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A Message to Members of ALL Religions
Hold on now! Before you go and get the wrong idea, this isn't another post about why religion is bad, or why it's wrong. Of course, it is bad, and it is wrong, but I figured that this is so blindingly obvious that it no longer needs to be said. Instead, this is a direct attack on you, the religious person. The argument? That your failure to reject religion indicated you are colossally, irredeemably stupid. Religion is fundamentally flawed in a staggering number of ways, to the point that a single curious child can bring down the entire framework of baloney with an innocent question.
Such questions include:
· Why is there evil?
· Who made God?
· Why should I trust you after that Santa Claus thing?
But you didn't ask those questions did you? Or if you did, you accepted the pathetic rationalizations that were offered without further contemplation. Perhaps you were afraid to ask, or even think about it. Your comforting little worldview mattered more to you than the truth. But can this critical failure really be blamed on a fear of the consequences of religion being wrong? Is a godless world too terrible to contemplate? The idea that Santa Claus isn't real is also unpleasant, and this provides a deterrent to disbelief.
But not a significant one.
God doesn't even bring people presents. In fact, most religious show us that he is kind of a jerk. Plagues, laws, smiting and eternal torture. Is this really so attractive an idea that people cannot let it go? Perhaps the disinterest is the only real problem. After all, if a man can't read Greek, that doesn't make him stupid. It simply means he doesn't care to read Greek. But can a lack of interest in the fundamental nature of reality really be justified in this way? Maybe so. After all, it makes little difference in day to day living whether a god is up there or not.
And yet, shouldn't the fact that God's existence has no major consequences itself raise a red flag?
The idea that a being with immense powers exists, but never tampers with the world in a noticeable way is an absolutely childish scenario. It's “I'm not touching you” on a cosmic scale. Granted, we used to see a lot more evidence of god's tampering than we do today. Lighting, disease, floods, butterflies, the sun. But even then, a bunch of inexplicable things hardly adds up to a big magical man you can't see. And of course, all this “evidence” wilted and died with sufficient rational inquiry. The sun and stars turned out to be big nuclear furnaces, diseases and butterflies are now well understood, and lighting is just an electrical discharge. Indeed, from leopard spots, to pregnancy, to the shape of the Earth, religion has been proven wrong, wrong, wrong time and time again. It would take an IDIOT not to see a pattern in this.
And that's exactly what you are.
The icing on this pathetic cake is that you realize all the OTHER religions are wrong, you just have a blind spot toward your own. Perhaps you have a vague awareness that religion is ridiculous, but you never really give it up because your thoughts are too disorganized to deal with it. If this is the case, and your mind is a dusty closet of odds and ends, motivational phrases and vacation photos, then I have nothing but contempt for you.
I refuse to respect religious beliefs, and I refuse to respect the people who hold them. Your willful ignorance is inexcusable and it disgusts me.
Such questions include:
· Why is there evil?
· Who made God?
· Why should I trust you after that Santa Claus thing?
But you didn't ask those questions did you? Or if you did, you accepted the pathetic rationalizations that were offered without further contemplation. Perhaps you were afraid to ask, or even think about it. Your comforting little worldview mattered more to you than the truth. But can this critical failure really be blamed on a fear of the consequences of religion being wrong? Is a godless world too terrible to contemplate? The idea that Santa Claus isn't real is also unpleasant, and this provides a deterrent to disbelief.
But not a significant one.
God doesn't even bring people presents. In fact, most religious show us that he is kind of a jerk. Plagues, laws, smiting and eternal torture. Is this really so attractive an idea that people cannot let it go? Perhaps the disinterest is the only real problem. After all, if a man can't read Greek, that doesn't make him stupid. It simply means he doesn't care to read Greek. But can a lack of interest in the fundamental nature of reality really be justified in this way? Maybe so. After all, it makes little difference in day to day living whether a god is up there or not.
And yet, shouldn't the fact that God's existence has no major consequences itself raise a red flag?
The idea that a being with immense powers exists, but never tampers with the world in a noticeable way is an absolutely childish scenario. It's “I'm not touching you” on a cosmic scale. Granted, we used to see a lot more evidence of god's tampering than we do today. Lighting, disease, floods, butterflies, the sun. But even then, a bunch of inexplicable things hardly adds up to a big magical man you can't see. And of course, all this “evidence” wilted and died with sufficient rational inquiry. The sun and stars turned out to be big nuclear furnaces, diseases and butterflies are now well understood, and lighting is just an electrical discharge. Indeed, from leopard spots, to pregnancy, to the shape of the Earth, religion has been proven wrong, wrong, wrong time and time again. It would take an IDIOT not to see a pattern in this.
And that's exactly what you are.
The icing on this pathetic cake is that you realize all the OTHER religions are wrong, you just have a blind spot toward your own. Perhaps you have a vague awareness that religion is ridiculous, but you never really give it up because your thoughts are too disorganized to deal with it. If this is the case, and your mind is a dusty closet of odds and ends, motivational phrases and vacation photos, then I have nothing but contempt for you.
I refuse to respect religious beliefs, and I refuse to respect the people who hold them. Your willful ignorance is inexcusable and it disgusts me.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
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