Abused by the Desire to Serve God

From: Atheist Ethicist, a view of right and wrong, good and evil, in a universe without gods.

Growing up, I cannot say that either I or my family were particularly religious. We were not "believers" or regular attendees of any church or temple, although at school we received regular services. Sometimes I wonder how on earth I was sucked into the BKWSU. And, of course, I was slowly "sucked" into the BKWSU ... I had no idea what they were really all about. I wanted to learn about 'Raja Yoga' and I did not realise that they did not teach it. I had no idea they were pushing the existence of some spirit entity as "The God" of all religions and binding me up with them.

This article considers how individuals are sucked in and how they deal with the realisation that they are being conned ... through an innate "desire to serve God" suggesting that there are others who are aware of such programming, using and abusing it. Of course, in the BKWSU, once an individual accept part of the teachings or experience, they are heavily encouraged, re-programmed or have their religious programming re-enforced ... any religious programmed. The BKs Shiva Baba is, after all, the God of ALL religions and ALL religions are merely a tiny part of the BKWSU's teachings.

How, where and when is this desire programmed into us? How do we de-program ourselves from it? How can we teach others to protect from it.

"Serving God" soon equates to "serving the leadership of the BKWSU" ... even quite junior leadership ... and rarely oneself. Many, many, many lives have been sucked dry and wasted by such abuse.

The Desire to Serve God

... I mentioned that it is possible for a person to have a desire to realize a state of affairs that has intrinsic or inherent value, or a desire to do that which pleases God. Neither of these desires can be fulfilled because neither intrinsic values nor God exists. However, this does not prevent the desire from being any less real

... what happens when a person with a particularly strong desire to (for example) please God confronts the possibility that God does not exist?

I want to suggest that because of the desire to serve God, arguments that God does not exist would be greeted in about the same way that a person would greet news that her child is missing and presumed dead in a war, or that he has cancer. The news threatens the strongest desires that a person may have, and that type of news is not going to be taken lightly.

Religious Denial

People often respond to news like this first with denial. It cannot be true. There must be some mistake. We need to get more information. There is a tendency to grasp on to whatever straw happens to float by that suggests that the horrible claim is not true – my child is alive, I do not have cancer, there is a God for me to serve.

I believe that people underestimate the true horror of coming to realize that desires which are of such importance to an individual cannot be fulfilled.

Meaninglessness, Emptiness

... if a person is raised to have a particularly strong and stable desire to please God, then states of affairs that do not contain an element in which, “this pleases God” is true will have no value to that person. It is, in a word, ‘meaningless’. Those who say that the life of an atheist is meaningless are, at least in one sense, not mistaken. For these people, a life as an atheist – a life in which they are not bringing about a state in which ‘God is pleased’ is true – is truly meaningless. At least, they cannot find fulfillment in such a life.

So, we have theists who, once in a while, decide that they are going to look at the world as an atheist would look at it. They say that, just for a moment, they will entertain the idea that no God exists. What they discover is that this is very much like entertaining the idea that their child has gone missing in a war and is probably dead. It is very much like entertaining the thought that they have been just told that they have cancer. They are, in fact, entertaining the thought that the things they desire most can never come to pass. Having experienced that thought, they conclude the need to abandon atheism.

... Tell a person who desires to serve God to imagine no God exists, and he is going to find the situation absolutely terrifying. There may be no better way to ensure that he clutch the straws of belief even more tightly than before.

Anger

Grief counselors report that one of the important phases of grief is anger. When people discover that some strong desire of theirs is going to be thwarted, they look for somebody who they can claim is responsible for that cost, and they lash out. We lash out at inanimate objects ... We lash out at people who had nothing to do with our injury.

Religious people get angry at God.

So, one of the reactions we can expect from people when told that God does not exist – when those people not only have a belief that God exists but a particularly strong desire to serve God – is anger. They can be expected to lash out, to attack that which may prevent them from fulfilling their desire ... The simple fact that no God exists prevents the fulfillment of this desire.

So, from the desire to serve God, some of the things we can expect to get from those who hear that no God exists is denial, a sense of meaninglessness or hopelessness, and anger. These do not come from the belief that God exists. They come from the desire to serve God. This is the true villain in these cases.

Preventing Bad Desires

This argument suggests that the specific wrong involved in teaching religion to children is not to be found in teaching children to believe in God. It is to be found in causing them to desire to serve God. This type of teaching is like teaching a child who, because of some medical problem, will never be able to have children that giving birth to a child is the only thing that can bring fulfillment to a woman's life. It is like telling somebody who will grow up to be around five feet tall that self worth is essentially tied to being tall.

Of course, in teaching children to value serving God ... children know when they have succeeded or when they have failed to meet these standards. In the case of God, there is the option of living a lie – of thinking that one is serving God. However, this brings as much value to a person’s life as thinking that a doll one is carrying around is a real baby that one has given birth to, or thinking that one is a foot taller than one is in fact ... these people are living a lie, and their life has no more meaning than living a life can provide.

