I watched a documentary today about The Phelps family church. If your not familiar with them they are the people who picket events with such hatred you start to question freedom of speech. They wave banners such as 'God Hates Fags' and 'God Loves Dead Soldiers'. brutal messages. They also want to eliminate all other religions especially the Jews for what they call the killing of their lord and saviour. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I could swear that was the Romans. Anyhow, this is the sort of rubbish that I've come to expect from most religious organisations this just happens to be an extreme example. Every time you see a religious figure on the news no matter what his denomination of monotheism, you can usually be sure it contains a message of hatred for at least one group of people. I swear if Jesus was around today he would be horrified in religion. The first thing he would probably say is this is not what I meant at all. Now anyone who knows me knows that I have no belief system of god. The bible was written by scribes, edited by Romans, bound by Monks, Re-edited by the pope and cardinals, before going through the editing process again by King James. I like to base what I know on proof not belief. I could Believe that the earth is flat, it doesn't make me right. Fortunately I'm not forced to go to church or read the bible (even though I have read it) and I am allowed to pass my own judgement without parental or community pressure. Our daughter has never been christened, manly because I believe that nobody should be forced to join an organisation they didn't have a choice about joining. If when she's older she wants to become a Christian, Muslim or any number of other religions, provided she's made that decision on her own and with no force, then I'm perfectly fine with that.
The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
But arguing against religion comes against one major obstacle and that's the religious themselves. You can't make a logical argument with an illogical person. If for example I was to say the earth is flat again and I produced one document that catagoricaly agrees with me in every way, would you believe the earth is flat. Or would you think I need further evidence before I jump to that conclusion. Maybe I just chose that document out of thousands of other doctrines because that's the one that most conforms to the way I want the world to be. Its the same with the Bible and all religious texts you place all your logic in one book. One book that you never saw written that has no bibliography, no indication to sources of material and you expect me to believe that this is the word of god. I might as well take the lord of the rings as my beliefs and worship Frodo Baggins as my god if thats the case for delivering us from evil.
The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive...but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.
So In conclusion:
The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.
But arguing against religion comes against one major obstacle and that's the religious themselves. You can't make a logical argument with an illogical person. If for example I was to say the earth is flat again and I produced one document that catagoricaly agrees with me in every way, would you believe the earth is flat. Or would you think I need further evidence before I jump to that conclusion. Maybe I just chose that document out of thousands of other doctrines because that's the one that most conforms to the way I want the world to be. Its the same with the Bible and all religious texts you place all your logic in one book. One book that you never saw written that has no bibliography, no indication to sources of material and you expect me to believe that this is the word of god. I might as well take the lord of the rings as my beliefs and worship Frodo Baggins as my god if thats the case for delivering us from evil.
The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive...but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.
So In conclusion:
- Without religion women would be free from their idiotic repression in the Middle East.
- Without religion people would be more concerned with what they did with their lives, rather than what they avoided.
- Without religion the strongest and most divisive form of segregation would be dissolved and many wars and borders would become irrelevant.
- Without religion stem cell research could continue uninhibited and cure many debilitating diseases.
- Without religion the scourge of AIDS and other STDs would be controlled by a condom.
- Without religion, people wouldn't pray for peace, they would work towards it.
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