Game Over?

As a species, there can be little doubt that our technological advancement has outstripped our general wisdom and maturity. We have used our best tool, science, to furnish us with a comfortable lifestyle, gadgets galore and artefacts that our ancestors would have considered magical. The majority of us however, still believe in a supernatural deity of one kind or another who has the ability to intervene in our daily lives, watches everything we do and promises that if we’re good, the end is not the end. The fact that not one single instance of deity intervention of any kind has ever been proven, makes no difference to irrational believers.

In the past, this almost unbelievable situation didn’t matter much. If a God-befuddled, power-mad maniac managed to get control of a country, he could threaten his neighbours but that was about it, even the latest weaponry wasn’t powerful enough for him to become globally dangerous.

That situation has changed.

We already have a God-befuddled maniac in charge of the most powerful country on earth that does have globally destructive weaponry and a few more maniacs befuddled by a different God, who either already have or soon will have, similar weapons. For the first time in the history of humankind we have the capability of self-annihilation. It could be argued that things have been this way for fifty years now and we’re still here and that’s true, but up till now only the countries adhering to the Judeo-Christian God myth, or no God at all, have had the nasty weapons. During that fifty year period, - most people don’t know this - had it not been for the actions of a Russian naval officer, nuclear war would have begun between the USA and the USSR.

The significance of religious involvement in this close call is ominous and we have a lot to thank that – probably atheistic - Russian officer for. Can you trust Bush or Blair on the Christian side of a “God” war, or any leader on the Muslim side?

I can’t, and it prevents me seeing any kind of optimistic future.

Next time we may not be so lucky and that next time is coming soon. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we are already involved in a God war, it has begun and it’s entirely possible that it will culminate in global nuclear devastation. It won’t be God or Allah’s doing; we will have allowed it; we will be culpable; we will have overridden Darwinism; we will have selected ourselves for extinction because of a fairy-tale.