This piece, concerning religion, focuses on modern forms of the big three religions, but primarily, and rather broadly, on the different cults of Christianity, which is the only religion system I actually know enough about to have a real opinion.
Though my knowledge of both Islam and Judaism is quite limited in comparison to Christianity, the big three are all Abrahamic religions and share many similarities. And, like other early belief systems that were appropriated and manipulated into what became modern Christianity, I’m aware that many of the noble tenets of Islam and Judaism were, and still are, also been regularly hijacked to serve selfish, short-sighted, hypocritical snakes in their drive to subjugate us all.
To be very clear, though my views and opinions on big religion are definitely not favourable, I do have to declare that I don’t consider religion and faith to be in the same category. True faith, at any rate. In fact, the two are mutually exclusive. Faith is a natural connection to something divine; no intermediary necessary, and religions are wildly over-complicated systems created and controlled by men for self-serving purposes. And, below the surface, religion is almost certainly far more sinister than that.
In religion, obedience to laws and dogma (generally enforced through fear) is paramount, and true faith is an inconvenient by-product. That’s not to say that some religious people don’t have a real connection with God; they do, but they would have had that without religion, and probably would have been better off for it.
I think that most belief systems have, or at least once had, some measure of truth and beauty at their core, but, due to the fact that inherently corruptible humans created and oversaw the evolution of “religion”, the beauty and truth aspects of “God” have been almost completely moulded into social engineering tools for the big business of controlling minds.
With almost all of the information humans have gathered together over thousands of years at our fingertips, including wildly compelling evidence against religion, many people are still willingly led into mental, emotional, and spiritual slavery. It’s exasperating to contemplate.
W.T.F?
For all those people enslaved by religion out of laziness, actual stupidity, or wanton stupidity because taking responsibility for their own lives requires effort, well, they deserve to be slaves, and really, such people give themselves no other option. The completely innocent, however, are another story and are absolved of everything.
Those that blindly adhere to religion out of laziness (laziness is referred to as “sloth” in Christianity, and is one of the seven cardinal sins) are the same kinds of people that believe in hard-core socialism because they don’t have to think for themselves. Or can’t. Such a life is completely structured, and one is only responsible for following directions.
Because there are many people that need to be told where to go and what to do, I’m not completely against the existence of such types of micro-systems within systems. For mindless factory worker personalities, they’re essential. For any mildly intelligent or creative member of humanity, though, compelled conformity to such restrictive structures only foments dissatisfaction, low productivity, and eventually dissent and rebellion. And rightfully so.
Only people who are incapable of or unwilling to engage in thought need rigid direction. They’re the perfect fodder for socialism and/or religion because both systems rely on the obedience of people who don’t ask questions.
Mooooooooo!!!
As far as religion is concerned, proof of this lies in the fact that the majority of its adherents don’t know or understand their holy books at all. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be religious. Or if they were, they would approach their religion in an entirely different, more responsible, and thoughtful manner. But, for sheep, it’s obviously much easier to just regurgitate common rhetoric and flawed or deliberately misrepresented versions of “truth” than it is to think for oneself.
Apparently, accepting someone else’s word for things like God or the eternal soul absolves the lazy of all culpability.
On multiple occasions, when having an argument with a religious person or people, I’ve noticed that the primary source of “information” for their weak stances are a few popular passages from their grossly misunderstood or completely unexplored religious texts. And nothing else. As if somehow, because they’re so utterly brainwashed by carefully selected pieces of long-accepted propaganda, you should be too. And they’re always shocked and offended when you challenge their tunnel vision. Especially if you challenge that vision as a non-religious person with some knowledge of their books.
So, perhaps the greatest problem I have with religion lies in the fact that almost all religious people base their beliefs on what they’ve been told by someone else.
What makes that reality even more disturbing is that those beliefs are usually introduced through fear at a very young age. If you can repeatedly frighten babies with hell until they’re too afraid to challenge the doctrine, then quite often you’ll have willing slaves for the duration of their lives.
God loves you, Junior, but if you don’t do what we tell you that book says , yer goin’ to HELL!.
This approach to enticing children into the fold of God’s loving embrace is highly suspect. It sounds more like the transparent scheme of an evil force than the actions of a loving deity.
Think about it. What kind of god would need to threaten children with eternal torture for questioning it? How is such an arrangement conducive to developing authentic faith in a supreme being? A fear-based faith is no faith at all; it’s blackmail, and what sort of omnipotent, merciful, loving deity needs to blackmail children into worshiping it? What type of ultimate being requires subservient worship anyway? It seems rather sick.
