The 2084 Precept (49 page)

The frail but sensuous Miss Monroe was at
the expensive reception desk, the smile was warm, the walls were as
white as before, the office furniture also, and men and women were
investing a part of their lives—a large part of their lives—staring
at computer screens. Everything was the same. Including Jeremy,
short blond hair, smiling moon-face, tailored suit, the exception
being the tie, a beige and white striped one today.

"Good afternoon, Peter," he said, "I was
hoping we could get started fairly promptly today. Lots of Obrix
business to deal with, you know. Refreshments are on the table,
just help yourself. And how are things with you?"

"Things are fine with me," I replied. A lie
of course, because of Céline. "And thank you for the recent
payment, much appreciated. I am trying to earn it as best I can. I
have a meeting in Whitehall tomorrow evening. Quite a gathering, I
believe. We will need to make another demonstration or two, perhaps
including a very significant one. If we don't manage to totally
convince them, we will never get as far as the prime minister. Or
at the very least, it would take ages. Will that be possible?"

"No problem at all, Peter. And in any case,
and whether they admit it or not, they must already have a
tremendous interest in acquiring some kind of control over these
computer-hacking abilities, as we refer to them. And if it takes a
meeting with the prime minister to further that aim, then I am sure
that that is exactly what they will arrange. As I have said, fear
is our weapon. We will just have to scare them a bit, that's all.
With no harm to anybody of course. And we'll let them choose, as
usual. I am reasonably certain they will select something
appropriate. Something convincing, and therefore scary."

He stood up, strolled over to the window,
hands in his pockets, and looked out at the building opposite. He
was in a distinctly relaxed and easy mood this morning.

"Just use our mobile again," he said, "to
let me know what is needed. If they try to take it from you, no
problem. They can't do anything with it. But I don't think they
will, not at this stage. And now…perhaps you could please fill me
in on our final macro-subject,
‘Beliefs and
Superstitions’
?"

He came back to the table and sat down,
poured himself a coffee and gave me that pleasant smile of his
again. I took a deep breath, something I have done a thousand times
during these sessions, here we go again, another description of
what we get up to on this planet of ours.

"I think I will provide you with a brief
prologue, Jeremy," I began, "before I start dealing with the facts
of our beliefs, religions and superstitions per se. And I
will
stick to the facts, by the way, those that I know about
anyway. And please bear in mind that not only am I a cynic, I am
also an agnostic. And so irrespective of any views I may or may not
hold, I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything which I am
unable to substantiate."

"A personal characteristic with whose logic
I fully concur," said Jeremy. "We will just be dealing with the
facts then."

"There are certain proven realities," I
said, "of which we are well aware, Jeremy. We are aware, for
example, of the fact that the universe—the one we know about, that
is—is approximately 13.7 billion years old. And we know that the
Earth was formed from a coagulation of rocks and dust just over 4
billion years ago. We also know that the human animal, by which I
mean the 'anatomically' modern human animal, evolved about 200,000
years ago in the region we now call Africa. And that that was the
moment when, among other things, modern speech skills began their
prolonged development. And by the time we arrived at 50,000 years
ago, evolution had produced the 'behaviorally' modern human animal
whose communication methods were eventually to balloon into an
estimated 500,000 languages; of which, however, only about 4,000
are still in use today."

"You, as a species, still use 4,000
different languages? Today? In other words, you still can't all
communicate with each other?"

"That is so, I am afraid. For example, the
most linguistically complex nation on the planet is Papua New
Guinea, which has over 700 languages in active use today for a
population of only 7 million."

"An average of one language per 10,000
inhabitants?"

"Yes. But then, most of the world's
languages are very localized ones. Nobody really concerns himself
with the fact that the population of Udmurtia, an area in the
western Ural mountain region of Russia, speaks Udmurtian. You could
say that nowadays we have about thirty languages or so in use by
the most important population groups, although some of these groups
are quite small: Greece, Holland or Croatia for example. I mention
the speech skills because they are one of several attributes which
distinguish the human animal from the other animals on our planet,
and we need to be able to understand that if we are going to talk
about beliefs and how they have been able to grow and form an
integral part of our social structure."

"Fair enough," said Jeremy, "I am
listening."

"Human beings are one of what we call the
'mirror-test' group of animals, namely higher-level animals capable
of recognizing themselves in a reflection of themselves. Most human
beings achieve this capability at around the age of eighteen
months. Modern anthropology supports the Darwinian theory that the
difference between human minds and other 'mirror-test' animal minds
is one of degree and not of kind. In other words, our brains are
not 'different'; the human one just happens to be more advanced.
Similar as to how you describe your brain, Jeremy, when comparing
it to mine."

Jeremy raised his eyebrows, ran his hand
through his hair, and smiled.

I continued. "Many religious doctrines,
however, reject this outright, stating that our brains are indeed
different and that they are also supplemented by something called a
'soul', which they describ as a nebulous and disembodied spirit
whose existence, needless to say, cannot be proven but must be
believed in."

"And so where is this taking us, Peter?"

"It is taking us to the fact that the human
being is notable, among other things, for his desire, inane or
otherwise, to explain all phenomena, including the inexplicable.
And to the fact that our sophisticated communication skills, both
in verbal and written form, enable us to interchange ideas,
perceptions and abstract thoughts in general on just about
everything. And not only interchange—we frequently want others to
agree with our own personal views and sometimes we actually compel
them to do so, using either force or propaganda. And we do all of
this using specific tools, namely philosophy, mythology, the
sciences, mass slaughter—including religious wars—and, last but not
least, religion itself."

"Ah, we have finally arrived at the subject
itself."

