The God Gamble

By Herman Strating

The impulse to believe in a Creator, to take things on faith, to worship, to believe in miracles, and to believe in afterlife reward or punishment, has had dire consequences for humanity. This begs the question, why would anybody in his/her right mind still believe in something which has consistently throughout history been at odds with civility? If you appeal to the human mind's proclivity for self-deception, combined with the innate herd mentality, with a system that promises the ultimate reward (heaven) and threatens the ultimate punishment (hellfire), you can convince people of just about anything. If, instead, humans learned to base their convictions upon evidence and give them only that degree of certainty that the evidence supports, it would, if it became universal, avoid most of the violence in the world today. The author was born in what was Apartheid South Africa and immigrated with his family to Boston, Massachusetts, 30 years ago. Never a slave to convention, in his formative years, he questioned the contradictions of the religion, Protestantism, into which he was born, and he challenges the same contradictions still today. Blending the experiences of his early life in Africa with all its superstitions and his later life in America with all its religions, he traces the origins of the supernatural ideas that are still holding us hostage and argues that it is too late in the evolution of human intelligence to believe in the grim fairytales of yesteryear. At times humorous, at times tragic, at times both, but always plainspoken and thought-provoking, he tackles the burning socio-political issues of our time: abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, illegal immigration, euthanasia, anti-Semitism, the teaching of evolution in public schools, the death penalty, as well as the metaphysical issues: morality, prophecy, miracles, fear, the meaning of life, etc. In all these issues, religion commands too much exposure and respect in the mainstream media. We need to change the cultural climate to make it unwelcome in our culture and embarrass adults for surrendering their sound minds to mythological nonsense. God is the product of the human mind. Man made God in his own image; what more adorable image than his own could he choose? That explains why God possesses all the qualities of human excesses and wishes. From its inception, religious wars have never ceased, and not surprisingly, they are still raging in the parts of the world where it all started: the Middle East and Arabian lands. As if that is not enough, the public in civilized countries like the U.S.A. is being bombarded on a daily basis with religious proclamations and books to rally the troops and to try and lure back the stragglers. The explanation for God's origin is, however, also a harbinger of his demise: the same intelligence that invented him in primitive times will eventually destroy him in enlightened times. As the UNESCO slogan goes, "Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed." Charles Darwin was, perhaps, my greatest inspiration in that, through his research, he liberated the world from the burden of an imaginary malevolent creator who demands our souls as payback for his trouble (and our sins). In The Descent of Man he wrote, "As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1719824894
• ISBN13: 9781719824897
• Release Date: September 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 680 Pages
• Weight: 2.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.5" x 6.7"