Forgive me Tolkein for ripping off your beautiful poem from Lord of the Rings. It is perhaps aptly fitting, considering he was quite famously a devout Christian man.

I should preface this rant on monotheistic religion by saying I don’t intend to belittle your beliefs; I firmly believe that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. It is your God-given and basic human right to be allowed the freedom of thought. What I plan to do here is simply state just how out-dated and perhaps antiquated a lot of our religious doctrine and axioms are. I want you to see that just because you’ve been told something, it doesn’t necessarily make it true. Because someone (or some people) wrote something 2000 years ago, it does not make it accurate or true today.

Let’s begin with the creation of the Hebrew Bible, or the Torah, sometime around 1300 BC, and the major contributing factor to monotheism in the world today.

Curiously, depending on the interpretation, some people claim that the God that exposed himself in the Torah wasn’t the ONLY God — he was just the only God that showed himself to Abraham. He may have just been the God of Israel, an idea which would fit in with the polytheistic pantheon of Greek and Egyptian Gods, and the slew of other tribal Gods that existed all around the world. Over the following years, and as more scripture was divinely inspired and added to the Hebrew Bible, it seems that the Israeli God slowly pushed out all other Gods until he was the only one:

“Know this day, and take it to heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is none else.” Deuteronomy 4:39

And thus, monotheism was born. Polytheism quickly fell by the wayside, shunted aside by the vast strength of the monotheistic belief system. Christianity quickly followed in the first century AD, with Islam following a little later.

Fast forward to today and the belief in a single almighty, all-knowing and dreadful God rules more than half the world.

Humans have long believed in some kind of spirituality. We want to believe that we’re not just lumps of meat that walk around for 80 years and then die, to be consumed by the earth; there’s something in our DNA or our physiological makeup that makes us inclined to believe in some kind of higher power. Somewhere along our genetic time track, between being primordial ooze and the humans we are today, something went click, and we started explaining away certain phenomena as the actions of Gods, or at least some kind of omnipresent force that watches over us.

With so much belief, it’s unsurprising that Gods literally sprung up everywhere. A God of Wine, a God of Battle, a God of Love — you name it, at some stage there was probably a God that ‘oversaw’ that sphere of reality. When Caesar won a battle in Gaul against an army 10 times greater than his, that belief in something greater, that urge to find explicate all things wonderful, he attributed his overwhelming good luck to a benevolent Mars, the God of War.

It is this slightly odd urge to attribute everything that happens to some kind of higher power that makes us susceptible to religion in general, and monotheism in particular.

I wonder if, when a male lion fends off his pride from another male, he stops to thank the Gods or God, or if he just marvels at his own prowess and strength. Why then must we, as humans, always be humble in the eyes of God? Why can our greatest endeavours only be realised and ratified with the grace and benevolence of God? Why can we not be great and powerful in our own right, and why must we thank God instead of the work by other great men and women?

The thing is, monotheistic religion actually had a valuable place in ancient civilisation. Most things happen for a reason, and monotheism was required for the development of the world that we live in today. It’s widely believed that the development of monotheism went hand-in-hand with the development of large cities and trade between countries — as people moved from villages and tribes into larger cities, monotheism began to take hold. In such a large, messy and dangerous environment — a veritable melting pot of different cultures  and tribes — a single religion, with a single God, was undoubtedly a desirable resolution to such problems.

When you swear on mighty, vengeful God to make good on a trade agreement, other believers of the same religion are very likely to believe and trust you. Before monotheism, trading and buying goods from around the world was almost nonexistent. Unfortunately, for the believers, some intelligent people quickly realised something else about monotheism: it’s very good for controlling people.

While polytheism was generally about explaining away unknown phenomena, monotheism is much more about the control of people, and much more importantly about the control of thought. God expects you to act like this and treat other people like that; God tells you what is right, and more importantly what is wrong.

Therein lies the rub: it’s not actually God telling us these things, it’s a bunch of prophets, scribes and priests. Not to be left out, even a few kings and emperors, over the millenia, have leaned over the shoulder of a scribe and said ‘Oh, I don’t like that bit… take it out.’ If an almighty being, one that was  actually omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent had written the Hebrew Bible or New Testament, then we might be on to something. Sadly, they didn’t — humans did. Now, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Religion had its place, historically. Sure, it preyed upon our inherent belief that there’s something bigger than us out there, but it did enable civilisation to grow, and develop. It made it possible for people to live in relative safety, and to develop empires that shaped the world we know today.

Now that we’ve reached modernity, religion seems a little outdated. It still controls what we say and what we do. Once upon a time, eating bacon or shellfish was undoubtedly risky; just as a homosexual relationship probably was too. Today, they are not. Today, religion — organised religion, with a hierarchy, with priests, and with a system for regulating our actions and thoughts — serves very little purpose. It might be argued that religion has killed more people over the past 2000 years than it has saved. It might be argued that the world would be a different, wonderful place if the intellectual and spiritual road-block of the Dark Ages had never existed.

The problem is this: our need to believe in something is so great and so unerring that once belief is instilled in us, it’s almost impossible to shake off. The most monstrous atrocities can happen to a person, and they will still believe in God’s infallibility; they will still believe that God is watching over them, and that he has a mighty plan that justifies everything.

The root of almost every failed civillisation can be traced back to an over-zealous High Priest

I use the term ‘High Priest’ loosely; it could be a king, emperor, president or anyone that is buoyed up by the belief of a religion’s followers.

The thing is if God actually existed, and he actually guided us, there wouldn’t be a problem. He would actually know everything that has happened and will happen in the future. Unfortunately, I can’t disprove God — no one can. That’s the key, the linchpin and the crux to every single organised religion: they prey on our fear of the unknown. That’s why every religion exists and why they are followed fervently — from tribal polytheism to modern monotheism — to explain unknown phenomena. Every single religion has some tie-in to an afterlife, or heaven, or hell, or purgatory, or even rebirth. They rely on ideas that most likely can never be proven wrong. They rely on appealing to that spiritual side of us that we seemingly have very little control over.

