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Monday 18 February 2013

How a theocracy could be useful for atheists


Seneca:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."

It is my purpose is to emphasise the USEFULNESS of instilling a belief in God rather than take a position on whether or not He exists.

God is after all Man's greatest most divine creation and, having been created, it would be waste not to use this infinite resource to assist Man in his government, politics and morality.

God if He exists would be Perfect and Moral as well as Omniscient and Omnipotent. It is quite clear therefore that He is a philosophical aid, for He directs our minds towards the contemplating and defining Perfection, Morality, Knowledge and the consideration of what it is practicable and politic to do at any given time.

The more I think about it, the more I think that an Agnostic Theocracy in my lifetime may not only be desirable, but also possible.

After all, most people would like to believe in God, and many will want to believe in God when things take a turn for the worse.

When they turn bad, they will wonder what has gone wrong and how it could be put right.

Any cursory reading of the Bible and Koran would tell us that most of the commandments of God have been ignored by our liberal political establishment and most of what He forbids practised in our atheist feminist sexually-liberated liberal democracy.

The solution is simple, therefore: do what God commands, and refrain from doing what He forbids.  This is the essence of Secular Koranism, which does not require a belief in God, merely the preparedness to live in harmony with the principles propounded in the Koran.

What are the principles propounded in the Koran?  You must read it yourself, dear reader.  I only know that I find nothing objectionable, irrational or impracticable about it.  Indeed, so unobjectionable, moral and practicable is it that even those who do not believe in God cannot help but agree with it.  After all, you do not have to believe in God to see the fairness, wisdom and good of the commandments not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery and not to bear false witness amongst others.

I have reasoned that by saying I am agnostic, I will win the hearts and minds of

1. atheists

2. monotheists

3. agnostics

However, if I were to say I am atheist, then I would be alienating monotheists and agnostics.

If I were to say I am a believer, I would be alienating the atheists and agnostics.

By saying I am agnostic I straddle not only two stools, but three, equipping me to promote Secular Koranism better than if I claimed to be either monotheist or atheist.

I am an agnostic because I know it is impossible to make someone who does not feel they need to believe in God believe in God, or to make someone who wants to believe in God disbelieve in God

What is certain is that the concept of God already exists, invented by Abraham himself.

From the existence of this concept, we may infer that God has a utility, for it was Voltaire who said that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, presumably to be used as an instrument of government.

God as policeman in your head is cheaper than having CCTV all over the place.

Since God is clearly useful, I shall make a point of believing in Him, while occasionally denying His existence and at yet other times merely doubting it.

It is not necessary that I absolutely believe in His existence, merely that I entertain the idea that He might exist, and that He might know all about me, care for me and even be prepared to assist me from time to time, if I am good and mindful of His wishes.

Some will say that an agnostic has no faith but that is not strictly true, in the sense that many agnostics go through the motions of worship and are probably nominally an adherent of the faith they were born in. Why do they do this? It is probably because they believe that a pretense of belief is better than professing no belief at all.

However, if He were omnipotent, then He would want to be moral too, would He not?

And if a unique moral and omnipotent God exists, then He would keep His promises.

Since He is already omnipotent, He would make Himself moral.

If YOU were omnipotent, you would make yourself unique and moral, wouldn't you?

As for whether He exists or not, it is actually not important, because, now that we have established that it is useful to believe in Him, we will want to believe in Him.

Once we have decided that we want to believe in Him, He will simply be conjured into existence, and we can then proceed to draw a line under the failures of the past and walk towards a theocracy that will give us better government, fewer laws, lower taxes and a sound currency that keeps its value under prudent financial management, after we have changed our system of government.

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