Day 130
An alternate view on religion(s), contrary to Day 128. This isn't meant as a counter-argument, but rather an equally prophetic sermon (har har) with a different perspective:
Religion has carved out a seemingly permanant niche within human culture taking advantage of our desire for knowledge and explanations for the workings of the world. Historically, religion was humanity's first attempt at a science; it was a way to explain why random natural injustices (floods, earthquakes) occurred, why the planet, the weather, the tides, the visible cosmos, and the self-propelled body operated the way that they do. There was a time before knowledge of physical process, of micro-organisims, of evolutionary mechanisms, of astronomy, when the supernatural was the only explanation to be grasped.
Religion has since been relegated to the so-called mysteries of the mind, of emotion, of intellect, for want of mysteries in the natural world to snatch under the umbrella of the supernatural. In leiu, it creates problems where there are none. It tells us that we must have a reason why bad things happen to good people, why there are injustices, why we are the way we are, and it demands that the real, natural explanations are insufficiently satisfying. The non-theist has no issue, no contradiction, no mystery, for in removing the supernatural from the picture, lo and behold, no problem exists!
Religion forces upon us a series of insoluable contradictions. The Christian tradition tells us we're born sick with sin; pre-made to do and think bad things, such that no mater how good we try to be we shall always be sinners by our very creation. Yet we are supposedly called free, and commanded to take responsibility for the actions we're told we cannot help but do. But the contradiction does not end there, for while we ought to take responsibility for helpless actions, we can also be vicariously absolved of responsibility by the unimaginable suffering of another!
Created sick, and commanded to be well. Created responsible, and commanded to seek absolution. Created to think and investigate, and commanded to fall in line.
Religion has a history of incalculable bloodshed, of ignorance, of holding back real thinkers and discoverers. Religion represses women, represses sexuality, and sets up arbitrary rules that humans are built not to follow. Scriptures impose a morality, and take credit for 'teaching' the maxims that people lived by many thousands of years before such scriptures were written. We're simply not have survived so long if that weren't true.
Religion segregates children, and thus ultimately encourages war. Before young boys and girls even know how to make informed decisions, they are labelled "Catholic," "Jewish," and "Muslim" children and trucked off to exclusive schools, taught to revere their own God and morality, and taught that the 'other' is evil, and should be hated. Or, if the 'other' is to be loved (as Christianity claims to prescribe), he or she is also sick, spiritually deformed, ignorant, and ungodly; the other is always in dire need of fixing.
Religion strives to mis-educate. The hardest and best-confirmed science of the modern day is ignored outright, and worse than that, detested as sinful by backward religious communities throughout the world. Even in the nation founded by the deist, realist, secularist Jefferson and Washington is struggling to keep bogus biblical creation stories out of legitimite public science classrooms.
Religion thrives most bountifully on fear. We are told that the rules must be followed, the beliefs must be held, or else eternal suffering will befall us, not to mention the suffering inflicted by the religious theocracies here on Earth. We can even be convicted of thoughtcrime, for the supernatural king in the sky monitors our very ideas, our dreams, our instincts, our dispositions, our inclinations, and He judges them. The heavy gavel cracks against the podium the moment you act like a real human being, the moment you ask the wrong questions, feel the wrong feelings, desire the wrong desires. Non-believers are given labels; we are called sickly, impure, sinful, evil, immoral, and destined to the bowels of hell. That some secular non-theists walk with an air of arrogance is no shock; it is a natural response to the dehumanizing criticisms and gestures they face from the religious on a regular basis. Apostasy is punished by execution still in many countries.
But in spite of your inherently created evil, and the sickness of sin you supposedly have, and the hell to which you'll be going if you don't do and think the right things, be assured, God loves you very much. And he needs your money.
Religion is the world's greatest totalitarian success story. It has killed countless millions, and has stifled humanity's greatest strengths for eons. It is time to free ourselves from our ancient roots and enter into a new world without God to hold us back as a species.
Religion has carved out a seemingly permanant niche within human culture taking advantage of our desire for knowledge and explanations for the workings of the world. Historically, religion was humanity's first attempt at a science; it was a way to explain why random natural injustices (floods, earthquakes) occurred, why the planet, the weather, the tides, the visible cosmos, and the self-propelled body operated the way that they do. There was a time before knowledge of physical process, of micro-organisims, of evolutionary mechanisms, of astronomy, when the supernatural was the only explanation to be grasped.
Religion has since been relegated to the so-called mysteries of the mind, of emotion, of intellect, for want of mysteries in the natural world to snatch under the umbrella of the supernatural. In leiu, it creates problems where there are none. It tells us that we must have a reason why bad things happen to good people, why there are injustices, why we are the way we are, and it demands that the real, natural explanations are insufficiently satisfying. The non-theist has no issue, no contradiction, no mystery, for in removing the supernatural from the picture, lo and behold, no problem exists!
Religion forces upon us a series of insoluable contradictions. The Christian tradition tells us we're born sick with sin; pre-made to do and think bad things, such that no mater how good we try to be we shall always be sinners by our very creation. Yet we are supposedly called free, and commanded to take responsibility for the actions we're told we cannot help but do. But the contradiction does not end there, for while we ought to take responsibility for helpless actions, we can also be vicariously absolved of responsibility by the unimaginable suffering of another!
Created sick, and commanded to be well. Created responsible, and commanded to seek absolution. Created to think and investigate, and commanded to fall in line.
Religion has a history of incalculable bloodshed, of ignorance, of holding back real thinkers and discoverers. Religion represses women, represses sexuality, and sets up arbitrary rules that humans are built not to follow. Scriptures impose a morality, and take credit for 'teaching' the maxims that people lived by many thousands of years before such scriptures were written. We're simply not have survived so long if that weren't true.
Religion segregates children, and thus ultimately encourages war. Before young boys and girls even know how to make informed decisions, they are labelled "Catholic," "Jewish," and "Muslim" children and trucked off to exclusive schools, taught to revere their own God and morality, and taught that the 'other' is evil, and should be hated. Or, if the 'other' is to be loved (as Christianity claims to prescribe), he or she is also sick, spiritually deformed, ignorant, and ungodly; the other is always in dire need of fixing.
Religion strives to mis-educate. The hardest and best-confirmed science of the modern day is ignored outright, and worse than that, detested as sinful by backward religious communities throughout the world. Even in the nation founded by the deist, realist, secularist Jefferson and Washington is struggling to keep bogus biblical creation stories out of legitimite public science classrooms.
Religion thrives most bountifully on fear. We are told that the rules must be followed, the beliefs must be held, or else eternal suffering will befall us, not to mention the suffering inflicted by the religious theocracies here on Earth. We can even be convicted of thoughtcrime, for the supernatural king in the sky monitors our very ideas, our dreams, our instincts, our dispositions, our inclinations, and He judges them. The heavy gavel cracks against the podium the moment you act like a real human being, the moment you ask the wrong questions, feel the wrong feelings, desire the wrong desires. Non-believers are given labels; we are called sickly, impure, sinful, evil, immoral, and destined to the bowels of hell. That some secular non-theists walk with an air of arrogance is no shock; it is a natural response to the dehumanizing criticisms and gestures they face from the religious on a regular basis. Apostasy is punished by execution still in many countries.
But in spite of your inherently created evil, and the sickness of sin you supposedly have, and the hell to which you'll be going if you don't do and think the right things, be assured, God loves you very much. And he needs your money.
Religion is the world's greatest totalitarian success story. It has killed countless millions, and has stifled humanity's greatest strengths for eons. It is time to free ourselves from our ancient roots and enter into a new world without God to hold us back as a species.
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