It’s not too difficult to pick religion apart using basic logic. But often, when you do present logical arguments against religious fallibility or bring attention to sects or individuals who have blatantly contravened the direction of their own books in order to serve themselves (and there are plenty such examples), the majority of indoctrinated sheep default to the program they’ve been brainwashed with, which is: when presented with strong, sensible arguments against religion or religious leaders, it must be the devil testing their faith.
Instead of entertaining a possible alternative truth, they instead fortify themselves in the comfort of familiar ignorance. And against such slavish, fear-induced obedience, not even the strongest logic or well-thought-out reasoning stands a chance, and is dashed against a wall of blind obstinance.
“But… but… your reasonable argument doesn’t fit in with my deeply biased beliefs. How dare you! God will strike you down for your insolence! How dare you question the Lord? “
Yeah, I suppose any divine being would want its creations to be blind, ignorant, and obedient to the lies of the worst among them, wouldn’t it? Because that would be rewarding.
Having a discussion with a well-educated, knowledgeable, and articulate member of a faith community, on the other hand, can be insightful and almost worth the time. Even if they are delusional. But that’s almost never happened in my experience. Instead, I generally find myself beating my head against a wall of obtuse dogma. Well, I used to. I now try at all costs to avoid arguments with dumb people.
I think Bill Murray once said that winning an argument with a smart person is difficult, but it’s almost impossible to win an argument with a stupid person. Or something like that. Most religious people I’ve encountered fit into the latter category. Actually, most people everywhere fit into the latter category. Just take a quick peruse through almost any period of history. Including right now. But I’ll avoid heading down that path at the moment, it too easily leads to lengthy digression.
Let’s entertain a wild notion. It may shed some light on why the world of humans has been so terribly awful since… the beginning of recorded history. The brief history of our latest kick at the can at any rate. There is growing evidence that humans are much older than the engineered historical tripe that we’ve been fed for centuries would suggest. Again, a topic that leads one too easily down the tempting path of digression. Another day perhaps.
Anyway, on we go.
Isn’t it possible, probable even, that dark forces invented big religion, and billions of people have been unknowingly guided by evil for millennia? Wouldn’t that explain a lot? Based on where we’ve been led to today, the possibility makes more sense to me than the lie that religions are holy institutions for bringing us closer to God.
Who’s really running this show?
I think a huge number of Native American (north to south), African, and Aboriginal Australian families, among many others that have been ripped apart by the church, would agree. I’m sure the unknowable number of children that have been, and still are, defiled on the “sacred” grounds of said religious institutions by “holy” emissaries, would agree as well.
I’d welcome sensible arguments against the possibility or probability of humanity being misled by evil, but, based on thousands of years of human behaviour, I’d guess that any definitive opposition to the view I’ve offered would lean heavily on pig-headed arrogance.
Humans desperately need to believe that they’re too smart to be wrong. Especially the dumb ones.
As one of my favourite humans, Mark Twain, wisely stated: It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.
That certainly does seem to ring true. Thanks, Mr. Twain. As usual, you hit the nail right on the head.
Too many people, in almost all walks of life, are arrogant fools. Many members of big religions are prime examples of that observation. Buying into any system that exalts one’s own manufactured values as being ordained by “the one true holy deity” while condemning all others is a glaring illustration of mentally limited, narcissistic egotism. Which, incidentally, is the perfect personality type to target with extremely effective “divide and conquer” operations like religion.
Any fundamental belief system that’s based on self-righteousness isn’t from God, but was most likely created by evil forces for the purpose of capitalizing upon the insecurities of small men. Tickle their monstrous egos and small minds with a promise of divine favouritism and they’ll do whatever you tell them God wants them to.
“Ahem, excuse me. My religion/cult is right and all other religions and belief systems are wrong. God only loves me and anyone who agrees with me. Everyone else is going to suffer for all eternity because they don’t accept the particular version of God’s word that people like me have either invented or been fooled into believing. Oh, and I have the authority to enforce his will.”
That seems plausible. Where do I sign up?
How lazy and stupid do you have to be to accept such filth? Big religion is the worst thing that’s ever happened to humanity besides the big government that invented it. It’s severed our natural connection to the divine by inserting a corrupt system, controlled by a cabal of evil men, between us and whatever is truly holy. It’s despicable, and I must admit that I find it difficult to respect religious people no matter what else they’ve accomplished in life. They’re either too dumb to know what’s really going on, or they’re complicit.
