UNDERCUTTING ISIS

Last week was the one-year anniversary of the terror attack at a San Bernardino county government Christmas party. (The folks responsible—who were Muslim—may have been ticked off having to attend a function with built-in Christian sentiment.)

The shooters pledged allegiance to ISIS before going at it. Afterwords, they were allegedly cruising the area in a rented SUV, trying to find a wi-fi signal so they could detonate bombs they'd left behind. No luck, there.

At the memorial ceremony I presume the survivors and the families of victims were treated to a jumbo-sized portion of religious palaver. It's what we do, without paying much attention to the implications.

(Makeshift shrines to those burned-up in the Oakland warehouse party fire included not only the usual balloons, but lighted candles. Fighting fire with fire, I suppose.)

The fact is, offering religion at the memorial for a religion-based terror attack is exactly the wrong way to go. You end up in a religious pissing contest: My religion can beat up your religion!

Or closer to it: My religion can forgive anything your religion would have you do to us. Which makes us the ultimate winner. Also: God always liked us better!

Can you really fight nonsense with more nonsense?

Wouldn't it be better if we could take these opportunities—and there will be many more of them—to kick the legs out from under a variety of God-addled perpetrators?

The concept of God is fundamental to ISIS. Those guys couldn't get out of bed in the morning without it. Every scrap of their presumed legitimacy comes from God as depicted in the Quran.

And it doesn't go far enough simply to repudiate the holy book they turn to for guidance. And not just because there has been plenty of extravagantly nasty activity inspired by the Bible.

It makes more sense to go after the Big Guy himself. As long as he stands, more books can be written about him (or reportedly by him). With whatever evil results.

Remember, all revealed religions start with a text some guy swears came from an enchanted state of mind that could only have been created by a Supreme Being.

And while most people rely on the traditional revelations—if only because the details occurred so far in the past they don't have to consider how it actually played out—there are always plenty of disaffected humans aching for a new revelation to sink their rotting teeth into.

To prevent modern-day brain-storms from promulgating new levels of dangerous nonsense, we need to eliminate the pretended source—the concept of God itself.

If you are serious about fighting ISIS, disavow the very idea of God. That should be the text of any memorial service held for their victims.

Calling for help from God to fight ISIS is more than naive. It's absolutely counterproductive.

Perhaps you're a tad reluctant to scrap God as a concept. Maybe you think he'll hear about it and punish you in some heart-stopping manner. (Literally.)

But why worry? You must know that atheists and god-denying agnostics exist on this planet and go about relatively normal lives.

Remember, the first Commandment doesn't say you have to believe in God—merely that you put the Big Guy first on your list of gods. If it turns out you have a list.

Feel bad about not going to church and praising God? What sort of god would want praise from the likes of us?

Feel something's missing if you can't pray to God for stuff? Don't sweat it. Answered prayers are an illusion. (Don't forget—and it's quite easy to do so—human beings are idiots.)

Besides, if there were a God, wouldn't he already know what you wanted to pray for? Should you really have to beg that guy repeatedly to heal your grandmother's psoriasis?

And get over yourself. Denying the existence of God doesn't make God disappear, should there actually be some sort of God out there.

(Such a god, should he exist, would have a lot to answer for.)

Take comfort in this: A proper God would have no trouble understanding why you found it necessary to turn your back on him. Defeating ISIS is a hard job—one he's been unable to do, so far.

(I'm leaving out the annoying possibility that the existence—and persistence—of ISIS comes from exactly the wrong sort of God, that those blood-happy fellows have actually got it right.)

Look, I get it. My suggestion to kick God loose will no doubt fall on deaf ears. My bet, humans would rather hold onto the comforting (though hideously dangerous) idea of God—and put up with the existence of ISIS.

The devil you know, boys and girls.