I am becoming more and more paranoid of the world. Anyone who has read any of my longer or more passionate blog posts will know that I am an ardent anti-religionist and strong atheist.
Before now, I'd always been quite okay with religion, thinking that since this is the 21st century, the mighty 2000's, the time of rapid scientific advancement and discovery, this sort of ridiculous thinking was dying out.
I AM WRONG.
Contrary to what I thought, religious extremes are not dying out but growing. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY. People are becoming more and more afraid, and are losing their wonder for the world. They want to believe in something more, in something extra. Human life, and human values, and humanity itself is NOT good enough for them. Where is this coming from? Why are we not enough? Why is THIS not enough?
Extreme Evangelist Christians in the United States are at a rapid raise. These people are ridiculous. They establish bans on childrens books- Harry Potter is banned (witchcraft is of the devil), they scar children by making them believe their friends and family are going to burn in an eternal fire for silly things, teaching their children plain nonsense and most of all- not letting people, children mostly, enjoy their life. Then these people grow up, create offspring and pass on these ideas.
These people wish to create an Evangelist Christian militia that aims to eliminate people of other religions and of no religion. These people will badger you and bug you to accept their views (which are completely ridiculous and erroneous, by the way) or they will condemn you.
Does this sound familiar? Yes, it sounds like every other major religion; Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, etc.
I used to be an advocate for free belief. I still am. Yet there's a limit. You have the right to freedom of religion, of belief, of speech, of life of whatever. But the kids being brainwashed lack this freedom. They don't get freedom of choice, they don't choose their beliefs. And this makes me sick to my stomach. These people are are the dog that bite off your hand when you offer them a pellet.
I used to be an advocate for free belief. I still am. Yet there's a limit. You have the right to freedom of religion, of belief, of speech, of life of whatever. But the kids being brainwashed lack this freedom. They don't get freedom of choice, they don't choose their beliefs. And this makes me sick to my stomach. These people are are the dog that bite off your hand when you offer them a pellet.
The world is becoming polarised. Perhaps
- These people will end up killing each other and the rest of us can continue to live and finally rid the world of idiocy
- These people will kill us and then end up killing each other
- One group of these people will kill everyone and take over
- People will come to their senses and there's a happy ending
- The rest of us can try to stop the brainwashing of children into believing what their parents believe, and slow down the polarisation of theists!
Today I support Richard Dawkins and the atheist bus and billboards.
(yeah you can't actually click the donate today, don't worry).
- Fitna: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kcev1K-NOc
- Jesus camp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOqGhcwwE1s
- Root of all Evil?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_1Gpt6dKFo
- Enemies of Reason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQ57X3YhH4
- Religulous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HKHaClUCw4
- Documentary about Atheism: http://www.documentary24.com/documentary-about-atheism-those-who-do-not-belief-in-god--164/
Why is THIS not enough? Because very often THIS SUCKS, obviouslly.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnd a Christian extremist dick will very likely be as much of an Atheist dick if he was born in an extremely Atheist family.
ReplyDeletePeople gotta be dicks, can't blame anyone or do much about it, really.
No, THIS doesn't suck.
ReplyDeleteWhat sucks is teens and their "everything sucks" attitude. Fear sucks, and hate, which I know, makes me a hypocrite since I'm afraid of a lot of things, especially people, and I hate a lot of things, like religion.
I have nothing against dicks, Henry, quite obvious since I'm a straight female...
but there's a difference between being a dick and being, well, retardedly evil.
Having to work in order to aquire currency which is esstential to surviving in this society sucks. War in general, and subsequently the army, sucks. African children born with AIDS sucks.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at history and it's really about how much it had always sucked. This world doesn't work out for everyone and it's rational to seek alternatives.
All religions have philosophical basis and ancient philosophers were no teenagers.
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And I don't think I know a way to explain how white people only used Christianity in order to acheive world domination because their white culture is inherently aggresive, without appearing slightly racist.
But you know what I mean. You can't blame Karl Marx for all these people Stalin had killed.
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Incidentally the woman from Jesus Camp was a pretty bad example of a christian. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis were both quite religious and they wrote great stories involving wizards.
I, dear Hank, am quite a fan of both C.S Lewis and Tolkien.
ReplyDeleteYet I don't think their being religious made them good story tellers.
Ancient philosophers knew no better.
Everyone from Jesus Camp is a bad example of a christian. Like I've said- I can tolerate religious people. I have a few friends who are religious and I love them, even if I think they're wrong.