Yet another example of the blind arrogance of religious people is how sure they are that it’s their god-given right to foist their own beliefs upon other people in order to “save” them. Take abortion, for example. According to many religious nut-jobs, they have every right to threateningly force their value systems on women who don’t share their opinions because “God,” in all “his” mysterious ways, is on their side.
So, let me get this right. God sees fit to empower self-righteous fanatics with the authority to enforce their interpretation of “his” will and to pass judgment upon anyone who disagrees with their interpretation of “his” will in order to save people that they’ve determined to be “lost souls” from eternal damnation?
But of course, it’s “his” will.
I guess the benefit of belonging to the one and only true religion is knowing that you’re always right.
Then you get an example of extremism from the other side of that coin: the woke lefties who’ve been so willingly brainwashed into believing every pregnant woman should have an abortion. They’re even worse. And I must admit, I’d stand by all but the worst religious people rather than the rainbow-haired, gender-confused, mentally-ill mouthpieces for worldwide genocide. Any day.
But, again, another massive topic to spout about in a different post. Luckily for me, the fact that everybody’s fucked up ensures that I always have plenty of subject material.
Babies are environmentally unfriendly, and any birth-person who disagrees is guilty of hate speech!
Moving right along.
With so many people from so many walks of life and areas of the planet being so sure that they are favoured by God because their religion is the one true faith, you’d think that God would get confused trying to figure out which religion or sect or cult is actually the right one. He wouldn’t want to condemn absolutely everyone else that’s ever existed to an eternity of damnation only to discover that he’d made a mistake.
And what are his plans for dealing with all those people that lived for many thousands of years before religion was invented?
They get a free pass because they were never made aware of the true word. And if they never knew, they could never be held responsible for their filthy, hateful sins. So, using that logic, if billions of people since the inception of big religion would have been whisked off to heaven had they never heard of “The Lord”, how was it in any way the right thing to do to zip around the globe educating them about God, ensuring that they were then exposed to the possibility of hell?
Wouldn’t it have been much better to leave them ignorant of God’s glory, thereby granting them a sure pass to heaven?
Ummmm… yeahhhh. Mysterious ways and all that. It’s beyond our simple minds to comprehend.
Yup, it is. But like Einstein once said: If you can’t explain it in simple terms, you don’t understand it. Well then, clearly nobody in any major religion has ever had the slightest inkling about the truth concerning God.
Ah heck though, with so many confusing rules and arbitrary exceptions in the world’s religions, and with so many clever little people so absolutely sure of their righteousness, maybe even God gets fooled?
Nope. By the very nature of what “God” must be, that’s not possible.
Whatever people convince themselves God is, God is what God is, and that will remain eternally so regardless of what else might serve the desires of specific people or groups. And nobody knows for sure what that is. Nobody. Not one single person. And it’s almost a guarantee that nobody ever has.
But some of them have sure tried to make us believe otherwise.
One of the main tenets of Abrahamic religion is that man, yes “man,” was created in the image of God.
I call bullshit. Unless the god of Abraham is actually a bloodthirsty, misogynist asshole with a plethora of serious mental issues, I would say that God was created in the image of man. And seeing as we have thousands of years of proof that men are fucked and zero proof that God is, logic would dictate that my view on the matter is probably much more accurate than any commonly held religious one.
Men have absolutely no idea what God is, and never have, but in our primitive, backward little minds, we had to come up with something to explain thunder and lightning, winning or losing battles, life, death, noises in the night, hurricanes, sunrises, and everything else. It was essential in order for life to make some kind of sense. So we simplified the shit out of God by pretending it was like us. And since then, our vision of God has barely evolved. If at all. Neither have we, but it seems like our vision of ourselves has far surpassed our visions of the Almighty.
Take, for example, the basic view of God that still prevails in religion.
Apples are bad, m’kaaayyy kids.
A man in the sky did everything, including creating us. Then he put us in a garden full of apples we weren’t allowed to eat (tempting or what?) and then let us be tempted into eating one of those apples by something else he’d created (that went rogue), even though we knew nothing about anything.
Since then, we’ve been punished for being tricked by an entity that God originally created, which he then put in the already tempting garden, and let trick us (which was easy for it because it was already aware of good and evil, and we weren’t). But instead of punishing the thing that he created and then allowed to turn against him before he then let fool us, we’re the ones who have to suffer for being fooled by that being he created.
Fool us once, shame on us… forever.
