In their heart of hearts, believers in monotheistic religions like Christianity, Islam and Judaism harbour a [i]deep hostility[/i] towards them. The reason for the believer's secret hatred of monotheistic religion has a great deal to do with its authoritarian nature. Monotheistic religions are clearly authoritarian because their adherents are [i]obliged[/i] to believe in them. Thus, anyone who refuses to believe in them is promised the worst fate imaginable - viz. Hell.

The obligation to believe in their religion places an enormous psychological strain on monotheists because it requires them to believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever (e.g., 'God'); to swallow doctrines which are patently absurd (e.g., 'Virgin Birth'); to regard themselves as abject, pitiful and corrupt (e.g., as 'sinners'); and to embrace a religious system which has inflicted, and continues to inflict, appalling mental, emotional and physical suffering on the human race (e.g., Christianity and Islam). But what is most psychologically grating to the monotheistic believer, what really eats away at him in the innermost core of his being, is that his authoritarian creed obliges him [i]not to think and act for himself[/i] (viz. 'God', the Bible, the Torah, the Pope, the Imam, etc. determine these things for him). Monotheistic religions, then, effectively require their adherents to commit, to a large degree, intellectual and moral suicide. And this is deeply offensive to all self-respecting human beings.

Given that the authoritarianism inherent in monotheistic religions has a deleterious effect on the human being's capacity for autonomous moral and intellectual development it is hardly surprising, then, that the adherents of these religions unconsciously loathe them. That the hatred which believers feel towards monotheistic religion tends to exist at a subterranean level within them is largely a result of the severity of the penalties meted out (historically and in the present day) against those who openly condemn and despise such religion. Needless to say, the believer in monotheistic religion experiences a powerful and recurrent need to give expression to his repressed hatred of it in order to maintain a modicum of psychological health, and this need usually manifests itself as [b]an irrational compulsion to commit blasphemy[/b].

It will be useful here to distinguish between 'rational blasphemy' and 'irrational blasphemy'. Rational blasphemy is committed as the result of an individual's being fully aware that monotheistic religion is, to put it bluntly, a steaming pile of horse-shit and that it ought to be affirmed as such both publicly and within himself. Irrational blasphemy, on the other hand, [i]'is blasphemy committed as the psychological result of the [monotheistic believer's] own largely unconscious resistance to, and reaction against, the very religion in which he believes.'[/i] (Lingwood, 1989 p.15)

Committing blasphemy - whether publicly or within his own heart - should be seen as [b]therapeutic[/b] for the monotheistic believer because it can function as a powerful device for undoing the psychological and emotional damage inflicted on him by his religion. Thus, with regard to Christian believers, Lingwood writes:

[i]'In order to abandon Christianity completely - in order to liberate himself from its oppressive and stultifying influence - it may be necessary for the Christian not only to repudiate Christianity intellectually in the privacy of his own mental consciousness but also to give public expression in words, writing, or signs to his emotional rejection of Christianity and the God of Christianity, i.e., it may be necessary for him to commit blasphemy. Such blasphemy is therapeutic blasphemy.'[/i] (ibid., p.19)

We should suspect that ex-Christians, Muslims and Jews who are unwilling to express their contempt for the religion which they have abandoned and who instead advocate toleration towards it are still polluted by it. That is, although they now claim to be agnostics - or even atheists - the religious poison which once ran freely and potently in their veins has not been fully cleansed from their nervous system.

Ex-religionists who profess that they are atheists or agnostics but who feel the need to defend monotheistic religion in any way are, to some degree, still under its sway: that is, they remain somewhat fearful of the God they claim no longer to believe in, and their apologetics (or efforts to defuse criticism of monotheism by others) are a covert attempt not to draw His wrath down upon themselves. However, it is possible that their reluctance to go on the offensive against their former religion is simply due to natural moral cowardice.

It should be clear from the above that [b]blasphemy is a valuable tool[/b]: for by enabling the believer to emerge from the mental enslavement imposed by monotheistic religion it opens the way for him to psychological health, autonomy and maturity.

Regards

James

[b]Reference[/b]:

Lingwood, D. P. E. (1989) [i]Buddhism and Blasphemy[/i], Glasgow: Windhorse Publications