Bitter about religion
May 28th, 2007 at 21:19
I hate religion. Have I mentioned that before? The more I read, and the more I learn about it, the more I just realise how truly awful it is.
Sure, it looks like a good thing on the surface, full of attractive notions of an afterlife and “salvation” and so on. From afar you can look at its moral foundations and go “yeah, that’s a pretty good set of morals”. But take a closer look and you’ll see that it’s full of many, many horrible flaws – a lot like some of the science and plots in some episodes of Doctor Who, in that sense.
Chances are that if you yourself are under the spell of organised religion, you’re blind to the probems. Or more specifically, you’re able to see them, but you just discount them as you’re in denial. Almost as if you’ve just made a fuss about spending a lot of money on a terrible car, so sort of feel obliged to force yourself to like it.
“Yeah, well, you would say that, but I really like the orange paintwork, I don’t think it’s in poor taste at all… what do you mean ‘it doesn’t go anywhere’? Just because it has no wheels doesn’t make it any worse a vehicle… just look at the incredible bucket seats and beaded seat covers”.
Religion’s the same: you could try and apologise for it in the same was that a mother will try and put a positive spin on their little bastard of a kid: “He’s a good kid really – encouraging people not to kill or steal… he’s just like anyone his age, getting into all sorts of mischief, stoning the unbelievers, arguing that black is white… but what can you do?”.
I mean, what does religion ever do for you? You spend half your life obsessing over it, praying everyday, reading up on the Bible to stay on God’s good side, giving big donations to the Church, all to try and stay in the good books of a God who in all probability, if he even exists hates you – how else do you explain him not getting you a Christmas present and not even showing up to his Son’s birthday celebrations after you spent all of that money on sacrificing a goat / murdering abortion doctors / complaining about Jerry Springer: The Opera on his behalf?
As I’ve written about before, the moral absolutism that religion offers annoys the hell out of me, and it’s massive hypocrisy annoys me even more so. Religion tends to not live in the real world (er, no pun intended) – and when it is backed into a corner and forced to try and stay relevant to humanity at large, so-called moderates will laughably change their mind, despite the lack of their God coming down and with a sequel to the Bible, sort of empirically proving that there’s no “divine intervention” in the first place.
Moderates annoy me – I’m talking about the regular religious people, who perhaps go to Church on a Sunday, maybe sing in the choir and volunteer to raise money for the church roof. They’re perhaps more deserving of my ire than the hardcore fundies, who are just idiots. Moderate religious people may even be educated and intelligent – they might even be interested in the sciences (I’m talking real sciences, not the oxymoronic “creation science“). I assume that they must have trouble reconciling their “traditional” religious beliefs with the horrible truth they encounter everywhere else – but by at least paying lip service to religion, they’re helping it keep going and stand in the way of progress for another generation.
I think it’s going to be a bit depressing when a more enlightened humanity look back of civilisation and look at all of the money and time, and not to mention lives, wasted at the hands of religion. It might even be more depressing than the feeling you got after watching The Matrix Revolutions for the first time.
Its also slightly alarming how easily wound up I can get thinking about religion.
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