And, for the purpose of making all women feel guilty for everything (also forever), a woman is actually to blame for the fact that humanity has to suffer, because she was the one tricked into seeking knowledge by something that God, in all his infinite wisdom, had also created.
Wait… what?
The innocent and weak have to suffer for being abused by the wicked, while the wicked have free reign to continue being abusive? It seems like a bit of an enduring theme, doesn’t it?
In a nutshell, the lesson is: stay stupid and obedient and get rewarded some time after you die; or seek knowledge, disobey authority, ask questions, and suffer for eternity. Oh, and women are sinful and need to be kept powerless and subservient. For the good of us all. Even though they’ve given birth to one-hundred percent of all humans and they raise and protect them until they’re old enough to run off and sin by themselves, or, if they grow into women (who are stained by sin from birth), until they’re old enough to make more people for Satan to lead astray and God to punish.
The root of all human suffering, according to religion. Even though they’re the givers of all human life.
Doesn’t that seem suspicious? Doesn’t that seem like something evil forces would cook up in order to weaken humanity and neutralize possible opposition to their schemes?
Now to add more chaos to the senseless confusion.
God will forgive us for being horribly flawed and terrible as long as we ask nicely to be forgiven for being exactly the way he created us. No matter what we do. Because, even though we don’t really know what we’re doing and all the bad stuff is the devil’s fault…ish (even though we’re getting eternally punished for being fooled by him/it), God loves us. And though God created the devil and the angels (and the aliens), as well as us, he chose us as “his” children (no wonder the devil is pissed) and will save us from an eternity of suffering if we do exactly what he says, which is sometimes way over the top.
If, at this point, you’re feeling a little lost, don’t fret; I am too. But I think that’s the point. Let us stumble onward.
Before political correctness came about, God wasn’t at all shy about commanding his followers to commit some pretty heinous acts to prove their devotion.
In one heartwarming tale of God’s lunacy, he once told the Israelites to murder every man, woman, and child (and every animal too) of an entire city. Which they did. Good job, guys! And to further illustrate that he was a complete psycho, he instructed Abraham to kill his favourite son, Isaac, in order to prove his devotion. God didn’t let him go through with it or anything (how merciful), he just wanted to know he had the power to make someone slaughter their favourite child. The sick fuck.
And because Abraham understood that a power-tripping god like that must truly possess unfathomable wisdom and infinite love, he readily became the original mascot for what would eventually develop into the big religions we know and hate today.
A fine example of the basis for any healthy relationship.
Dear God, please make me less dumb! (prayer not granted)
If God was all-knowing, though, wouldn’t he have been fully aware of how the Abraham and Isaac scenario would play out? Just like he would have known that Adam and Eve would be tricked by Satan if he put them all in the garden together. Wouldn’t he have seen that coming?
Well… anyway, God knows best. So don’t question any crazy thing he does or he might damn you to hell forever.
In another example of his infinite wisdom, omnipotence, love, and craziness, God also condoned incest for the first however-many years of human existence. I’m assuming that to be the case, or where did everybody come from? Unless he just made Adam and Eve first, and then, on the side, he fabbed up a bunch more people to populate the planet, which would actually make sense. Maybe too much sense, that’s why the idea isn’t expressed anywhere. He then outlawed incest and made it a punishable offense. Which is kind of par for the course for God.
This type of behaviour seems to be fairly common: creating beings and then punishing them for being the way they were created.
God is obviously an insane sadist. But he’s not just that; he possesses other desirable qualities as well.
He’s also jealous and wrathful (another cardinal sin), but loving and merciful, very much like an average human being. And, for some mysterious reason, he apparently hates gays, even though he created them and everything else in existence. Like dolphins, which are also pretty gay.
Maybe God is gay and hates himself for it because it brings shame to his family? Maybe God is an omnipotent mental patient who got his hands on a build-your-own-universe kit? Or, maybe, just maybe, what men have created to fit their concept of God is completely inaccurate and reeks of human limitation?
Perhaps religions are simply collections of old, carefully selected stories (for the purposes of behavioral coercion) that got way out of hand and are too far gone to be reigned in?
You be the judge.
Whatever one’s opinion may be, it seems quite plausible that crazy, dishonest men invented the popular caricatures of God for their own convenience, and over many generations, in order to keep the farce alive, the stewards of religion have told so many lies that they got lost in them. Then they decided the best fix was to create more lies and confusion, thus ensuring everyone else would get lost as well.
Good call. It worked. It’s still working.
