Religion comes from a Latin word meaning to bind. It has to mean more than an outlook or group that binds people together. The best understanding is that it binds people together in a belief system and that that belief system is based on the supernatural so religion is trying to bind people to supernatural powers and each other. It implies that the people owe these powers worship and service as a duty. Religion then is a form of division. And a major source of division and bloodshed.
We are encouraged to respect the beliefs of others. It is people we should respect not beliefs. Respecting the beliefs of others is popularly taken to mean that you don't criticise these beliefs at all - not even in a kindly way. This is nonsense. Respecting a belief does not mean sweeping it under the carpet. That is fearing it not respecting it. People do not have the right to ask us to fear their beliefs or their rights to hold beliefs. Fear like that leads to resentment and bigotry not to mention more fears!
Respecting the beliefs of others, ie not criticising or showing you disagree with them, is often restricted to religious beliefs which in itself is an admission that religion gets a dangerous level of reverence. It is asserting that it is dangerous to openly disagree with somebody's religious beliefs and admitting that religion is dangerous. It is accusing the practitioners of being dangerous. We disagree and contradict the beliefs of others every day so why should religious beliefs be exempt from our vocal criticism? If religious belief is dangerous and it makes the believers dangerous then that is all the more reason for gently trying to discourage religious belief and expose the untruths that it arises from.
If religious belief deserves such respect that nobody should try to express disagreement with it, then it should only get it when the believer is open to checking that the belief is not detrimental to human welfare. Otherwise the believer doesn't care. For example, the Catholic who denies that birth-control should ever be allowed is opposing human welfare if this belief is wrong. He or she is part of the forces that are against birth control. If he or she is set upon believing that birth-control is always wrong and refuses to listen to the truth that person is simply bad.
Some people are not offended when their god, say Jesus for example, is insulted even though they claim to be Christians. And some Christians are offended. Should we be silent because some people have a bad reaction that they refuse to try and control? Should we be silent because even if we try to reason with them that Jesus might not have been what he said he was without insulting they will still get mad and offended? Surely in the latter case they are doing wrong not us. Surely their reaction is their own business.
Belief is not a private matter. Beliefs and opinions affect how you work in the world and relate to others. Believing something for emotional reasons or on little or no evidence shows poor self-control. If society could have the same beliefs it would be knit together better. Life would be better.
Work against religion by trying to educate its victims and expose the lies of their clergy.
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Ask Yourself
Some Questions …. |
I
Is it love to tell people that an all-good God exists
which is to say that people should not be valued above all but he should for he
is all-good and better than us? That is
putting belief before people and if that is right then how could
hurting people in the name of God be wrong?
II
Is it love to be asked to
keep laws that hurt just because God supposedly made them? Religion claims that God knows what is best
and can command what seems to be bad from our perspective. For example, he harshly commands that people
who divorce and remarry must go to Hell forever. Rules should be kept to a bare
minimum for breaking them makes it harder for the breaker to love herself so
that she can help herself and others better and produces more fear – fear is
the reason we do wrong. Is it love to be asked to keep laws that don’t hurt just because
God supposedly made them? No for then you are keeping the laws not because they
are harmless but because God made them which means you would observe them even
if they were harmful. See what is good
and do it. You don’t need a God to be
your king.
III
Is it love to tell people
that there is a supernatural purpose for evil meaning much suffering should
happen? If we really care about people
we will not believe that and we will not let people suffer nor believe that they
should. Even if you deny that people
should suffer, once you believe in God you cannot be as sure of that so it
undermines you and insults them.
Dentists have to hurt people to help them but we should not believe that
the rotting teeth in the first place have a good purpose that only God knows
and has planned. The people you see must
come before the God you cannot see.
IV
Is it love to be asked to follow scriptures,
prophets and priests as the mouthpieces of God whose revelations we have a duty
to accept for we have no right to contradict God? In practice there is no difference between a
person who may really speak for God and one who is just lying to get an undue
influence over your life because those who are lied to are convinced the
imposter is not a fake and even experts in theology or philosophy are often
taken in or pretend to be. To promote
faith in God when this faith is not faith in God at all but faith in men and in
their alleged authority from God to speak for him is wrong. It is really promoting their interpretation,
and their perception which is wrong and bigoted. They make decisions that are supposed to be
God’s but there is no practical difference between obeying men who really are
from God and men who are not but say they are.
Most people are not skilled enough to see through the deception and it
is evil to ask them to obey popes and prophets.
To follow prophets is to follow men not God even if they claim to speak
for God. There are countless versions of the
faith even within each religion. There are countless religions and
possible scenarios for inventing a new religion. Most people, even
experts, must be making mistakes. To follow any religion is really to
follow men. End of story.
V
Is it love to promote religion which tells lies like
that we can sacrifice and that to condemn Adam’s sin as evil is not as good as
saying Adam is evil? We can’t sacrifice
for we do what we want to do depending on the circumstances and to say Adam did
wrong freely and wasn’t programmed by nature is to suggest that Adam is evil
and therefore hateful. If you don’t want to be rich and ignore this desire to
take the wealth nobody sees that as a sacrifice! If that isn’t then nothing is. You can’t love the sinner if you hate the sin
or see it as evil anymore that you can say you trust the sinner but not his
sins with a straight face! Religion
teaches that love is sacrifice and denies that loving others through yourself, ie loving yourself automatically makes you nicer to other
people for you are happy to share yourself with them which is egoism is
love. Religion is really just getting in
the way of goodness.
