By Mark Owen - © 2010
I have come a long way since, as a young seeker after truth, I read Surprised by Joy.
I have found a new joy - the happiness of living my life without needing to cast an occasional guilty glance over my shoulder. No godling hovers, ready to prod and poke into the innermost reaches of my life, or, as believers would have it - my soul (a wholly fictional entity).
Naturally those same believers will hasten to assure me that my disregard for GOD changes nothing. He is still there - hovering. Ready to snatch back the erring human who dares turn his back on him. So be it - I will not convince them and certainly they will never convince me unless perhaps this 'immortal invisible' being finally puts in an appearance somewhere. Anywhere.
His coming has been promised for a very long time. But you can never trust the gods, no matter what they say. The Bible tells us that GOD told Moses that he would appear before all the people (Exodus 19:11). Ha! Ha! Either the holy book is wrong or (sacre bleu, is it possible?) GOD lied. Christ told his followers that their generation would not pass before he returned to them. Another lie?
I guess I was in my twenties when I read C.S. Lewis. This gifted writer was one of my pantheon of the most inspiring, along with Amy Carmichael and, for more weighty reading, John Calvin. I read the Narnia books to my children, great fantasy and ever so subtle propaganda. But my children were never fooled, especially my daughter, who, in spite of being adorned with a biblical first name, saw from an early age the absurdity of religious belief. Happy was she to have discovered the truth long before her father did.
Lewis, like many Christians, had his share of doubts but he ignored them and proclaimed the faith. For a long time I was convinced, not only by Lewis but by many others who wrapped their arms around me in that cloying fellowship that tends to hinder clear judgment. The security blanket I now call it. The regular services of prayer and devotion help maintain the hold of doctrine in the face of the humdrum of daily living and any doubts that threaten to intrude.
Break that chain of fellowship and faith begins to waver. And this is what happened with me. Circumstances took me out of the reach of the fellowship and as time passed the breach widened. Bible reading slid away, prayer slid away, faith slid away.
I was chatting with my daughter one day about our cats - and about an old stray ginger moggie who kept raiding the food she put out for her own two house felines.
'Poor old Ginge, it's not his fault he's been left without a home, it's uncaring humans,' commented my daughter.
This got me thinking about our cats. They are pampered, loved and well fed. But each of them has come into our homes by chance. Two via the RSPCA and one found wandering on the road.
Many years ago we had a beloved puss, we called him Flotsam for we found him discarded too - in bushland near Sydney's Botany Bay. The nautical term 'flotsam and jetsam' came to mind and thus Flotty got his name. It was hard to persuade the poor dumped and bewildered creature to come with us but he did come and found with us a good home for the rest of his life.
These thoughts got me thinking about the injustice of life. Flotty happened to be found by kind people and lived a good life for the rest of his days Another stray misses out and lives the rest of his life battling to find food and never feeling affection from anyone.
Giles, my most recent cat, came from a cage at the RSPCA. He was on Death Row. Nobody had given him a home and the very next day he was scheduled to be given an injection to end his life (what a pity us humans can't end our days in the same manner, but willingly). His pleading face and beautiful brown eyes won me over! Flotty always seemed to appreciate his rescue; Giles leaves me in doubt! But I love him still. Heaps.
One cat given a good home. Another left to wander the streets forever. One human being is born into an affluent and loving home in New York, another into an abusive and poverty-ridden hut in an African village.
Reminded me of that great statement of the unfairness of life from the pen of William Blake:
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night . . . .
Unfairness is always with us. Unfairness is the constant companion of the human race - and our animal cousins.
It would seem eminently reasonable to me that a good GOD would create a universe of fairness, where equality was the rule rather than inequality. Am I being unreasonable in thinking this? But, of course, if we assume no such deity exists then it is easy to explain the unfairness of life. Rather than being the product of a designing superbeing we are the end-product of a long history of natural selection and very much subject to Chaos Theory. One baby is born whole, another with a genetic fault. It is a harsh universe but it is, unlike the GOD-centred one, a universe subject to explanation. It is a logical universe. It is a universe I can embrace wholeheartedly.
When you first noted the title of this book perhaps you thought it was some sort of text with a religious message. The title certainly has that ring about it. The key to life is what all religion promises in one way or another - the explanation, the reason d'etre of our existence, spelt out in terms of a relationship between mankind and a superhuman creator. And, by extension, the relationship between master and servant, ruler and subject. (No wonder the rulers and the capitalists fostered religious belief!)
One thing - and, I suggest, only one thing - sustains life - best summed up in this this word: interest. What we invest in this motivator is what gives it meaning and purpose. This is true for the believer as for the unbeliever. The core of missionary endeavour, the core of a person's ministry in the pulpit, the core of the work of a Christian teacher, centres on the mission and this is the thing that interests the Christian. And interest is, I believe with all my being, the key to life.
Interest is the key to life
Interest is the drum and fife -
And any god will do.
A wonderful bunch of words I came across many years ago, the origin of which I know not but which have inspired me ever since.
I looked them up once on that electronic encyclopedia of wisdom Google but still failed to discover much. They come from The Keener's Manual - whatever that is. Maybe someone will now tell me. No matter their origin, surely they must be one of the profoundest set of words ever uttered. And I thank the genius who penned them.
Interest the key? Don't believe me?
