to which its listener or viewer is accustomed by asking him to think, so it is with a skilfully marketed religion.
So, as we can see, a religion is a product like any other, and in order to prosper it must adhere to the principles of supply and demand and the lowest common denominator.
However, last night I was in the mood to read some posts and the other forums were slow, so I had a look around the ethos. Sure enough, we had the usual bitter and embarrassing disputes over who's god is better. Hardly the kind of fare I find stimulating, but for some reason I persevered.
And then, I had an idea.
Epilogue
It seems to me that the disorder and the conflict in the ethos reflects the mental disorder of the forum occupants. There is much confusion here. So, I have decided to write for you all a post which will answer all your questions, resolve all the conflicts, and allow peace to reign. Naturally, this is the last thing any of you want. What you all want is to shout and fight and get fired up about being right while everybody else is wrong. This post would ruin all your fun, so you'll probably want to ignore it.
However, before you do ignore it completely and return to your threads about fire and brimstone and arguments over who's going to hell and who isn't, I invite you to read it to the end and ask yourself whether or not there is some sense in what I have to say. While you were reading this riddle, nobody shouted at you and told you that you were going to hell. While you were reading this riddle, you forgot about gods (until I mentioned them just now). While you were reading this riddle, you used the time you might have spent writing hate-posts and getting all worked up and emotional reading this riddle instead. Just for a split second, somewhere along the way, all of that stuff was forgotten, and you didn't know what was going to happen next.
They say the devil finds work for idle hands. Maybe that's just if god doesn't get there first.
If there was no idleness, gods and devils alike would soon die out.
You're probably feeling a bit angry now. But I promised to write for you all a post which would answer all your questions, resolve all the conflicts, and allow peace to reign –but I didn't say for how long.
Thanks for reading this. We now return you to your regular scheduled forum.
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Originally Posted by Giurza
