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
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