Sex & Death: Your New Gods

17^th September 2008

I already pointed out in a previous chapter that many live under very religious beliefs, but fail to see the religious nature of their mindset. Science, for instance, has dogmas, and don’t you miss that. Interestingly enough, when a religion has dogmas, you know it’s admitting “weakness”, in that there would be no need for dogmas was the truth available. Science never claims to have dogmas, thus the question of its objectivity isn’t even raised. True science should be non-dogmatic, and shouldn’t behave with a prejudiced mindset. However, in our days, science is dogmatic. Because of this, when so called “anomalous objects” are found, rather than challenge the paradigm, those objects are spirited away. Not very scientific. But enough on that topic.

This to say that God does not die, He changes. I mean of course people’s idea of God, not the entity Itself. In what way are Eros and Thanatos your new Gods? I’ll tell you. “You” being people who either stopped or never started believing in God.

Suppose you’re an atheist, which is not possible unless you combine serious lack of knowledge and curiosity with an impressive arrogance and a very short-sighted mind, then why would you live? Like most people, you would not question this before your life becomes difficult. Any happy person with a happy life can live on without asking questions, because life’s fun justifies itself. It gets complicated when life is a struggle.

From the point of view of an atheist, why live? If there is no meaning to life except the one we give it, why live? Pleasure. Pleasure is usually the atheist’s reason to live, and what sustains the atheist, usually, is simply that life is enjoyable. Naturally, this applies to far more people than atheists alone.

In this pretty picture of life without consequences, one comes to think of death. Death is the one thing that will make you stop and ponder, and stare in wonder. Something without meaning having an end, that may sound a little bit odd. If there’s no meaning to anything, why should it even end? (Not to mention: why should it even begin?)

Still supposing you’re an atheist, and believe there is no driving principle in the universe, no plan, no will other than ours, and no all-encompassing meaning, what will you live for? For yourself, obviously. Now, this will not apply to all people, but to most. In terms of pleasure, sex is the summit we can reach in our earthly lives, therefore, to someone who has no better reasons to live than pleasure, sex will become a God of its own kind, just as death stands as another God of sorts, putting a massive stop sign to our meaningless lives of self-centered pleasure-seeking in the name of nothingness.

If everything you do serves no higher purpose, no greater good, you can limit your life to pleasuring your personal self, because that’s all that your faith will provide for (yes, I said “faith”, because that’s all we can have, short of perfect and omniscient knowledge, which we will never have).

In our days, everything focuses on us as individuals, not as a community of any kind. Everything that is advertised for is done on an individual basis: it’s always about what you, as a single person, can buy. It makes sense from a marketing perspective, but it’s more than just commercials that focus on the individual. From every side, you’re evaluated in what you are as an individual person, more so than ever before in our history.

And all these things are tied to materialism, because people generally do not care much about your spirituality as an achievement, they’ll be more impressed by your material possessions.

Virginity these days has become a laughing matter, sadly, and that’s yet another example of Sex being your new God. “One day you’re gonna die, why wait? Have sex now!”

It all makes sense once you understand the paradigm: meaningless lives in a meaningless universe, we might as well enjoy our short time here. If that’s enough for you to live on, I’m impressed. Personally I would require a lot more than that to make my life worth living.

With Gods like sex and death, to have faith, you have to have pleasure. If you do, and if you maintain a happy life, then I guess you can run on that sort of faith for quite some time. It all depends on the questions you ask, or don’t.

But what’s the point of this chapter exactly? If you believe that sex is the best thing that can happen to you in this life, and that death is the worst, and last, thing that can happen to you, then yes, these two are your new Gods. From that fact, you can conclude many things. Maybe you’re happy with the situation as it is, and maybe you need more. Maybe the idea that your life is just a big heap of nonsense which you can enjoy (or not) for around 75 years, and then you die, and then everything you ever lived, thought, felt, is forgotten, and then everyone who knew you dies too, and nothing remains of you, absolutely nothing – well if this idea seems to you a little wrong, and that it can’t possibly be that way, maybe you should not give up on the idea that there might be a higher purpose, a greater good, and that what you do does matter in a transcendental way which may never be obvious to us.