Religion? (Photo credit: Xavi Ferreiro) I used this photo to discuss the matter of how people falsely attribute shapes with proof of religion. Everything from Jesus Toast, to the messiah on a dogs butt hole. Humans are gifted with an intellect for pattern recognition, but this is where religion abuses and misuses that gift.

Of those who promote, support, and indoctrinate others into religion, by religion I mean “JudeaChristianity“, no idea is more of a lie than this one.  Christianity gives promises of grandeur to millions, promises which are not demonstrated, and can’t be demonstrated to be fulfilled.  It’s the equivalent of someone making a promise to you that only occurs after you are dead, which you can’t substantiate because you can’t ask the dead if they have received it, nor can you “make sure” you receive it upon your death or give evidence of either.  Now, I aim to be clear here, I am not anti-religion.  I am just Anti-Judea-Christian.  Yes, I guess it’s a statement I have meant to make for a while.  I am not an “anti-theist“, because I am agnostic about their being, or not being a god.  I see Christianity, Islam, and to a lesser degree Judaism as a threat to all of humanity, human progress, and intellectual, and rational thinking everywhere.  I have good reason, piles of clear-cut evidence, and due cause to feel this way.  These religious sects show themselves for the bloodthirsty, intolerant, and antithetical trope to rationality they are.  Judea-Christianity’s “hope” is little more than “the world sucks, so here is this imaginary reward for your suffering, and happenstance placation to this ideology”.  Moreover, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are anti-progress, anti-science, anti-intellectual, and anti-logic.  Unfortunately, I stand for all of those things.  Judea-Christianity and myself are opponents by the very positions we hold.

Religion is not the first peddler of immaterial, unsubstantiated goods, but it is the most rampant.  Quite frankly, it makes promises it can’t back up, or prove, and it’s tenets even abdicate it from providing proof and as a result it’s the exact opposite of “hope”.  Judea-Christianity is despair.  The world is going to degrade and die, the literal divine argument for entropy.  Because of this viewpoint of this particular religious thought literally prevents progress, because people see the degradation and suffering as “God wrought, and just”, and just “the way the world is” or because they demonize the progress, or change itself.  Furthermore, prayer is an “ideal” circumvention to progress.  Essentially, it is the hopelessness that you are a powerless, unworthy being, and that the only way you can effect change is with God, through the power of prayer.  Nothing every gets accomplished by praying about it.  Most people who have their prayers answered, either were really lucky, did most of the leg work themselves, or ask for something that was easily acquired.  If I prayed for something to drink, and then got up and went to the fridge and there just happened to be something to drink, this isn’t the work of God.  When most people pray to get a job, it’s not because God “handpicked, and delivered them” to employment, but likely because they applied for many jobs at different places, had the required skills, and likely attended an interview.  Magical thought, of course is the problematic root of all of this.

Toasty Christ commands that you butter your neighbors, and do not be jelly of your friends, and to love only Toast!

Hope comes in the form of things, actions, and progress which actually makes the status of someones life better.  Certainly, Churches in America do lots of charity work, per their biblical, or archetypal mandates, but this doesn’t in and of itself mean that “religion = hope”.  Often times it’s the other world issues brought about by religion that causes poverty in the first place.  I’ll explain.  Church A blocks abortion access, and contraceptive access to women in community A.  Community A has a sharp increase in teen pregnancy, causing a taxation to be levied against tax payers who pay for public services for these pregnant teens.  The children and their mothers need resources, and are not in a position to feasibly offer those with the sharp rise, and it hurts Community A’s resources, thus the tax.  The tax has a harmful effect on the economy, and eventually costs cause businesses to close, or move elsewhere increasing the unemployment rate, and the degree of poverty experienced by Community A.  The Church A provides limited support to this community, but even with this effort they start getting “tight” on cash-flow turning to the state for help, or tax relief.  Church A’s apply and eventual acceptance for aid causes a statewide shortage, requiring a state-wide tax increase.  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… The church, religion, and it’s associated tenets actually uphold and cause the “suffering” that they often “give aide” to ease.  This is also not the only instance in which “The Church” is the problem.

This goes further beyond just economics, into medicine, science, and all other things that bring about progress that improve the lives of everyday people.  It is through science that we have learned to better manage our resources as a species to even provide for the growing population that Judea-Christianity creates by blocking access to contraceptives to women, access to abortions, or other “population maintenance” protocols.  It is anti-progress, which causes stagnation, and as a result causes poverty, and the perpetual degradation of society it claims is cause by “evil, and the non-religious”.  It is why Judea-Christian is the perfect circuit trap…  It creates the very evil that it claims to prevent, and it does so in a way that makes it “appear” if it isn’t the cause.  If I have said it once then I’ll say it again, Religion (Christianity) is a logical trap which keeps you trapped into its conformity.  A logical trap which is well purposed to the ends of circumventing your reasoning, your ability to rationalize, and your ability to learn and see the world (to observe it) and therefore draw conclusions about it.

