Religious provocation - seriously?

    Some amateurs put a video on YouTube and it has upset a certain segment of Muslims, enough so that, in their perceived offense, they attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Libya, killing four American’s, and have also launched violent protests in Cairo, Egypt, in Yemen, and in other Middle Eastern countries. How does killing someone salve a purported insult from a movie? People have been poisoned by the words in a book.

                It leads one to believe that certain Muslims are so weak in their faith that a simplistic movie is somehow a risk to that faith. Or is it that they believe Allah, or his messenger Mohammed, are so shallow and easily offended that lowly human-produced movies are a threat to them? It is a sad reflection on certain believer's interpretation of Islam that the only way to react to a video that simply makes fun of it is by rampaging against and killing people who had nothing to do with it. American embassy personnel didn’t produce the movie, nor can they prevent those movies from being uploaded to YouTube.

                In Washington DC, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the crudely made film posted on the internet was "disgusting and reprehensible", although it’s almost a sure bet she hasn’t actually seen it but simply read a brief summary of the video. The short film entitled the "Innocence of Muslims,"  portrays Mohammad as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser. But so what? Why is that reason to riot and kill? All this protesting will make the video a big hit, which it never would have been had they not rioted. Here's an idea, why not make a movie that shows just how wrong the producers of 'Innocence of Muslims' are?

  Protests spread further yesterday with US embassies the targets of anger among certain Muslims questioning why the United States has failed to take action against the makers of the film. But by the same reasoning, why not lash out at the internet, or computers, or films in general?

In Yemen’s capital Sanaa, hundreds broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified US embassy shouting "We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God." They smashed windows of security offices outside the embassy and burned cars. A security source said at least 15 people were wounded, some by gunfire, before government troops surrounded the area.

In the end, how did broken windows and scorched cars appease Mohammed or Allah? What sacrifice was made? Can the protesters answer that without just making something up?

Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Kuwait shouting slogans such as "God is great" and hoisting banners, one in English which read "USA stop the bullshit. Respect us."

Yes, everyone knows that respect is earned by taking offense over a video and rioting.

Even if the Koran said any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous, why is that a reason to kill? (Don’t the words themselves ‘depict’ Mohammed?) Does blasphemy itself kill Muslims? Do they die by the dozens, hundreds, or thousands anytime someone produces a characterization of the Prophet? When the Danish published a series of cartoons depicting Mohammed in September 2005, how many Muslims died as a result of the printing?

Zero.

But when they rioted several weeks and months later, how many died?
Over one hundred. 
Over one hundred fewer Muslims alive because people took offense to a series of drawings. Demonstrators claim it was religious provocation. How so? What is so provocative that other people need to die for it?

The thing to remember is, these demonstrations were not by a majority of the people in each of those countries, but only a small violent minority. Of the millions in those countries, only a few thousand decided Mohammed needed to be defended by destroying property and threatening lives. A few thousand people that looked for anything to offend them or needed an excuse to launch a military-style raid.  And as long as this minority believes death is the answer to words, drawings, and films that simply hurt their feelings, it won’t be the last time this happens. It’s a good example of how religion poisons people.
If your religion is worth killing for, start by killing yourself!

In memory of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the three Americans killed in Libyan riots on 9-11-12

Religion - the original sin.

Religion is the original sin. It is the sin of willful ignorance and credulity. Just as the fairy tale of the Garden of Eden relates, religion, as practiced across most of the United States, and in many countries around the world, makes a virtue of believing the ridiculous, and a sin of enjoying life.

Belief is the path of least resistant. Disbelief requires a much more concerted effort. It is easier to believe than to question and doubt. Believing means you just accept and follow. American historian James Harvey Robinson wisely wrote ‘Few of us take the pains to study the origins of our convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already have.’ And as the great Carl Sagan noted ‘You cannot convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep-seated need to believe.'

