04 February 1999, 1014 words
If God did not exist, the world would be a very different place. For instance, Abu Bakr wouldn't have a fence, Sat Maharaj wouldn't be a Hindu leader who publishes a soft-porn newspaper, Pastor Cuffie wouldn't own a $225,000 van, and we could all sleep late on Sundays.
Other things might be different, too. For instance, if God did not exist, there would be no way to prove that hanging convicted killers is a correct and moral act. Without God, hanging would be correct only if it could be shown to reduce violent crime. Unfortunately, there is no secular evidence to suggest that this is so. The list of countries which do not have capital punishment include those like Canada, Grenada, Malta, Netherlands and Papua New Guinea, where violent crime is not noticeably high, and countries like Brazil, Colombia, Congo Republic and South Africa, where it is. In Trinidad, where nobody except for Glen Ashby has been hanged recently, violent crime has been declining for the past five years. What this suggests is that capital punishment has no effect for good or ill on violent crime and that the pertinent factors that cause crime are poverty, illiteracy and official corruption.
Luckily, we need not worry about these complicated facts, since God has told the men who wrote down the words of the Holy Books several thousand years ago that killing killers is morally correct. The Bible says plainly, "He that sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed."( Genesis 9:6); the Qu'ran says, "The life for the life" (Sura5, Verse 44); and the Vedas extend this list to include arsonists, armed attackers, poisoners, those who steal from the rich, squatters and wife-stealers.
Not only does God therefore approve of execution, but He seems to have done His best to encourage other kinds of violence. Religion has always been people's best excuse to hate one another. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life," said Jesus (John 14:6), and every fundamentalist Christian since then has used that text to prove that everyone else is going to Hell and should be helped to get there as soon as possible. The Qu'ran is even more blunt about it: "Take not the Jews and Christians for your friends," it says (5: 51) and "Allah pardons not those who ascribe partners onto Him" (4:116). Hinduism, while not targeting any other religion, approves of fighting on religious grounds, since the Bhagavadgita says, "If you do not perform your religious duty of fighting, then you will certainly incur sins." (Ch2, Text 33).
It is often argued that, just because men do wrong doesn't mean that God's law is wrong. But since God's law is absolute it cannot be subject to misinterpretation, unless God is not omnipotent, and if God is not omnipotent, then He is not God.
It is this issue of God's omnpotence that, in fact, has made it possible to justify totalitarian states. Almost all religions approve of totalitarianism. Without a totalitarian political system, people might tend to let their sinful desires for freedom dictate their lives. But the Bible approves of totalitarian systems, instructing that "Every person must submit to the supreme authorities (Romans 13:1), while the Bhagavadgita laid down the most perfect system of oppression ever invented in human history, asserting that "Brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaisyas and sudras are distinguished by the qualities born of their own natures" and that a person should never try to get out of their prescribed caste (18: 41 and 45-47). The Qu'ran, interestingly enough, actually opposes theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia, for it says unequivocally, "There is no compulsion in religion" (2:256) but the imams and maulanas quite sensibly keep their mouths shut about this aspect of their faith.
At any rate, it is when people turn away from God, that they create free nations and inevitably start to have sex without being married. Indeed, we have seen this happen in the God-less nations of Western Europe and North America. And what has been the result? Flourishing economies, intellectual creativity, better health, effective legal systems, more life choices- but no spirituality. On the other hand, in countries like India, Pakistan, Iran and Ireland, where God's word is still respected, we have poverty, illiteracy, violence, oppression, corruption, and suppression of thought. But they don't have sex outside marriage, and that's the important thing.
After all, when people turn their backs on God's word, women start thinking they're men's equals and that is how fornication first begins. God, in His all-knowing wisdom knew this, and made it clear that women were men's inferiors. In the Bhagavadgita, they are described as being of "lower birth" along with labourers and tradesmen(32:32). The Bible says, "Man is the image of God...whereas woman reflects the glory of man" (1Corinthians 11:7). And the Qu'ran, which has the most concern for women, still holds that "men are a degree above them." (2:228) But then in the God-less Western nations, and now in many of the God-less Far East ones, women were allowed to work for a living instead of staying home minding children and cooking as God clearly intended. And then they were allowed to get an education. And then came birth control and the liberation movement. Now we have reached a stage where many women actually enjoy sex.
Luckily, in India and Pakistan and northern Africa, men still adopt God's attitude towards women. Thus, in India more than 16 women were murdered every day in 1993 because of inadequate dowries. In Pakistan, domestic violence is estimate to occur in 80 percent of households; and in several North African countries, small girls still have their clitoris and even labia surgically removed, for, as we all know, God did not intend for women to enjoy sex .
I can only that, if God did not exist, human beings might put much more effort into making the Earth a paradise, and much less into ensuring they get into Heaven. How fortunate for us, then, that God in His infinite wisdom so created the world to ensure that that wouldn't happen.
Copyright © 1999 Kevin Baldeosingh