Urban Decay's logo

Urban Decay’s logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia) This isn’t the kind of “Urban Decay” that the religious believe is happening, but I am sure some probably think it’s “Of the Devil”.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all see the world in a “perpetual state of decay”, and not as it actually is… Progressing.  The world is getting better with time, not worse as the evidence indicates.  However, things like “The Dark Ages” do occur.  Because of this mentality, the religious tend to see change as “Part of the degradation” and as such tend to demonize progress as “the work of the devil”.  If you don’t believe me, look at what cause the Arabic Empires to plunge into the longest intellectual dark ages of human history.  Why do you think that most of the stars in the sky are Arabic Names, or why we study Algebra, or why we use Arabic Numerals?  Why isn’t the Middle East the “Center of Intellectualism” that it once was.  One simple phrase… “Mathematics are a thing of the Devil“.  Yes, the demonization of intellectualism, science, and of rationality, the very premise by which we can actually come to understand the world, and universe we live in.  Check out this video of Neil deGrassi Tyson for more insight.  Progress has stagnated before, and we have actually gone backwards into a time of social and economic decay.  But religion itself is the cause of this, not the way the world is without it.

Believe it or not, this process is beginning to happen in America, while slower than the plunge into chaos of the dark ages, it is indeed occurring to some degree.  The cold war was partly to blame, and more recently 9/11 has also caused a bit of this.  Why?  Because these things incited some of the largest growths in religious faith of American History.  The religious in America tacitly, vehemently and often deny science, as “a thing only scientist belief, or even equate “science with belief”.  When religion comes into contrast and contradiction with religion, the party line is to deny science.  It denies science where it is “inconvenient to its philosophies”, but endorses it when it is supporting of their position.  As a result it has created both movements of anti-sciences, as well as movements of ideologies that pretend to be science (Like intelligent design).  It’s hegemony is positioned on the premise of “Freedom of Religion” but is actually just the freedom to believe in their religion.  This all acts to stifle, slow, and even reverse progress.  I for one, do hope that science will win the battle before another such “Dark Age” can begin.

Dark Ages

Dark Ages (Photo credit: stefg74)

Historical Scholars sometimes debate the cause of the Dark Ages, but one thing is for certain, that it occurred after the fall of Rome, and the religious resurgence of the Middle-East, which both had profound impacts on the system.  The flaws of imperialism and religion were likely both to blame.  The Dark Ages, did lead to intellectualism later, however it took a long time to come about.  There are countless examples of this throughout history, from the Dark Ages to the Salem Witch Trials.  Jon Stewart put it succinctly, “Religion gives people hope in a world torn apart by religion”.  Religion in America (Judea-Christian Philosophy) is the cause of the problems it claims to work to prevent.  Both through its stance on the decay of society (which it is actually progressing), to the demonization of intellectuality it crushes the very things that give people real a substantial hope for a better future, potentially even a Post-Scarcity Society.  It’s only through science and rational understanding that we’ll ever find a way to end poverty, sickness, disease, and create a better world for all.  For if we don’t understand the world what hope do we have to strive in it?  If we don’t learn, or if we sabotage our capacity for learning with faith and religion we are doomed to repeat the errors of history.

This isn’t an exhaustive explicative about why I am Anti-Judea-Christianity, or why I am anti-(any philosophy that sabotages people’s ability to learn and progress as a race), but I think it highlights it more than any piece I have done to date.  My intellectualism, and atheistic view-point is a product of the fact that at a very young age I learned the value of science, and I learned to be a rational person before I learned to be a religious one.  Though this didn’t guarantee that I’d end up feeling the way I did, it certainly helped form the basis of my philosophy, and position in life.  Anyone who tells you not to think is not your friend.  I really resonate with that statement.  Faith is the absence of reason, and thought (not thought, or thinking in the neurological sense).  Faith is the antithesis of hope, especially faith in Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.  I am sure that this isn’t the only faith that is the antithesis of reason, but it is certainly one of them.  Statistically speaking, the religiosity of people in a country is almost directly proportional to the state of life for the poorest in their nation.  Religion and suffering always tend to occur together.

Freedom From Religion Foundation

Freedom From Religion Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This isn’t to say that religion is the sole source of suffering in the world, but it certainly is a larger culprit than most.  Scarcity is certainly a problem around the world, but if we were dedicated to reason, rationality, and science we could most certainly solve those problems with time.  Science is the hope giver.  I certainly would rather stand behind science, medicine and rationality as the key to improving our station as human beings, and it has a long history of demonstrated success.  Anything else would be uncivilized.  I am sure some of my might friends might not like that I am like this, some may even feel the need to disassociate with me for what it’s worth.  And I don’t care.  There is not stipulation that I must withhold my opinion for the sake of the belief of others, nor of them to withhold theirs over my position though I don’t have to like it.  My position is rational and founded in reality, as solidly as anyone of us can potentially assert.  Does this mean I am like all other Atheists? No.  Does the mean there aren’t religions I like? No.  It just means I have a position about one.  I am sure many people has a religion that they have a firm dislike of.  Is it really so weird to be a former Christian and have a firm, sound, and logical dislike of Christianity?  I think not.

All people have right to their ideas, and the right to hold them, but not the right to hurt other people for their sake.  This is paramount.  I generally respect peoples right to hold their beliefs, and positions, up until it causes me harm, or causes harm to others, or any one of the key issues I feel strongly about.  I still support the freedom of religion, but my tolerance of religious actions is tenuous.