Some might see these points as supporting the idea that teaching religion to a child is a form of child abuse. I continue to hold that ‘abuse’ is not an appropriate term in this case, since the term requires some sort of malicious disregard for the well-being of others that simply is not present.

On the other hand, I have compared the act of teaching religion to a child to the act of taking thalidomide in the 1950s – before its harmful effects were widely known. These parents did terrible harm to their children. Yet, in spite of the fact, it would be a mistake to say that these parents abused their children.

There is, of course, another significant difference between 'spiritual thalidomide' and the chemical that some pregnant mothers took in the 1950s. Many brands of 'spiritual thalidomide' cause the children who take this poison to grow up to be people who devote tremendous amounts of time, effort, and money into harming others.

There is, of course, another significant difference between 'spiritual thalidomide' and the chemical that some pregnant mothers took in the 1950s. Many brands of 'spiritual thalidomide' cause the children who take this poison to grow up to be people who devote tremendous amounts of time, effort, and money into harming others.

However, there are others who devote their time to harming others through legislation. It turns them into children who will work tirelessly to prevent researchers from coming up with cures that will prevent suffering, restore health, and prolong lives. It will turn some into people who will stop social practices that will prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. It will cause some of them to become people who will demand the execution of others for no reason other than that doing so is their way of pleasing God. It will cause some of them to grow to be adults who will ignore severe harms done to the Earth and its environment because the Rapture will happen long before humans will suffer the long-term consequences of this behavior.

We have to look to the desire to understand why people are motivated to behave in certain ways, and even to understand why they are motivated to believe in certain ways. The desire to serve God explains, at least in part, the denial, the anger, and the sense of meaninglessness that many theists feel in the face of atheism. These are the constant reactions we get from people whose greatest desires are threatened. Unfortunately, in many cases, this cultural thalidomide causes people to behave in ways harmful to others.

You seems to suck by BKUMs ... wasted whole life for them?

I have no idea what a "BKUM" is, or what you mean. The topic refers to an article about the "Atheist Ethicist" ... a view of right and wrong, good and evil, in a universe without gods.

This is an interesting article. Makes a lot of sense.

My first reaction was that it is talking about Christianity, Islam etc, and why does ex-l think it relates to the BKs?

The BK line I remembered was "serve the world through serving the self", and this is great advice IMO. i.e. sort yourself out first, and you will then help others automatically. "Serve the self", not God. "World service", not serving God. And, when you pay close attention, BapDada preaches that true service is subtle service, which means, in essence, having love and good wishes for others. All good stuff IMO.

While there is some talk of pleasing God, this could not be easier to achieve: simply do whatever you like and the Godfather Shiva will be pleased. Shiva is always pleased. He doesn't give a monkey's ...

But, on reflection, the BKs as a whole do not understand, let alone follow, what they regard as the teachings of God.

As ex-l states, they see their God as the God of all religions, and hence whatever religious conditioning they had as children, from parents, preachers et al, they can simply redirect towards (whatever they see as) the BK cause. If their church, mosque, or temple taught them to serve God, or to please God (or else!), then they can continue to think they are doing so, and no BK will point out their error. Rather the opposite, as the BKs have their own ingrained system of dogma that very much focuses on pleasing their Baba.

They think God is speaking to them in the form of BapDada, and BapDada does keep telling them that this is so, and (because of preconceptions of God, not taught by the BKs, but conveniently utilised by them) they feel they have to do exactly what he says.

I have never had any concept of serving God. Then again I was lucky enough to be brought up Church of Scotland, which is tantamount to being atheist (only more boring), a social club for those who want to feel smugly superior to their neighbours. The Church of Scotland does its best to ignore God altogether, and largely succeeds. I was full-on atheist by the age of 10. Clearly others are less fortunate. By the time I encountered the BK concept of God, I had no issue with it, because they were portraying God as just another soul like you and me, who I was supposed to develop a relationship with: I still like this concept. If there is a God then just be pals with him/her/it. Having - I believe - met that soul that they were calling God, I knew that he/she would accept absolutely anything I thought or did. So the focus was on becoming like God, not on pleasing or serving God.

I was not infected with the full BK dogma-program, because I did not have the pre-conditioning, and because I did have the time and inclination and ability to thoroughly research and "churn" their "knowledge", rather than just accept whatever dogma I was told. I was also old enough (40) and worldly-wise enough to think for myself.

the specific wrong involved in teaching religion to children is not to be found in teaching children to believe in God. It is to be found in causing them to desire to serve God.

This sums it up. I think. If the BKs are guilty of doing this - and I suspect they are - then it is through ignorance of their own teachings, and through discouraging meaningful discourse, and promoting ignorant dogma. This combination denies new "students" the chance to de-condition themselves from whatever religious dogma they were previously programmed with.