For a very long time I’ve avoided the topic of religion as it simply does not seem necessary for me to put my own opinion out there and potentially alienate readers. Today I woke up and thought: “what the hell, lets annoy some religious people”. Simply put, I think religion is a load of crap.
How can Catholics continue to consider a man that travels through Africa telling people rather to risk AIDS than use a condom their Pope? How can they as a religion just accept and brush aside the molestation that occurs by priests? How can so much hate come from such a simple concept? Are we as human beings a lot dumber than we pretend to be?
People are so scared that after they die that they will not go to heaven so they partake in Pagan rituals, devoid of reality so that they can be sent to heaven when they die. People attempt to live a pious life that is so unattainable in modern day reality that they come across as hypocrites only so that they can not go to hell. Maybe it’s just me but when I die I just want that to be it. I don’t want to go to Heaven or Hell and I certainly don’t live in fear of some imaginary place.
Human beings are scared of a mythical hell, a place not proven by science or logic but a made up place that some religious person created so that he (notice the HE) could enslave humanity under a dictatorial dogma that would continue to be pervasive hundreds, if not thousands of years later. If you can give me one explanation of Heaven or Hell actually existing I’ll delete this post immediately.
We believe in religion because it is supposedly “god given” but since we cannot prove this then it is a matter of “faith” right? So the moral of the story is that we need to buy into an invisible, angry god that doesn’t really want to help us unless we donate money to the church/shul/whatever. The amusing reality is that most of the supposedly religious literature is actually admittedly written by a normal human being. Sure, that author was an amazing writer and storyteller but all religions actually admit that most of their text does not come from a divine power! How on earth can a person just conveniently be able to speak to word of god? I’ll tell you how: Schizophrenia.
The whole concept is totally out of sync with modern day life. The way I see it religion is purely about fear and having to suffer for the purpose of improving your religion. Every religious person out there is quite simply a hypocrite. Why you ask? Well quite simply it’s impossible to just sacrifice everything for a theory so people simply do not make those sacrifices simply because it is inconvenient. Yet, they preach on about their pious lives while at the same time throwing judgment on those that do not fit into their mould.
I personally know of a friend I went to school with that recently got engaged, not because he loved and knew the girl but because it is his duty as a religious Jew to reproduce as much as possible. Now I personally hope it does not come true but how happy a life can you have when you’ve known the girl for a few weeks and are getting married purely for the sake of it? Not only are you bringing in more kids than the world needs purely for the sake of some dogma but you’re also bringing them into what is most likely going to be an unhappy marriage.
I don’t get it, why do you need to believe in something to live your life? Can’t you just work on being a nice person rather than praying to an invisible being to satiate your own niggling doubts and emotional lackings.
So that’s it. People need religion because they’re scared or because they cannot cope with their days and need a crutch of some sort. Sure, I guess that crutch is better than say an alcoholic abusing his kids or say killing a whack of people in a suicidal death run but…….. oh no, I just described what religious people do.
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Ooh, an angry rant. Never seems to be a shortage of these in modern-day life
Ok, so speaking as a devout Christian, I also call religion a load of bullshit. You
might (or might not) take the Bible at its literal word, but let me explain.
Jesus either did (or didn’t) ascend on a cloud into heaven. This detail is not
important. What is important is the church that Paul and the other disciples
founded afterwards – which you can read about in the New Testament, book of Acts.
Their church didn’t require buildings, rituals or dogma of any sort. They regularly
met at eachother’s homes, ate, drank, worshipped, etc – probably similar to today’s
“cell-church” groups, only a lot more disorganized (in a good way).
So where did the shit hit the fan? The Roman Empire.
The Romans used to believe in their pantheon of gods – Jupiter, Mars and the like.
After the events of 30AD, Christianity’s revolutionary message was spreading like
wildfire, and the Empire risked a massive split if they couldn’t contain it.
So they were faced with a choice of either quashing it (and sparking a rebellion),
or taking a more insiduous route – pacify the population by “introducing”
“christianity” as the official religion of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
And so they went, and slapped new names and faces on their old gods. Zeus became
God, Hermes became Gabriel, and so on and so forth. The end result (Catholicism),
was structured in exactly the same way as the Catholicism of before, except now the
Pantheon were the Saints, and the rituals were now the Eucharist, etc.
Look at Catholicism today. It’s not a religion that actually exists for the salvation of its members. Instead, it’s all about the rituals, the “community”, and upholding the inner laws. I’ve read their doctrines over and over again, and I can’t find any mention of God as He is supposed to be mentioned.
