Lately, several people have told me that being squarely against religion is not healthy. Instead, I should try to focus more on what’s good for the world, cooperating with religious ideology in order to encourage healthy living.

I disagree strongly.

For me, religious ideology is more dangerous than slavery. Seeing as how this week marks the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States, it seems timely here to explain why.

I am not the first one to link the two. James Baldwin did so once, rather poignantly:

“If I discover that those songs the darkies sang and sing were not just the innocent expressions of a primitive people, but extremely subtle, difficult, dangerous and tragic expressions of what it felt like to be in chains, then by one’s presence — by the attempt to walk from here to there — you’ve begun to frighten the white world.



“They have always known that you are not a mule. They have always known that no one wishes to be a slave. They have always known that the bales of cotton and the textile mills and entire metropolises built on black labor, that the black was not doing it out of love. They were doing it under the whip, the threat of the gun, and the even more desperate and subtle threat of the bible.” — James Baldwin

What is the threat of the Bible? It is the one that says you must turn the other cheek, obey your master, and forgive those who persecute you — verses often nailed in by slaveholders and backed up by a God who was seen as superior to human experience and reason. To be fair, liberation theology has, largely, taken the slave mentality inherent in the Bible and turned it against the influence of racism in the United States, much as a slave may snatch the whip from its master in order to reverse the power dynamic, which is why I have a bit more respect for liberation theology than I do for most of religion. But at its base, it’s still the same slavery mentality that insists everything you are must be in complete and total service to an imaginary being.

The Bible frequently recognizes this fact when it portrays belief in God as a master-slave relationship.

For example, God presents himself, clearly, as a slavemaster in Malachi 1:6:

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.

God’s characterization as a slavemaster is repeated often in the Bible — along with the message that people are better off as slaves to an imaginary being than otherwise (there is a disturbing parallel here to slaveholders who insisted that their slaves were their slaves for their own good).

This message is far from just an Old Testament one. Take Romans 6:20-22, for instance:

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

Not only does the Bible recognize that serving God is akin to slavery — it makes the connection between slavery to God and slavery to people explicit several times. In my mind, this connection is fitting — God doesn’t exist; he is constructed and controlled by human-beings — he is a puppet. As Langston Hughes put it:

The ivory gods,

And the ebony gods,

And the gods of diamond and jade,

Sit silently on their temple shelves

While the people

Are afraid.

Yet the ivory gods,

And the ebony gods,

And the gods of diamond-jade,

Are only silly puppet gods

That the people themselves

Have made. — Langston Hughes, “Gods”

So God is constructed by humans, and this construction holds those who believe in this God in chains. In my mind that’s not any more OK than being a slave to human beings directly. It is often worse, because the threat of God is greater than any that human beings can provide — it is far more invasive. As Jesus put it in Matthew 10:28:

“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The Bible, recognizing that God is a greater threat than human beings, often uses slavery to God as an incentive for slaves to not only submit to their masters, but to respect them, fear them, and thoroughly obey them.

One place this connection between being a slave of human beings and a slave of God seems clear is in Ephesians 6:5-6:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.

A similar sentiment is pronounced in Colossians 3:22:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

And being a good slave is directly linked to “God’s name and [the apostles’] teaching” — directly implicating them in the practice of slavery — in 1 Timothy 1:6:

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.

And the practice of teaching slaves to be subservient is repeated, again — with God’s authority — in Titus 2:9-10:

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

And then, finally, in I Peter 2:16-21, slavery to God is almost immediately followed by the encouragement for slaves to submit themselves to even the harshest masters. As God’s slave, you are expected to be the best slave for even the cruelest human beings — even accepting “unjust suffering” and beatings. Lest there be any mistake about this connection, the writer of I Peter (supposedly the first pope) states that slaves are supposed to do this “in reverent fear of God” — who is, remember, their slavemaster (as they are, again, “God’s slaves”):

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called,because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

What really infuriates me is that this is a lie. This is a carrot on a stick that many people, then and now, chase after their entire lives and never get. And I’m expected to sit there on the sidelines during this pursuit, as if it’s all OK? Or just move the carrot in a different direction? No. No. No. A thousand times no. I will not lie to you or anyone else with false promises they will never see. I will not be part of any conspiracy remotely interested in encouraging human beings to give one iota of their lives, minds, or families to a phantom. I feel that it is impossible to say this strongly enough.

So…given this, I hope it’s clear that the reason I am an antitheist is that I do not believe in making human beings the slave of an imaginary being, or forwarding that position in any way, shape or form. When someone says, “But we can get people to do good things if we say that God wants them to do them,” my reaction is just as strong as if someone says that we can get people to do good things if we shackle them or threaten them with a whip (or hell) and tell them to do them.

I hate slavery. I hate it. I hate it in every ounce of my being. But if there is something I hate more than the more obvious human slavery, it’s the subtle slavery through an imaginary being, a puppet-God, that is controlled by human beings and used to manipulate the populace. I can’t endorse it. It is frequently difficult for me to find nice things about it, and I don’t usually care to try. I want to be free from its chains, I want to protect those who are free from its chains, and I cannot help but be steadfast in my position that all humankind should be free from its subjugation.

This position, as I’ve said, often gets me labeled an antitheist. If the title fits, I’m happy to wear it.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via Son of Groucho under CCL 2.0]