Judaism, Christianity and Islam all celebrate complete submission to god as the highest virtue. Abraham is celebrated for having the willingness to kill his own son for god. Jesus states that anyone who loves their own family more than him is not worthy of him. The very name Islam means submission to god. But what if all this submission has been nothing more than an orchestrated illusion? What if millions of people over thousands of years have been faithfully devoted to a lie, a fraud, a fantasy, a corruption of the mind? No one in history was more devout to their religion than the ancient Egyptians. The long and elaborate process of mummification was due to a belief in resurrection. On Egyptian soil one would eventually be resurrected as Osiris was resurrected by Isis. For three thousand years Egypt was ruled by the Pharaohs. They were not merely kings, they were gods on earth. Were the most devout ancient Egyptians submitting themselves to god? The people who faithfully practiced all the proper rituals and guidelines, spent the most time praying, made sacrifices, and built temples. Did they submit themselves to god? If you were to travel back in time 4,000 years and speak with a devoutly religious Egyptian, what would you tell him about the future? How would you explain that his immortal and all-powerful gods would be murdered by the mortal and simply human Romans? How would you communicate that this Egyptian's lost loved ones would never be resurrected? Would you tell him that there are people in your time who actually believe that his ancestors are in eternal torment for not believing in a religion that didn't exist yet? No matter how soft spoken, logical or respectful your message is, how can it not be offensive? Would any evidence you bring to the discussion matter? What would the response be? An acceptance? A disagreement? A stone against your head? Quite possibly the latter, especially if this Egyptian was supported, financed and held a high position of authority within the religious hierarchy. Not only would you be denying his dreams of immortality, stating that his devotion and the devotion of his ancestors were all for naught, you'd be taking away his livelihood if he were to accept it. Did the ancient Egyptians submit themselves to god? They submitted themselves to a myth. They submitted themselves to a dead man's definition of god. They submitted themselves to baseless superstition and false authority. They submitted themselves to their own interpretations and fantasies. And how are they different than the Jews, Christians and Muslims of today? They're not. Nobody has ever submitted themselves to god as every word that has ever been claimed to have come from god was nothing more than the words of men put into the mouths of invisible puppets. Puppets who hated who they hated, carried the same prejudices, held the same insecurities and possessed the same ignorance of the universe that was no more and no less than what was known at the time that they lived. The religious don't want to hear it, but the non-religious will keep repeating it. Not only in the interest of truth, but in the interest of achieving something better as guidance for life. Something better than the barbaric, irrelevant, contradictory and nonsensical babblings of ancient and ignorant bigots claiming to speak for god. The babblings of fools claimed to be wise simply because occasionally they said something that wasn't hateful or insane. Submit yourself to something greater. Submit yourself to learning, continuous self-improvement, the wellbeing of yourself and those around you. Submit yourself to truth, justice and liberty for yourself, your community, your county and your world. Submit yourself to the wellbeing of future generations as many of the past did for you. Submit yourself to integrity of thought and reason. Submit yourself to what many people know as secular humanism which provides a noble meaning to life without myths, superstitious fear, or comforting lies. James Kirk Wall

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