The differerence is of course, that they don't try to convince me to become religious, and they don't try to convince little kids to become religious, and they don't threaten to kill people who are not of their religion, and they are open minded enough to not protest against the teaching of evolution in biology. At least as far as I know, those who are extremely religious in our biology class have managed to shut the fuck up and learn that shit, even if they think the world is 6000 years old.
:)
Surely if the two were not religious the stories would've been different, at the very least setting-wise. Aslan was Jesus. The whole good vs evil thing is quite christian, as is the
ReplyDeleteromanticizing of sacrifices.
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Should we agree that the issue is more about extremist vs descent people than it is about religions vs atheism, then?
Because that was my point. Religions aren't bad. Some religious people are.
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Also that if I were to have kids I'll probably try to stop them from listening to pop music, seeing how terrible it'd get in f*cking 30 years. Now that is an atrocy in itself, trying to direct someone's taste in art, but I suppose understandable.
I do empathy.
"Religions aren't bad".
ReplyDeleteActually they are bad, and to deny this would mean that you support the irrational process of inhibiting both social and psychological evolution.
One cannot deny the historical facts in Christianity for example. Note: I will use Christianity as my primary example as it is the religion that has been most prevalent in my life, as well as majority of western civilizations.
Anyway, as I was saying one cannot deny the historical facts of the religion. One cannot argue the FACT that Christians would kill those whom they deemed evil or ungodly. There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people killed via the Christians during the middle ages and even 15 decades or so ago. The people they would target were typically scientists and those whom used rational intelligent thinking, which they then deemed blasphemous.
The creation of underground scientific communities were needed just to avoid the wrath of the Christian community. If you dared to oppose religion, you were murdered. Theories on science were kept secret, obviously hindering the process of humans gaining REAL knowledge.
Who knows how many centuries behind our potential we are because of the fear that Christians struck into the scientists and free thinkers of those times. We could have had cures for cancer, aids and who knows what else had there not have been such interference by the Christians into the strides of science.
And that's just the somewhat modern history of the latter years of Religion.
We could go back further into the 11th - 13th century and look at the crusades if you wanted. But I'm sure you're well aware of the millions of lives lost through centuries of religious battles, all in the name of gods.
Go back even further and you will notice that religion and Christianity in particular started off with violence. There was never a few centuries of Christians just letting everyone think what they wanted. Do you need to look at the way the Roman empire forced Christianity upon the people mere decades after the so-called existence of Jesus Christ. Violence, fear, hate, judgment and pillaging was always at the center of religion.
Now I can already see what your retort will be...
"But I said that my point is that the religions aren't bad, it's some of the people."
ReplyDeleteBut I mean really? That's like saying that it's not Nazi Party ideals that were bad it was the people that made active that which they were inspired to do through those teachings.
Sure the Nazi Party's racist and antisemetic views were there. And some people were actively involved in pushing the party's agenda, while others supported the views, but didn't actively engage in any of the violent behaviour.
The bible makes numerous direct quotes promoting violence, stating you should stone a child when he is rebellious. It's very easy for one to say "times were different back then, you've got to take it with a grain of salt"...
Maybe in 50 years people will be looking back at the Nazi agenda and saying "Things were different back then, you've just got to understand"... And try to make excuses for that behaviour too.
Religions are inherently violent, whether you like to believe so or not. Whether it be from the direct violence portrayed in the teachings, the hatred that it inspires or the basic segregation it supports between believers and non-believers.
Note that the Qur`an and the bible are basically the same book with different spin put on things. They both shared many of the original scrolls, and the hatred and violence inspired by both books should be shared in responsibility.
There is no logical way to say that religion is a good thing, please tell me of the positive effects and how it outweighs all the millions of deaths and social segregation?
People like to be stupid and say it was religion that creates morals for society, more specifically Christian religion that creates morals for society. Morals are most often a result of empathy- hence why animals have shown to risk their lives to save other animals, to mourn the loss of a loved one. Morals are also a result of logic, we know that if we kill person A, person A's brother would most likely want to come and kill us. So we, in awareness of the risk to ourselves, resist from such activities.
I shall refer you to a presentation done by a psychologist on how religion was needed in the primary stages of human development, and that it was inevitable- but also how we have evolved WAY beyond the primitive original needs for it and how it has only become a hinderence to society. And also how it equates with the way people think and their overall intelligence- all in a scientific manner.
It also addresses the question of WHY we believe in God. Which is relevant to the statement about 'this sometimes sucks'. I agree that the world sometimes sucks, but that's where ones mental strength comes into play, when things suck you can either face it head on, with factual thought, or you can just decide the best way to make that which sucks better... Personally I'm going to go with a pony next time.