VI
Is it love to ask or encourage people to join and
commit to faith organisations or religions that can
be done without and which are too amenable to abuse? If you want faith work out your own needs and
invent your own faith to satisfy them and keep it private. Religion gives people an extra and needless
excuse to fight and kill and so it is bad.
VII
Is it love to promote something that tells you that
you have to believe x, y and z? Who
cares if people don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God – what matters is
how they treat themselves and if they bring joy to others. Humanism only advises people to believe
whatever puts people first and only asks them to be very careful and not to be
afraid to change their minds. If religion is acceptable, then why not help
people to find the beliefs that work for them and improve their lives? Religion seeks to get people to believe the
same things as it believes, not caring if it is best for them or not.
VIII
Religion is divisive and causes suspicion and
trouble and war. Those who say there is
one true religion must admit that religion is dangerous for they will see other
religions as false and in opposition to the truth. Suicide bombers kill for religion because
they think they will awaken in paradise.
They are the people who sign the affidavit that religious belief causes
death and destruction and even peaceable forms of it are dangerous in their own
blood. Once you choose faith over reason
and human welfare and no matter how decent you are, you are advocating what
could snowball into an openly destructive form of faith. All suicide bombers started off believing
that God came first not people (a belief advocated by the evil Jesus when he
said that the greatest command is the love of God and the second greatest and
therefore less important one was love of neighbour –
so people are to be valued for God and not for themselves, it is really only religion
that ultimately matters). Their belief
that religion mattered not people was the seed that
grew into the tree that led them to bring on their horrific deaths. They were murderers in their attitudes long
before they murdered. Whoever devalues
people is a killer in his heart and desires no matter how much charm he pours
out on them.
IX
“Ultimately one loves one’s desires and not that
which is desired” – Friedrich Nietzsche.
In other words, what is important is not what you think you want but you
wanting it for it would mean nothing without the wanting. To get something you desire fulfils your
feelings. It is this fulfillment you
want not the thing itself. (It is not
money that matters to the avaricious it is how money makes them feel.) Denying this is the lie on which all religion
depends and we all know it’s a lie. For
example, religion says stuff like that we want God or want Jesus and want to
pray. Therefore religion has no right to
cause the divisions and suspicion and guilt and fear that results from its
teachings. Religion is bad and the good
it does cannot justify it for it exists only because people lie to themselves
and each other. So would it be wrong to think that “Good” like that serves only
to enslave and exploit for the men of God are not interested in God at all?
If your answer is no to many of these questions then please consider
joining a humanist organization or at least cut all ties with religion and do
not support the clergy in any way for ultimately they are to blame for all the
evils carried out by religion.
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Atheism is Honesty |
Fact – You like even the most unpleasant tasks in the sense that you feel you
have to do them for it is only right so you like them to some extent and this
liking causes you to do them.
Fact- You can only focus on one thing at a time. Therefore the desire you have this moment
causes you to do what you do in this moment.
Examine yourself.
Fact – Liking means finding pleasure in something. When you say you choose
what you mean is you do what you like or desire to do under the
circumstances. To do it is to fulfill
yourself to some degree – its to satisfy your
desire. Desire is behind everything you
do for without desire you wouldn’t have what you call choice and you wouldn’t
be able to act without desire. This is
not an assumption, all admit and know that when we do
something it is always in response to some desire. Desire means being after
some kind of fulfillment.
Therefore – everything I do no matter how altruistic it looks
is done for self-indulgence. When I help
another person and suffer for them without any gain for myself, and not even to
feel good after, I am doing it
solely because my desire to help them is being fulfilled. I am helping them to fulfill myself NOT to
help them. Altruism is a lie. The alternative, the view that we are
self-centered and can’t be other than that, is true.
We are not suggesting that everybody does what they do because they want
something like praise or money or to feel good about themselves. We are suggesting that doing a good act is
its own reward. The reward is in relieving the desire by doing it. We do all we do for relief of a desire and
not necessarily for anything else. To
deny this is to deny that desire has anything to do with wanting something
which makes no sense.
I am only after my own pleasure so I am my own God and should live as if
there were no God. God even if he exists
cannot blame us for that because he made us like that. Be secular, be happy for that is the only way
you will be able to help yourself and others.
Because I treat myself as if I am my God, whether I admit it or not, for
me to bend the knee to any God outside me is hypocrisy and deceit.
This truth is often disguised today as the advice, “You can’t love [be
good to others] unless you love yourself.”
So all goodness starts with self-love and putting
yourself first so that in helping others you are pleasing yourself. If you are not happy in yourself and with
yourself you cannot help make other people happy. Religion is totally unnecessary and a
neurosis. Prayer and sacraments have
never dispensed with the need for psychologists, psychiatrists and
self-development.