Now this is all fine and well – it’s only one religion amongst many, right? Not really. Protestantism (which formed the basis of what we’d call “modern Christianity” – the NGs and NRCs and Charismatics and the Rhemas, etc), was derived from an ideological split with the Roman Catholic Church, and while they dropped the rituals of old, they kept the basic structure – once a week meetings in a designated building, teachings by the pastor only, etc.
So the church most people go to every week and kid themselves into believing that it constitutes a sanctious life, is actually a derivation of an oppressive, militaristic organisation that was responsible for the mass conquest and enslavement of most of Europe, the Middle East, and eventually, the world.
And that’s why religion, as we see it today, is a fuck up.
Personally, I’ve found God by taking completely alternate routes. I don’t even go to church anymore. Most of what I believe is only vaguely rooted in the Bible (if at all). God is so much bigger than any church – how easy it is to forget that.
And so yes, speaking as a Christian (literal: one who follows Christ), I can confidently say that religion never was a part of the plan, and should be regarded as such.
~ Wogan
Yep, I’m against organised religion as a whole too. And as my boyf likes to say, us non-believers should get a lot more credit for being good people when we don’t have the fear of hell motivating our actions
I’d love to write a post like this about my opinions on religion too, but I fear too much can be taken out of context when written as apposed to discussed. Perhaps when I’m braver
Thanks Wogan! I was on my way here for a little rant but you’ve covered everything I was gonna say.
I am a Christian, I believe Jesus died for me and my sins. Ofcourse thinking about it makes it so impossible to conceive the notion but then again, The Big Bang theory is so flawed as well. The one question no scientist can explain is “WHAT CAUSED THE BIG BANG”.
anyways, I can almost understand your point of view Saul and what I find ironic is that there’s a character in the Bible named Saul
I used the Bible like a guideline to honest. 99% percent of Churches out there don’t follow it to the T. I mean if they did, woman would not be allowed to speak in church, would always have to wear a hat and would be ostracized for even hinting at delivering a sermon.
We also need to remember, as Saul said in the post, that the Bible was written by “normal” humans and infact a Roman emperor put the Bible together. Ultimately it comes down to one thing, are you comfortable with who you are and with your “fate” should you die today?
and just as another note, the only *idiots* who run around killing others in the name of God are fanatics. Any form of fanaticism is bad, fanatic football supporters who fight because there team lost, fanatical zealots who fly planes into buildings and fanatical people who take suicide death pacts are all bad. Its not only religious fanatics who are idiots.
Please also consider you’ve just painted every single religion out there as feeble minded idiots who are emotionally insecure and that’s a little unfair dude.
Then again, this is *your* blog and as such you have the freedom to say what you want and those that don’t like it shouldn’t read it
Just a quick post to say I agree whole heartedly with Saul’s post, and StevenMcD just to stir, “WHAT CAUSED GOD?”
It’s the opiate of the masses… My issue with religion though is how people, seemingly intelligent people, lose all logic and insight when it comes to ‘faith’ and ‘religion’. They ignore the contradictions, they glance over the ridiculous and choose to blindly follow. Perhaps they just need something to make their lives meaningful. Then again, I’m a cynic
@Saul Cool post, but I would have hit a bit harder. I was once where @StevenMcD and @Wogan was as a Christian blaming the Church and the establishment of religion for its faults, it took me a few years to start realizing that the problem is much deeper than this. It is human nature.
People are religious or follow a religion for a number of reasons: 1) Born into it and indoctronated from birth to believe it, 2) Fear of death and hell, 3) Peer-pressure or the social acceptance issue, 4) A lack of exposure to the arguments both for and against the existence of a God or the Toothfairy and more.
Religion is behind most of the bigotry we see in the world today, openly calling yourself Gay or Atheist in some places can get you killed, and in most places at least make you a social outcast. The Bible for example contains some hateful and violent statements, which any reasonable parent should realize is not suitable for reading by children, yet parents force kids to read it. For example: Someone that works on a Sunday should get stoned to death. lol, by that line alone most of us should have been dead a long time ago. /End Rant
Religion is the biggest con. I have yet to find any mention of father xmas or the easter bunny in any biblical texts. So why do we celebrate these things. Because it allows us to spend money. That is the only true god. Money. People worship it.
For interesting take on the origin of religion check out a documentary called zeitgeist.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
@Just1n lol, I’m with you dude. I just don’t entirely endorse Zeitgiest though, but it is entertaining though
Gday, Merely wanted to show you your website isn’t launching correctly on my iphone. Do you know if there is some setting I need to use to make it display correctly? Everything is out of line.