Perhaps it is finally time to throw away a God that disables and lessens our vast abilities. Letting someone else decide for us what is right and wrong, what we can and can’t do, is such a damn cop-out! We, the human race, are so infinitely capable; why would we listen to anyone, or a God, that tells us otherwise?

I took yet another wrong turn and looked around. It was 10am, but down here in the maze-like bowels of Venice it could’ve been 10pm. I’d been up since 4am and the caffeine from the cup of coffee on the plane was wearing thin. Breakfast would’ve been lovely and there was certainly the tantalising smell of food in the air, but following my usually-acute sense of smell had already led me into three dead ends.

A couple of geriatric Italians grinned at me toothlessly from a doorway. Even if I attempted to ask them for directions in Italian they would feign illiteracy.

I stared at them and grinned back, making the shape of a gun with my index finger and thumb. My over-sized canines had done most of the work, but I had to admit: the finger-gun was a nice touch. Pointing it at the pensioners I asked: ‘Dov’è Al Doge Beato?‘ They showed me, with a nervous succession of frail arm movements, where I might find my humble abode for the next two days: The Blessed Duke, the Happy Duke — something like that.  It sounded cheesy, but it was charming– everything in Venice is lovely.

Perhaps ‘lovely’ isn’t quite the right word; ‘quaint’ better describes the almost-complete dilapidation of the city. As I walked on, almost everything is in an awful state of repair. There’s something about floating in the middle of a warm and windy salt-water lagoon that really eats away at the paint and brickwork. A few bridges and labyrinthine turns later, I stood outside my hotel: a canal-side, turn-of-the-millennium building — and I’m not talking about a few years ago! My room looked out over a canal on one side, and had a floor-to-ceiling double-door leading out onto an ancient stone balcony on the other. It wasn’t cheap, but considering nothing in Venice is, I thought I’d splash out.

‘You can’t miss Piazza San Marco, just head towards…’ I zoned out as he begun gesturing wildly with his hands. It was obviously an Italian thing, pointing and gesticulating; some kind of sign language that I wasn’t privy to. He noticed the blank look on my face. ‘I’ll get you a map.’ Armed with my map and camera and finger-gun I looked around and then at the map, trying to catch my bearings. Picking one of the three paths that headed south at random I felt like one of my other namesakes, Sebastian Cabot. He’d been a major player in Venice back in the day and he’d probably had less difficulty navigating Venice than me — he ended up exploring Brazil for the King of Spain! — but I gave it my best shot. I’d already decided ahead of time that ‘getting lost in Venice’ would be one of the primary objectives of my trip. Losing myself as I cut between two buildings that were no more than half a meter apart; disappearing amongst the endless serpentine alleys, lost to the world. Venice isn’t big, but you only need walk 50 meters off the beaten path, turn a few corners, and you’ll find yourself alone, standing beneath the imposing facade of a  Gothic church or Renaissance house.

First up was a trip to to the Piazza — the only real open space in central Venice and the home of most major landmarks in Venice. There’s also a huge clock tower in the middle which, as you’d expect, grants a spectacular view of the ancient core of Venice.

There are museums and churches aplenty in Venice, much like every major city in Italy, but they pale in comparison to the ones in Florence and Rome. I could easily spend hours writing about the 50 churches that I visited during my trip, but that’d be boring! (Unless you like churches a lot… like me!) Perhaps you can now understand where my recent interest in dissecting religion has come from — you can only spend so long basking in the shadow of such an ancient, powerful institution — Roman Catholicism — before something goes ‘pop’.

Venice was home to the very first Jewish Ghetto, a Venetian word that probably derives from ‘iron foundry’, or a corruption of ‘Judaca’, the name given to the streets in which the Jews were confined to in Venice. This is where Jewish segregation all began, though this ghetto didn’t enforce labour like later incarnations around the world — it was merely separation from the aggressive and violent Christians. Set up by the incumbent Duke to protect rather than enslave, the Jews probably sought refuge there — they definitely weren’t free to leave however! It was also around this time that Jews became, um, Jewish: Catholic law prevented money-lending, but Jewish law did not. Jews also became the best doctors because most medical texts at the time were in Arabic, a language that Italians and Venetians struggled to understand.

The Venetian Ghetto existed until Napoleon came along in 1797 and removed all of the gates that had penned them in for 250 years, though some early documents could put it over 700 years! All that remain are the hinges that held those gates, but the Jewish love of money lives on! (Remember, it’s not our fault though — blame the Pope!)

It was a little sad, walking around the dirty, tired streets of Venice, a city that had once been the most affluent city state the world has ever seen. The Queen of the Adriatic was one of its many names, a name that makes you wonder just how opulent and vibrant the city had been 600 years ago. For centuries, Venice was ruled by merchants – a republic, led by aristocratic merchants, their sole purpose being to make more money (something they did very well. What most people don’t know is that Venice actually held an empire — a small one, mainly consisting of the Aegean islands Crete and Cyprus, but an empire nonetheless. They had a sizable military force, and their navy of 3,000 ships were almost invulnerable in their stronghold of a lagoon. Most were merchant ships but often converted into warships when piracy flared up in the East, or when they played a large part in the Forth Crusade — the crusade often viewed as the final schism between Catholic and East Orthodox religions — a role in a war that would ultimately spell the end of the Byzantine empire. Not bad for an unnavigable flyspeck of an island!

And the scary bit? It was all made possible with money; a leader with almost unlimited resources and support from a loyal, trusting republic:  that’s capitalism.