There is no God

But on the whole, the teachings of Jesus Christ, as best we can discover them from the Gospels, have been for the good of the world. And they do reflect moral teaching that had then already existed for 1000 years. Christ must have been an inspired teacher.

But he was not God. Nor was he son of God. The reason why the gospels claimed him as such was that his followers had to compete with the then Roman emperor at the time – the divine Augustus, Divi Augusti. Most Roman emperors called themselves gods, Julius Caesar included, as did the Egyptian Pharaohs. Even Alexander the Great called himself a god. The apostles had to be up there if their candidate was to outdo the Roman emperor at that time who had made the claim that he was the son of god.

The claim was a powerful one. Christianity now has 2.1 billion followers. Closely followed, in number of followers, by Facebook.

The final question, then, that we must ask is if God does not exist, then why did the human race invent him (or them)?. There would appear to be three reasons, One is fear of death, A book by Ernest Becker The Denial of Death, which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize, argues that we are afraid of death. He may be right in this statement. The history of our race and the search for immortality, since the time of Gilgamesh, (who ruled Mesopotamia sometime between 2800 and 2500 BC and was posthumously deified) is proof. This history may also be the reasons why many religions have created a life after death (we need a god to do this). I believe that there are three additional reasons: (i) our need for help during those difficult moments in our lives. This need requires that we can appeal to someone powerful enough to provide that help. (ii) Earthquakes and thunderstorms. If you have ever felt an earthquake rumble several miles underneath your feet, you have to come to a belief in powerful gods. This reason, especially in the years before we knew what caused earthquakes, is possibly why Hades was thought of as part of the underworld. Hades, in ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld. A violent and distant thunderstorm probably created the same belief. Finally (iii) is the need of the apostles to promote a religion which is on par with the then Roman emperor, who titled himself Son of God, and many other emperors before and after who claimed to be gods.

The final reason for this claim is that I am writing this article. If readers go back to the original article they will see why the fact that I am still alive; that I haven't caught the coronavirus, was used to support the claim that there is no god, The original article stated if God does exist and is annoyed by this OLO opinion writer denying his existence, then He (She or It) is given permission to use the current Armageddon affliction to stop the writer in his tracks. He hasn't taken up the challenge to date.

This is not an idle wager. Margaret Court's church, which was founded by Court in 1995, believes they are safe from the coronavirus. Full believers, it would appear, are safe. So, it would appear, is this writer, Maybe god does not read On Line Opinion, or maybe I am still on his "to do" list, but I have survived the challenge (so far).