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg&h=e8fca&ref=nf
Context. Jesus, who's teaching was central to Christianity, redefined laws from the old testement and preached peace.
ReplyDeleteContext. People in the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, people in power, put the Bible in different contexts and made different interpretations, interpretations that suit their own wants and needs.
One would be naive to see Christianity as the CAUSE of the Crusades, and or most of them atrocies. It was merely an EXCUSE.
Forced religions wasn't about not being able to tolerate other people who believe in different things. Instead, more practically it was about fortifying the government's control over its people. Which regarding the social and economical situations was more neccessary than it is today.
You might as well start talking about democracy in the middle ages, how the peasants could have just pulled off strikes and their lords would've made concessions to improve their working conditions. Gawd how could they not have thought of that.
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I restate my point. Religion is a set of psychological...methodologies, an alternative of a mindset that is used to battle otherwise much more difficult situations in human lives. This in itself I empathise with because it is quite understandable.
Sneaky bastards take advantage of religions. Crazies involve religions in their being crazy. But blaming the religion is like blaming a baseball for being a weapon.
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Also that religions didn't create morals alright. But who created religions? People, who are capable of empathy and logical thinking. They had only put it down in organized systems.
That doesn't address any of the issues of religion holding back the scientific age and advancements in things that actually matter in life.
ReplyDeleteYou're going to need to provide a huge list of pros to counter all the cons that religion has produced if you want to stand by your statement of religion being 'good'. Not just a "well it's not ALL bad, therefor it must be good".
One would need to be blinded by bullshit to suggest that the hundreds of thousands of killings associated with religion would have happened without religion. That would be nothing short of retarded; The people that were killed during the middle ages, for the most part weren't any different in society other than the fact that they didn't believe in God and that they advanced science. It's not like a city pillaging another city for political reasons, these were towns seeking out their very own to crucify SOLELY on the basis that they were blaspheming the word of God.
These things definitely wouldn't have happened without religion, to think that religion was merely an excuse for that would be completely ignorant. It's very easy to say things like that, anyone can say things, but logic disagrees with you.
And there is no need to talk about the bible in different contexts and different interperations. If anything the bible back then was far more close to the 'source' than now days, the bible has changed a LOT since those times, and if anything what people read today is the miscontrued, watered-down to seem nice version.
Why? Because people realized that it is such an absurdly disgusting, violent and sick book that people couldn't remain so ignorant forever and would eventual question the teachings of the bible. So now you just have preachers telling you what to omit from the bible and what to interperate as a metaphor- making the bible seem much softer. See, now that's making ones own context from something- "oh wait, that chapter promotes violence? IGNORE IT!"
The whole bible is the word of man, there was never 1 perfect set of teachings. The whole bible and the whole basis of the religion in any way further than the basic principle is something by man.
But you're completely right at the end, religion is definitely a way for the weak to carry on and not give up. The weak sometimes still need religion, does this make it good? No, it means the world is left with more idiots who can't handle reality and brings the rest of the world down because they are weak.
And considering religion is one of the primary motivations for political law, it's an oppressive, homophobic society. "A man who sleeps with another man as he does a woman is an abomination unto the lord", and then talks about how we must all seek to do Gods will. God's will is clearly to not have people who are an abomination unto him, and as such Christians will feel they are doing Gods work by not opposing gays. And one can argue against it, and how God doesn't judge, he quite clearly does from parts of the bible- which is riddled with contradictions. But that's okay, the pastors of today will just tell you that it's okay to ignore such a chapter, it's very nice to be able to omit any part of the bible you choose to make the religion seem any way you want.
The militants can always just take the old hate-filled parts, and the liberal Christians can always just tell you it's a metaphor, or old laws. How convenient, being able to make the religion seem any way you want it to.
Religion is crazy from the get-go. Maybe it's just me, but something tells me one has to be pretty fucking crazy to mature while believing a spirit impregnated a Jewish woman 2000 odd years ago who was actually the son of a super natural being.
As far as I know, baseball bats don't come with sentences promoting murder and sacrifice.
Are you saying that these psychologically 'weaker' individuals who resorted to an evasive form of confort are biologically inferior?
ReplyDeleteThat's god awful, f*ck. Accusing anyone as being a hindrance of the human race is god awful.
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While we are talking this terribly-applied theory of evolution, collective bullying of an individual who is different from the group is biologically justified. Because the group is surviving alright so far, but this individual who shows different traits might change that, and it's easier to take him out.