Try this for size. Why do you wage-slaves rise each workaday morn and traipse off to your battle-stations in the world of commerce? To earn the bread. man! But why? What do you do with that bread now earnt? You keep a family - you pay for a house - you run your car - you feed your stomach. But why? Because only thus can you satisfy those interests that are the real mainspring of your life - whatever those are. Your sport, your garden, your fishing, your hobbies, your sex, your entertainment, and, dare I say it, your worship. These, the interests of your life, are the ultimate beneficiaries of your wage-slavery. And these interests are all that keep you going. Take them away and what is left? A pointless, meaningless, existence, a drab, grey colourless eking out of the days of one's life. No wonder so many bereft of such life comforts opt to put an end to life itself.
A listener to Australia's John Laws talkback radio show some year back told the broadcaster he smoked marijuana because 'you get that bored, having nothing to do.' Although the man admitted he was a qualified tradesman in a certain field he said he had given up his work as he found it boring. Now he was even more bored with nothing to do.
Of course, for some, the entrepreneurs and even some of the toilers down below, the lower orders of the commercial world, their work is their chief interest, their joy and inspiration. Perhaps these are few, although I read of late the ranks of such are swelling a little. Maybe they have become satiated with the old interests that once pleased them. Too much pleasure, too many fancy meals, too much entertainment. Now the reaction.
I have earlier discussed the manner in which so many young people get attracted to cults or feel impelled to 'give their lives to Christ'. Young people today have many interesting activities available to them but often seem to lack application to something really and intensely interesting. Of course, a handful do - dedicating long hours to improving their tennis or learning ballet or engaging in some craft. But I suspect one of the hindrances to youth satisfaction today is the very wealth of activities and things available. From an early age all manner of toys, games and gadgets are heaped on children and many, I suspect, tend to become satiated with this cornucopia of goodies. In my young days there were great limitations on what was available. I grew up during the war and cash was scarce. Unlike today's children I didn't have a lot of toys and gadgets. But I read a bit about simple chemistry in The Children's Encyclopedia and became interested in this. Eventually I was given a cheap chemistry kit and while still in primary school was doing many experiments and making my own fireworks. In high school my interest turned to radio and eventually, after leaving school I became a radio technician. The point is that I don't think there was any time between the ages of 10 and 15 when I didn't have an intense interest to keep me absorbed in my hobbies.
Ah, you say, what about those who, in response to the call of religious faith, give their lives in service to the poor, or to people in far-off lands, or the needy of one sort or another? I contend that the motivating force behind such life choices is still - interest. Take the interest out of the activity and the project dies.
Have you ever wondered about the propensity for 'ordinary' folk to become what are known as suicide bombers? Something motivates such a dramatic activity - at heart religious faith, belief both in an afterlife and that the bomber will be rewarded in that afterlife. It is well known that self-appointed Islamic martyrs believe that upon their death they shall be ushered into a paradise, waited upon by beautiful virgins (I am not sure what reward the female martyr gains, the emphasis seems to be on the male being rewarded).
In effect, in this case intense religious interest drives the martyr to his or her death. How else explain this willingness to leave all that is dear on earth? The centre of the Islamist's interest has become an intense wound-up ball of energy, propelling the action to its dreadful climax. The normal interests of life - family and friends, hobbies and pets, the garden, all these have faded and been replace by one intense and very distorted înterest.
Knowledge is power. What a wonderful statement, oft repeated and ever true. One of the great joys of liberating oneself from the thrall of religion is to open one's mind to new knowledge. It may be new to you but, of course, it was always and available to those whose minds were not enslaved. I have before me a copy of the notorious Catholic Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which in this 1958 edition devoted over 500 pages to its list of thousands of banned books. Included are the names of some of the most illustrious authors the world has known. The power-brokers of religion know full well that knowledge is power. In fact, the liberal tendency within the Church is one hope for the future. It has opened the floodgates to unbelief! (As the fundamentalists wisely know.)
The reverse is also true: ignorance leads to prejudice. Can we expect anything but prejudice from people whose minds are closed to any but their own narrow view of things? No wonder the priests and mullahs of the world are able to rouse their rabble-followers in outpourings of prejudice against the perceived, but often imagined, foes of their religions. The self-appointed spokespersons for Christ presuming to claim, with enormous effrontery, I might add, that they speak for this long-absent GOD, that they pronounce to us 'his laws for mankind' as revealed in the Bible (disregarding the claims of the holy books of the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Joseph Smith, et al).
Any intelligent high-school student could point out a dozen or so faults in that very faulty document, given the chance to study it without one of the brainwashers hanging over his or her shoulder to explain away the difficulties. Given a bit more time and study the same student would locate hundreds. But, leaving the veracity of the holy book aside, why, we must ask, should the community at large bow the neck to the yoke of religious dogma when the preachers and teachers have failed dismally to prove the very first part of their case, that there is a GOD?
The time has surely come when sane and sensible citizens must rise up and say to these people: 'We no longer wish to hear your nonsense. We have eyes to see. We see the miracles wrought by clever humans. We see events in far-off lands, in colour, with sound, on our television screens. We board big heavy aircraft and find ourselves effortlessly lifted into space and deposited a thousand kilometers away in a matter of an hour or two. We employ daily the intricate wonders of computers, telephones, facsimiles. We listen to the grand music of the composers or read the moving poetry and prose of the centuries. All these from the amazing brain of evolved humans.
In the face of such miracles what does religion offer? Virgin-births! Dying and rising gods! Angels seen by teenage girls! Mysterious images on trees! Weeping statues! What utter piffle!
Religion, in its feeble attempts to bolster its case, draws our attention to natural 'miracles' such as the birth of an infant. But what does it say of the pain and suffering in the young parents of newborn infants terribly disfigured or smitten with some wasting disease, confined to a wheelchair for life? Science explains such disasters; religion has no explanation.
