Religion
In case you haven’t read my previous posts and therefore have no idea what’s coming here, the overall theme of this post is that religion is stupid, and if you’re going to be offended by that then you might as well not read this, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about religious people, it’s that they’re extremely stubborn. God could walk up to one of them and say “I don’t exist,” and they wouldn’t believe him. They’d call it a hallucination. But if god came up to them and said “I need you to enslave black people,” or “The Jews need to be exterminated,” they’d call it a vision. Now, for the most part I’m going to refer to religion mostly as if I were referring to christianity, but keep in mind, this goes for ALL religions, christianity is just the easiest one to refer to seeing as it’s pretty straightforward (and unimaginative, if you’re going to make up something as ridiculous as a god then you might as well make him fun and interesting). You may also notice that I don’t capitalize things like christianity or god, and that is because I feel they are undeserving of the time and effort it takes me to press SHIFT. Religions were mostly made up by people in the stone ages who had a pretty good idea of how to get a lot of money and power from a lot of very stupid people. The original con men. To use a modern example, L. Ron Hubbard, founder of scientology, has been quoted as saying “The best way for a man to make a million dollars would be to start his own religion.” I prefer to think of good old L. Ron as more of a businessman than a prophet, and he’s actually on to something there. Maybe I’ll start a religion. The Church of You’re an Idiot if You Join This Church. I’d be a millionaire overnight. I really, really hate people of any religion who make fun of scientologists. What gives you the right? Your religion is just as stupid as everyone else’s. I would actually say that scientology makes more sense than something like christianity, and is probably more entertaining, being made up by a science fiction writer. Just because christianity is more wide spread doesn’t make it any more right. If you’d never heard of christianity before and someone came up to you and said the universe was created by god, and god has three parts, the father, his son, and this ghost thing, but they’re all one thing, and there was this pregnant virgin who gave birth to the son, who is also the father, and so on and so forth, you’d probably have pulled out your cell phone and dialed 91, with your finger poised over the 1 in case this lunatic attacks you. That argument I actually stole from Bill Maher, comedian and producer of the recent movie Religulous (Religion + ridiculous), who once asserted that religion is a neurological disorder that justifies crazies and stops people from thinking. I’m not going to go quite that far but I do think he’s mostly right there that religion is used as justification for some pretty unjust stuff. Religion can often be found at the heart of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen. The Crusades, WWII, the ongoing conflicts in the middle east, if people just gave up on their stupid beliefs the world would be a much more stable place. Some people say that religion helps keep order and gives us a sense of morality, which it did, once, in the middle ages. But now we have modern society with organized rules, I was never taught religion and I don’t consider myself an immoral person, and I’m willing to bet there are loads of other people out there like me (in that respect, no one is quite like me, in the sense that I’m awesomer than everyone else). Some people will say that religion helps to guide people, and comforts them in hard times. I say that religion gives people disillusions and helps them hide from reality. If you have problems in your life then deal with them, don’t hide behind some stupid old book or sit crying in a church. The problem with this whole stupid situation is that people are taught their religion from birth, they really have no chance. There really isn’t a solution to this problem other than for people to stop teaching religion to their kids. I implore you, don’t teach your religion to your kids. Let them make up their own minds, don’t ruin more generations. Another thing I hate about religious people is that whenever you point out all of these flaws in their beliefs they go all quiet and say something along the lines of “I don’t want to talk about it.” If the world is going to be forced to put up with all the problems caused by your stupid religion then we sure as hell are owed an explanation. And it better be a damned good explanation too. I have yet to have one person provide me with such an explanation. Some people have also told me that they hate atheists who go around pointing out faults in peoples religions, but those atheists are much less obnoxious than all those Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on doors. Now, some people will ask “So, Mr. High and Mighty, what is it that you believe in?” My response to that is, I believe in what makes sense, science. Science is the result of cold hard evidence and experimentation, it makes sense and can be logically explained. Not just “god did it.” You may point out that science’s explanation for the beginning of the universe is a little rough around the edges, but I say at least science has this awesome explosion. Christianity begins with a six day work week. Science is what’s enabling you to read this, it makes everything in our world work, it makes our world, not some god. God (capitalized because of grammar) doesn’t magically carry my post to you. I wouldn’t mind religion so much if people would keep it to themselves. People can believe all the stupid things they want to believe, but they don’t just leave it at that, they have to go out and get other people to believe with them, which is admittedly what I’m doing here, but with religion they tend to do it in the form of a war or genocide. Religion wouldn’t be so bad if it was practiced individually, but making it organized causes nothing but trouble. Catholics are the worst, what with a pope and everything. All the other christian denominations come after them, and then probably islam, followed by hindus, jews, and then buddhists. I don’t believe that there’s much else to cover here. What I find so funny here is that there isn’t much I’ve said that isn’t cold hard fact, yet there will still be people who say I’m wrong. I guess I’m going to have to put up with all these people, but it does seem that religion is undergoing somewhat of a decline in popularity, a trend that I hope continues, maybe future generations won’t have to deal with all this idiocy.
Update: A muslim friend of mine pointed out that he wasn’t offended at all by my post because I went so heavily at christianity. He was actually disappointed by this and requested that I include his religion in my bashing. I intend to fulfill this request, but first I need to brush up on my islam, world religions was a whole 6 months ago.