Say a population of mice. One mouse happened to have this different trait, that enables him to make very loud shrieking noises, which the other mice aren't able to do. Now that shit would attract predators and thus endanger the entire population. Biological default, the other mice would 'bully' this unique individual, resulting in either forcing him to leave the family or killing him.
And(therefore) governments were generally quite concerned about intellectuals who think differently from they do, because they tend to cause trouble. When people turned less religious the Pope had less power. Wouldn't have want that.
If there was no religion it would've happened in a different form, yes, people would still be homophobic and judgemental in all these ways. Nazism was based on no religion. Chinese Cultural Revolution was based on no religion. Humans tend to do terrible shit and use different excuses.
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How do you even judge something of being good or bad by evaluating its pros and cons? It's a complex net of influences. When the preists were the only ones being able to read and write, they pretty much preserved the western civilization. If there was no christianity the Roman Empire would've been all f*cked up that much earlier, that Europe as we know it simply wouldn't be here.
Everything that had ever happened to humans built up to what we have today. WWII pulled most countries out of the Depression, etc. If we see historical trends as vectors,
A x B = C
C x D = E
Now we like the end of E better than the end of C. But you can't say that A is bad, you know.
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Jesus promoted love and peace and didn't talk of killing gay men, instead he despised the Jews who followed the laws blindly. And since he was supposingly the son of God his words overruled the laws of the old testment, logic wise, I would assume.
Oh and I watched that video. I don't like how he described the ways religions hijack this human behaviour, religions hijack that human behaviour.
ReplyDeleteIt's the result of all these human behaviours, not a seperate entity of which atheists are having a war against.
Some people are just a hindrance to the development of man. Many of those people are in positions of power, look at GWB ;) okay, just kidding- kind of.
ReplyDeleteAll right, I'll give you this, because I have heard arguments that support it and it does sound and seem reasonable; religion was vital to the evolution of man. Not only was it an explanation for the inexplicable at the time, it gave hope and strength. Who is more likely to win? The tribe/population of humans who believed they had an all powerful being on their side, or the one that knew it was just "us against them"?
So yes, I give you that.
Religion was vital to our evolution.
But now, religion is standing in the way. Religion is often a hindrance to medicine and science. I'm no great scientist, if you've ever seen me in Biology- I hate it. We don't need to believe in a supernatural being in order to advance and to feel good- we don't. I'm sorry to say but religion stands in the way of progress a lot of the time.
Oh no, we can't try to find a cure for cancer because embryos totally have feelings and are human beings.
Oh no, god would never ruin what he has created thus global warming is false and we can do what we want.
There is no war against religion. You want to believe in magical flipflops and whatnot because it makes you feel better? Be my guest.
What I am against, what I have a problem with, is a) religion as setting back progress b) religion as an excuse for disgusting and inhuman behaviour c) brainwashing and scaring of children instead of letting them decide for themselves.
PS about that- my parents never brainwashed me. My dad never told me about religion (we'll ignore the whole mother part for certain reasons), my grandmother taught me religion, I even went to a religious school for 2 weeks that was actually pretty chill. My uncle taught me what was wrong with religion, while my grandmother taught me what was right, and I made my own choices. So no, I aint Bn brainwash3dz.
Idk if I even made a point there. :p
"Oh no, some people have different opinions from those of my own regarding a topic that is very controversial in nature, their opinions must be wrong!"
ReplyDeleteWhy not go on to argue that new born babies aren't human and we should be able to run all kind of tests on them for the greater good of people, I mean it's not like they know what the f*ck is going on anyway. Give them morphine and they would feel no pain, I don't see what's wrong with that at all.
Uh no, their opinions are totally valid. What makes the difference is their reasons. It's wrong cause the book said so is not a good enough reason for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd I totally agree with you, let's go kill some babies.
It's certainly good enough of a reason for them. Hence their opinions, not yours.
ReplyDeleteI refuse to yield. Abortion and stem cell research are more of an opinion issues, yeeeeeeeeah okay you got me.
ReplyDeleteBut not something like global warming, and yeah I'm using an insanely easy example because it's one of the things I know, I don't know much about universal expansion theories etc. Then no, "global warming is false" is not an opinion, especially not when you say "global warming is false because god would not create something with self-destructive qualities/imperfections/would not let his creation die."
But perhaps I should withdraw, and say yes okay, you win.
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ReplyDeleteThere is no winning an internet-based argument, as I considered dropping the "if gravity is real, why do balloons go up?"
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't usually consider this necessary.
Still don't,
but hey,
:)
Stop removing your comments haha.
ReplyDeleteIf you had dropped that, I would have had to come up to you and hit you with a chemistry book, and a physics book :P