Why do people have a need to believe something without evidence? Most beliefs were instilled when they were toddlers and were too young to question. As the Jesuits are fond of saying ‘Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man.’ What they mean is, it is accepted that a person’s belief system evolves within a child’s infancy and that a Jesuit upbringing would make the adult a confirmed holy zealot. Not to put too fine a point on it but that is religious indoctrination. If religion were true, it would not need to indoctrinate. Its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. If something is true and correct, why would it need to be hammered into the brains of defenseless children? Many who do this claim this is what god wants.

Believing in god is not a choice; it’s an ultimatum. You must believe in him or burn in hell forever. This is totalitarianism in its purest form. It’s using fear as its recruiting tool. Reaching your goals through fear is called terrorism.

Some ask ‘what is the harm in religion?’ Simple enough. It is because your belief guides your actions, and that’s what makes religion so dangerous. Faith or belief in an after-life is the single greatest cause of suffering and stupidity inflicted upon humans, by humans, for several reasons.

First, it allows religious leaders to control people by offering hope in the next life, promising rewards, threatening punishment, even sentencing eternal damnation. When a non-believer expresses their views, they are endorsing a position that there is no evidence for belief in any gods. But when a christian or a muslim expresses their view, they are endorsing a belief dictating that people who do not believe as they do deserve to spend an eternity being tortured with fire. Yet non-belief is the position that is considered 'offensive.' Why is it a sin not to believe without evidence when the greater sin is the credulity generated by religion itself? And please don't insist that 'it's not about religion, it's about a relationship with god'...that's the same as saying it's not about sex, it's about putting a penis in a vagina.

Secondly, it negates the immediacy and value of human life right here and now. Believing in life-after-death makes the assumption that people don't really die; they just go on to a spiritual life. This subconsciously legitimizes capital punishment and the death penalty, territorial wars, religious wars, turf wars, gang wars, terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, murder, suicide cults, political assassination. People aren't really dying; they're just continuing on in another stage of existence.

Third, it allows people to postpone action in this life (whether humane or humanitarian) in favor of the life yet to come, allowing for political and religious boundaries, derision and division, separatism and succession. Hence, we still have global hunger, border skirmishes, illiteracy, disease, poverty and pestilence, all because the problems of this world are ultimately deemed unimportant when measured against the life yet to come.

Fourth, it offers people hope for a solution to their problems at some future date and enables them to not make a conscious effort to make the necessary changes, or do the necessary work now. It allows them to postpone taking responsibility for their own lives or education (since god will enlighten them and fix everything once they get to heaven). It permits them to sit on their hands in ignorance and inertia while life passes them by.

And fifth, it legitimizes the use of persecution and torture in the name of saving souls for the after-life. This was the justification for the Inquisition. A 1578 handbook for inquisitors spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties: "for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit." The evils they would commit...means the inquisitors projected into the future what they thought would happen and tortured accordingly. This allowed them to make up whatever they wanted. In other words, the only purpose was to scare people into submission to the church and its teachings. It still is. Believe or be damned. Or more simply 'Turn or burn'!

Religion is the belief in ideas that are, by definition, unproven and without evidence. That is why it is called faith…and faith does not give you answers, it just stops your from asking questions. Faith is the firm belief in something for which no proof exists - you simply want it to be true. It is wishful thinking. The ability to perceive the existence of God does not infer the existence of God. Belief in something is not proof that it is real, it does not equal fact. Nothing is true or false just because we wish or desire it to be so. Most people understand this when confronting other religions and cults, just not their own.

The most disturbing thing about religion is that it is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of preaching hate, bigotry, ignorance, superstition and intolerance. Just witness the outcry against homosexuality. Certain people need to stop using Jesus and god as an excuse for being narrow-minded, bigoted jerks!

Personally, I choose to live by these words: Above all things, truth…Not belief, not faith, not religion, not god nor gods, not patriotism, not ideology, not hopes, not dreams, not reward, not comfort, but truth….for better or for worse, truth.

This post is a compilation of some of the best arguments against theism and religion I have come across. I have simply assembled them into what I think is a fitting tribute to their wisdom.

                                                                        Blinded by religion