CAN RELIGION AFFORD GOD?

Okay, now that we've tackled the question, "Can humans afford religion?" we are left with the question, "Can Religion afford God?" If you answered, "Huh?" you are not fully engaging yourself.

Those who brought you God, devised religion as a support system. John Glenn couldn't make it on his own. He needed his NASA support team. God too needed support. For instance, God doesn't handle money or torture infidels. Someone has to collect the tithes, and mete out the punishment.

And God can't go around handing out lollipops and kissing babies while campaigning. He needed to be above it all--literally. So, He needed Disciples. Disciples, being human, require discipline. Disciples, being disciplined, could then take the high road, leading by example. For this, they used M-O-R-A-L-S.

Morals go in and out of fashion, but according to Science Times contributor, Nicholas Wade, they all come down to this:

You are standing beside a railroad track and you see six people bound to the tracks, in the path of an oncoming train. On a parallel track is a single person bound to the track and you are holding the switch that will divert the train to the parallel track.

Whether you believe in God, or not, you switch the train and squash the person who God had intended to save when he put him out of harm's way on the parallel track in the first place. You have overruled God but, hey, you saved six others and He'll get over it.

Okay. Now you're on a bridge over the railroad track and the lucky six you saved before have found themselves bound again and in the path of the runaway locomotive. Standing next to you on the bridge is a fat man. For the sake of argument, you know that by throwing the fat man from the bridge in front of the speeding locomotive, his massive flab will stop the train and thus, save six sorry souls.

So now you're thinking, shit, this is different. Now I have to proactively sacrifice the fat guy to save the six. I'm killing him, not the locomotive. What do you do?

I say, toss the fat man. You'd do it anyway, even if there weren't six people on the tracks. Americans don't like trans-fatties. Isn't America's beauty, your duty?

But I would be immoral. And I don't want to be immoral. The point here is to be moral.

I know that in either scenario, I am sacrificing one to save six. Outwardly, it would seem they are equivalent. But in the latter case, I have to throw the fat dude in front of the train. Wasn't his life bad enough? Then again, he got that extra serving of dessert -- but enough about me.

How do we escape this conundrum? Intervention in God's will, practiced every day by doctors, lawyers, and Democrats, requires that we forsake God for the sake of morality. This morality is innate in humans. If religion wants to co-opt morality, it would need to lose the silly notion of God. Why? you say. Because God's will is so indifferent, it seems to mimic Mother Nature. And Mother Nature is a bitch.

That we humans have a hard time looking the other way when inequities arise may save us in the end. Whether we chuck the fat man or not, any humane decision we make trumps indifference.

We may truly be Lords of our universe, and it wouldn't be too soon to start acting that way.