Religion: the lunatic fringe of human thought
I can't believe that religion is still on the table, still being discussed in the 21st century. What is there left to say? I've been reading books on it, on the birth of Christianity and Islam, and like their laughable cousin, Scientology, there are no grounds for reason here, no shred of evidence, that what is being spoken of has any basis for rationality. Religion is, indeed, a huge, fearsome delusion that spreads warmth and hope in some but violence and evil in others. Not all car drivers who drink cause accidents. Not all people who smoke will die of cancer. Not all religious people are driven to random acts of terror, but many today choose to do so. It should be outlawed and pushed to the far edges of society to be left to die out, and like smoking and drink-driving it is a curse that may then affect us less and less.
Comment is free: A force for evil?
In Christianity in school and in church we are taught about the goodness and calm intellect of Jesus, but if you read the bible you will undoubtedly soon come across barbarism, even spoken by him. He curses those who refuse to listen to his sermons with eternal hellfire and damnation. Just for refusing to listen to him speak? Where is the love? The reason?
Islam was created by an intelligent man who saw more clearly than many that the disparate muslim tribes were being squeezed by the encroachment of other religions. Mohammed even said that Muslims needed their own religion to compete. And so he alleged that God spoke to him in the wilderness (no witnesses there, you see?) which he then dictated to others over the course of several years. His words were interpreted differently, thus eventually creating different sects of Sunnis and Shias, and that ability to interpret words differently has led us to this appalling time in history; a time when religion is used more than ever to spread hate, animosity, fear and violence. Billions of people base their lives on myths with not one shred of evidence.
They say God is good, God is great, but if your God demands that you murder innocents who follow other religions then that annihilates all the foundations of your religion: your religion is nothing more than a mouthpiece of hatred.
And if God is inherently good and has created this world, this universe, for our sole delight, then what about the animals who live in it whose habitats we destroy without moral argument? Don't they get a say in this? What about the 300,000 people who died in the tsunami 3 years back? Some would say they were sinners. What? All of them? Some dumbshit American evangelist said that the devastating flood in New Orleans was because some people there practised sin. That doesn't sound to me like a God who is great, who cares at all about us. That sounds to me like the God of the Old Testament; a vengeful, violent God who kills for fun.
And if this God, who reeks havoc and misery and poverty on much of the world's billions, is in fact good, then why did he create the crocodile, or the piranha, or the mosquito, which has killed more through the spread of malaria then all wars put together. Either a vengeful God, whose brutality knows no bounds and whose worship is not justified, or, more likely, it is that this universe is scientifically explained, and that there really is no-one driving the bus.
God is a pitiful excuse: an excuse for evil, for apathy, for leaving it up to someone else. It is, indeed, the worst kind of curse.
Comment is free: A force for evil?
In Christianity in school and in church we are taught about the goodness and calm intellect of Jesus, but if you read the bible you will undoubtedly soon come across barbarism, even spoken by him. He curses those who refuse to listen to his sermons with eternal hellfire and damnation. Just for refusing to listen to him speak? Where is the love? The reason?
Islam was created by an intelligent man who saw more clearly than many that the disparate muslim tribes were being squeezed by the encroachment of other religions. Mohammed even said that Muslims needed their own religion to compete. And so he alleged that God spoke to him in the wilderness (no witnesses there, you see?) which he then dictated to others over the course of several years. His words were interpreted differently, thus eventually creating different sects of Sunnis and Shias, and that ability to interpret words differently has led us to this appalling time in history; a time when religion is used more than ever to spread hate, animosity, fear and violence. Billions of people base their lives on myths with not one shred of evidence.
They say God is good, God is great, but if your God demands that you murder innocents who follow other religions then that annihilates all the foundations of your religion: your religion is nothing more than a mouthpiece of hatred.
And if God is inherently good and has created this world, this universe, for our sole delight, then what about the animals who live in it whose habitats we destroy without moral argument? Don't they get a say in this? What about the 300,000 people who died in the tsunami 3 years back? Some would say they were sinners. What? All of them? Some dumbshit American evangelist said that the devastating flood in New Orleans was because some people there practised sin. That doesn't sound to me like a God who is great, who cares at all about us. That sounds to me like the God of the Old Testament; a vengeful, violent God who kills for fun.
And if this God, who reeks havoc and misery and poverty on much of the world's billions, is in fact good, then why did he create the crocodile, or the piranha, or the mosquito, which has killed more through the spread of malaria then all wars put together. Either a vengeful God, whose brutality knows no bounds and whose worship is not justified, or, more likely, it is that this universe is scientifically explained, and that there really is no-one driving the bus.
God is a pitiful excuse: an excuse for evil, for apathy, for leaving it up to someone else. It is, indeed, the worst kind of curse.
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posted by JW at 6:18 AM
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