"Yes, and I'll get straight to it, don't
worry. Religion is a 'belief' system, as opposed to a
knowledge-based system. The belief is directed towards a sacred,
divine or supernatural concept and the object of that belief can be
a god, or a group of multiple deities, or a non-theistic concept
such as
karma
. The majority of humans today belong to one of
the monotheistic, or single deity, religions, the two most
important ones being Christianity and Islam. The Hindus, who
constitute the planet's third largest religious group, believe in
33 gods. In fact there are still some Hindus who refuse to believe
in a transcription error in their holy scriptures and
they
continue to believe that there are some 33
million
gods."

"Interesting. Different opinions."

"Yes, and there are plenty of those, Jeremy.
All of these religions are subdivided into differing sects and
sub-sects and sub-sub-sects, hundreds of them—and that is
absolutely not an exaggeration. Protestants, Catholics, Muslims,
Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Mormons, Greek Orthodox, Jews,
Presbyterians, Sunnites, Shiites, Wahabistic, Salafistic, and a
whole host of others, take your pick. Each of these hundreds of
groups and sub-groups has different interpretations, traditions and
rites relating to their overall belief. These religions also have
their own 'prophets', some shared, some not, whose preaching was
what created the religions in the first place, and why they came
into existence. One of the most recent founding prophets was a
person called Joseph Smith Jr., the creator in the 1820s of
Mormonism, although that particular Christian sect has had several
more prophets and apostles since then, including the ones still
alive today. Mormonism itself happens to be a branch of the Latter
Day Saint Movement, another Christian sect, but we don't need to go
into these kind of details today, Jeremy. We can’t. We would never
finish."

"Quite. I can imagine. You humans certainly
know how to complicate everything. But tell me, what exactly is it
that these belief systems offer you?"

"Offer?"

"Yes. I mean, there must be some incentive
to cause people to want to believe, mustn't there?"

"Ah yes…I see what you mean. Well, I suppose
you could say that the incentive is that you are told you are not
actually going to die. That is the main prize. A fantastic prize,
wouldn’t you agree?"

"Wow! I certainly would. That sounds
really
nice."

"It may sound really nice, Jeremy, but it is
a double-edged sword. It relies on the carrot and the stick theory,
as you will see."

O.K., go ahead."

"With pleasure. Let me take Christianity
first. This religion is based on the belief that God created the
human race a long time ago and that thousands of years later he
determined that things had not gone the way he had intended them
to. So much so, that he (whichever sub-sects’ version of 'he' you
prefer) decided to send his son to the planet as a human being—or
at least in the form of a human being—in order to fix things, or at
least to try. The son would be called Jesus and the decision was
taken that he would be born as an illegitimate child and on top of
that, he would not have a human father. A biological father, that
is."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would he send his son in human form,
and why would his parents not be married, and why would he have no
biological father?"

"I don't know."

"But you believe that's how it was?"

"Jeremy, I need to insist that I am an
agnostic. I am just sticking to the facts as I was taught them. I
neither believe nor do I disbelieve. I just don't know. If you want
me to say that I hold it to be perfectly possible, then my answer
is yes."

"But why create things in this
constellation, in this particular way?"

"I don't know."

"O.K. Please continue."

"Well, the son was born and was murdered at
a relatively young age by the human beings whose ways he had been
sent to try and change. Or to try and SAVE as religious doctrine
has it."

"Ah. So do I understand that he didn't
actually manage to save you?"

"No. But his father is a very benevolent God
and so we were allowed to continue living and retain our chances of
being saved on the condition that we modified our activities
accordingly—or at least apologize and repente for not doing
so."

"Chances of being saved? From what?"

"From hell. From eternal fire. From eternal
damnation. From eternal torture."

"Eternal torture? That is a particularly
vicious and vindictive invention, don't you think?"

"Yes. Although I understand that in some
versions you can get lucky and end up in some kind of a halfway
house."

"But to be tortured for eternity is a
monstrous penalty to have to pay. That's not even just a life
sentence, which would be bad enough, don't you think? How do you
explain that? I thought you said he is a benevolent God."

"Well, I don't know. I can't explain it. But
there are plenty of others who could. Those who are in the
know."

"Yes…well, I can imagine that the
explanation is a somewhat complicated one."

I decided to stick my oar in for a bit of
fun. "Why?" I asked. "You are just the same. In fact, you are very
similar to God. You place the responsibility on us. We have to
change ourselves. You say you are a benevolent species, but if we
don't become like you, if I understood you correctly, you probably
intend to go ahead and eliminate us. That is not very nice either,
is it?"

"Ah yes, but there are two major
differences. First of all, we don't claim to have created you. And
secondly, with us, at least some of you will have lived for a large
number of years and as for your future generations, well…they would
quite simply never be born. And there is no torture involved at
all, and certainly no
eternal
torture. Perish the thought.
Why would anyone want to do that?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Nevertheless, a
direct threat does have the effect of creating fear. Perhaps the
Christian religion and maybe other religions need to operate on
that basis. What do you think?"

"I have no idea," said Jeremy, "why do you
ask?"

"Well, you can
believe
something
simply because you want to, or because you have been told to, or
because you have been brainwashed into it, or because you have been
forced into it, or because a fear was created about what will
happen to you if you don't believe. Or at least, let us say, if you
don't comply, or try to comply, with the doctrines. You see,
Christianity is based on a totally different doctrine to the one in
the Frankenstein tale."

"The Frankenstein tale?"

"Yes, in that story, Frankenstein discovered
how to create a human being in a laboratory. But he made some
mistakes and the human being became an out-of-control monster. But
the blame belonged, fairly logically, to the creator Frankenstein,
and not to his creation. Christianity, on the other hand, preaches
that
we
are the ones to blame, not the God who created
us.”