It’s like legalese; make it so confusing that nobody actually knows what it says or means, but it’s perfect for verbally skilled people to use in the art of deceptive manipulation.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. So do lawyers. Is God a lawyer? Based on the state of things, I would say that it’s highly likely.
Around two-thousand-ish years ago (Judaism had already existed for two-thousand years by that time, but wasn’t wildly popular like Christianity and Islam became), the acceptance of one true god, in all his wisdom, love, and glory, had become the commonly held belief in many parts of the world. And eventually, due to a selfless ideal that suggested everyone could use a little bit of the Lord in their lives, a few fine people thought it would be the right thing to do to spread the word of his divinity to all corners of the globe. Forcibly, because that’s how a merciful and loving God operates.
Of course it does. Such a benevolent being would obviously want its messengers to do whatever it took to save the unknowing from the terrible fate of never experiencing its greatness. For their own salvation.
In the past, the best way to bring ignorant savages under the umbrella of God’s love was to torture and kill those who resisted it. And also, to steal their children and decimate their cultures. That would certainly illustrate to any doubters what they’d be missing out on if they too passed up the golden opportunity to bathe in the eternal glory of the Lord.
Nothing illustrates love like having your minions perpetrate massive evil in your name. On a global scale. The Lord obviously wanted millions upon millions of people slaughtered in his name to show them how much he cared. Well… someone or something wanted all those people slaughtered. Let’s just say it was God.
God is love.
For all their hard work and dedication in spreading the word of his benevolence, God must have said it was OK for his minions to appropriate as much land and as many resources as they could steal… er, bring into the fold. Because God needs the land and resources of our little planet, even though he has dominion over everything in existence.
He clearly works in ways that are far beyond our limited, fearful, guilt-ridden ability to understand. Actually, it’s best not to question “him”, lest we get condemned to an eternity of incomprehensibly hellish torture.
Yeah, we might, but I can’t help myself. Hell be damned.
Maybe God has gambling problems among his giant list of mental, emotional, and psychological issues. He’s clearly broke. Why else would he need everything of value from all but a very select few of his demons… er, minions… er, righteous conduits on earth?
Sunday morning comin’ down. God has rough days too.
Does this not seem ridiculous and transparent to anyone with more than three functioning brain cells?
But instead of questioning and rejecting such a blindingly flawed narrative, billions of people still stake the fate of their souls on this complete bullshit. Religion has been a very evil and very brilliant tool. In all its many, many iterations, it’s been successfully enslaving gullible idiots for thousands of years. Maybe more.
As far as I can discern, the souls of the stupid must not be worth very much. The supply is far too great and they’re not very well protected.
In that regard, if one looks at examples of things of value on our planet, one does recognize a pattern: when harvesting anything of value, the chaff far outweighs the harvest.
Most of the material dealt with in any endeavour isn’t valuable. Take gold or diamonds, for instance. How many tonnes of dirt are processed to get a kilo of either? Unless you’re an Australian farmer, a lot. Maybe it’s the same with people. Most are relatively worthless waste, to be sifted through and discarded in order to extract a small number of diamonds or nuggets from. In that case, I suppose it’s probably worth it.
But what the hell do I know? If there is such a thing as God and it has some grand plan, I have no idea what it is and I’m not about to pretend I do. Although, if I was corrupt enough to leverage my soul against the guarantee of amassing temporary false wealth and power by convincing a few million morons that it was the will of God for me to have their money, and whatever else I could take (like their free will), I would probably have no trouble doing so.
It’s already a well-established and successful business plan, with plenty of examples to take direction from. The competition is fierce, though. Perhaps breaking into the pharmaceutical industry would be a more forgiving option.
Whatever my competitive chances against the monopoly of religious demons may be, however, I’m just not willing to wager the potential value of a soul against a few earthly goods and deceptive dominion over fools and the innocent. Because, were I to pull such a short-sighted stunt, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, any god worth its salt would see right through that crap and I’d be in trouble. And, to me, immediate material wealth and false power in this short, fairly miserable life (thank God it’s short) aren’t worth risking something potentially far more valuable for.
P.S:
You may have noticed that an article about Christianity made absolutely no mention of the Jeebus H. Christmas hisself? Not unintentional. The Jeebs deserves an entire piece dedicated entirely to his most-likely-fabricated holiness. Which he shall receive. Please stay tuned for an upcoming bit on Our Saviour, the essential catalyst for the biggest manipulation tool humanity has ever been exposed to.
Thanks for your time,
Peace!