Morality, Charles Manson, and God: the All-Knowing, All-Seeing A-Hole?

     I've been obsessively reading Helter Skelter this past week and it's gotten me thinking a lot about morality.  Charles Manson was a nobody who was in and out of jail his whole life, yet by 1969 he had the world on its knees.  Following the murders of Sharon Tate and four others, all of Los Angeles, and most of the world for that fact, was engulfed in fear and paranoia.  He did not actually perpetrate any of these murders himself, but convinced several young girls to carry out his whims for him. Before I started reading I always thought to myself, "How is this possible?"  I'm only about halfway through but, basically it was a concoction of sex appeal, "far out" philosophy mixed with really convincing theological theories, and psychological tricks.  He would take young girls who were trying to conform with the hippie culture of the time (this, in and of itself is actually quite an ironic statement), weren't the most attractive girls and convinced them that he was basically Jesus.  And more than that, that he thought they were beautiful.

     Now, I admit, I've always been kind of an idiot when it comes to men.  While reading last night, I put myself in the position of one of these girls and thought really hard.  It occurred to me that had I been living in LA in the late '60s, I probably would have ended up joining the Manson Family.

Wait -- WHAT?

Yes, that was my first reaction to myself. This sounds like an utterly psychotic statement, and maybe it is, but I simply could not refute it.  I'm easily manipulated, have low confidence, am easily intrigued by any sort of philosophical conversation (or any man that shows any interest in any sort of philosophy whatsoever; in fact I once fell head over heels for a guy simply because he had a book by Nietzsche on his bookshelf), and I sort of think he was attractive at the time.  Yes, I know, don't vomit, but I must say I'm a sucker for skinny guys with curly hair. And attention, and musicians (he was a mediocre guitar player and song writer, but I guess I'm one of those stupid girls who falls for any guy holding a guitar).  He would have had me cutting up people left and right also.

     I'll tell you exactly what it was about Manson's philosophy that really turned me on, so to speak.  He preached to his followers or "Family members" that morality was basically a sham created by the establishment or "the man." Essentially, there was no concept of right or wrong because every action happens for a reason, everything is natural, all lives are equal (i.e. stepping on a blade of grass is equivalent, or equally meaningless as killing a human being).  Therefore, there would be no consequences for your actions, and as long as you believed that Manson was a messenger from God and did as he said, everything would be just peachy-keen.

     Now, it's not all that rare for me to ponder the idea of morality, particularly from a religious perspective.  Although both my parents are Jewish, I was not raised with any particular faith.  Yes, we celebrated Hannukah and I had a rough idea of the story behind this holiday, but to me it was no more than an excuse to receive presents for eight consecutive days at some point in December when the rest of my friends got to sing Christmas carols, decorate a tree, and be visited by Santa.  But as I've gotten older,  I have begun to think about the psychology behind religion and morality and God.  All religions have a more or less stringent set of rules that its followers must follow.  Most of these rules, however, seem, at least to me, to contradict a large percentage of the instincts with which mankind has been naturally imbued.  For example, everybody has the urge to have sex, yet both Catholicism and Islam do not condone sex before marriage.  Some people even go so far as to say that God does not want men and women to have sex unless it is for the purpose of having babies, and let's face it: nobody wants eight hundred kids running around, so this doesn't exactly seem fair to me.

     Think about it: we are all born with genitalia.  Those genitalia have sensations.  Good sensations.  Sex supplies a natural high.  It literally releases endorphins in your brain.  Alcohol and drugs are both man-made creations and therefore I can understand a religion not condoning heroin or LSD or crystal meth.  Wine and marijuana both come from the earth, however, so for me, these are a bit different, but that's not the point.  My point is that it just seems cruel to create things and then tell us it's wrong to use or do them.  Just like Adam and Eve were tempted with that delicious apple from the tree of knowledge, modern day human beings are tempted by sex, drugs, alcohol, drinking, partying, or even other small things that are specific only to certain religions, like eating pork, for example.  It's like dangling a carrot in front of a bunnies nose and expecting it not to run after it.

     I was talking about this with my roommate on the car ride home from work today.  We drove by a pile of clothing or garbage or something.  It sort of looked as if it was the remnants of a person who had simply disappeared, leaving the earth behind.  This caused my roommate to say, "that looks like someone who got Raptured."  It was funny because it's something that everybody has been talking about lately.  Supposedly, last Saturday, all those souls who believed in God, did all the right things, didn't do any of the wrong things, etc. would be zapped off the earth and sent directly to heaven while all us heathens were left behind to suffer the impending Apocolypse.  Well, Saturday has come and gone, and as far as I'm aware of, nobody disappeared.  Supposedly the man who decided on this date had determined it through a strict mathematical study of the Bible.  He and his followers believe that the date of the Rapture can be determined by studying the use of numbers in the Bible, determining the correct mathematical formulae to apply to them and then being able to actually do this math.  Only hours before the supposed arrival time of the Rapture, he called it off, saying that he had calculated incorrectly and the actual date would be November 21st or something like that.

     My roommate and I were debating the idea that this was even possible.  Ben made an excellent point: why can't we say that it is possible just as easily as we can say it's impossible?  I agreed.  In fact, this is sort of how I view the existence of God at all, as well.  Then he asked me why, in my opinion, God would create such an intricate system to tell us our expiration date?  Why would he make it so difficult?

     I replied, "Because God just likes to fuck with us."

    After a slight moment of hesitation my roommate asked why I would say something like that, or think it for that matter. I told him my theory about how God must be cruel in order to create things just to tempt us, then tell us they're off limits. I made an analogy that I had never thought of before, but that I think is quite apt.  "Maybe God doesn't have cable."  Ben was dumbfounded. I began to clarify.  If Genesis is correct, and God really did create the entire earth and all the people, animals and plants on it, then wouldn't he want to make things a little more interesting?  If you're an omniscient being who can see, hear and know everything that happens on this world you have created, wouldn't you want something interesting to watch and listen to?  I think God actually created reality TV, but it came long before the Real World or Big Brother.  It was called "mankind."  If people walked around following all the rules, wouldn't it be rather boring for God to watch? Why give us instincts, personalities, and emotions if not to watch and see what we do with them? If nobody ever did anything naughty, everything would be really boring.  Just because God is God, it doesn't necessarily mean that he's required to be kind, or on the contrary, that he's not allowed to have a sense of humor.  Actually, I think in order to be God, you'd have to have a sense of humor. I mean, seriously.  Have you ever seen a platypus?
    
     All of this is stuff I think about on a semi-regular basis.  It's almost enough to make you crazy.  That must be why I make awkward choices, or why I would probably have joined the Manson Family if I were alive and in the right place at the right time.  My overall sense of morality is based on a mixture of "do what you think is natural," and "treat others as you would want to be treated." In other words, if your actions don't hurt anybody, then what's the big deal?  If something is natural or instinctual then how could it possibly be that bad? I guess one assuring fact is that it would never feel natural or desirable for me to kill somebody.  Maybe I'm not completely tapped, but I guess that's a subjective idea, too.