"Everyone, please bow your heads... and pretend to be serious."- Mooninites, Aquateen Hungerforce (#1 in da hood, G).
Anyone offended yet?
If you are a religious person who is 100% sure that you are correct in your beliefs, or "faith," or whatever you call something that you cannot actually prove or have facts to back up...
I personally challenge you to go see the movie Religulous by Bill Maher.
How about now?
Actually, go see the MOVIE no matter what. It's funny, it's serious, it's entertaining, and it MAKES YOU THINK.
P.S. is there anything more narrow-minded than refusing to go see a movie just because it counters your beliefs? What do you, as a seemingly rational person, gain from shutting out varying viewpoints that may or may not challenge/disagree with your beliefs?
Also, if you are a free thinker you might ENJOY THIS SITE.
So what's the point of an atheist or person in doubt questioning the beliefs of others? Why should I care to poke and prod at the religious folk in the world? Leave them alone Dave, what have they ever done to you?
If you honestly take that position then you are oblivious to what some call "reality."
Religions try to run people's lives. But not just THEIR followers, EVERY ONE'S.
Now there are 2 ways I could go from here. I could talk about the ways in which religion has severely hurt my life and ended the lives of countless, LITERALLY COUNTLESS people (be they religious victims or otherwise).
OR
I could just go right ahead and try to appeal to your REASON.
For some of you, neither of these approaches will work. (Am I starting to sound cocky yet? Read on...)
Some of you might still think evolution is a lie. You might think that the world is only 6,000 or so years old. You might believe the world was created in 6 days and that god, being all powerful, needed a break on that 7th day. You might think that adam and eve were created by god, that humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs, or (even better) that dinosaurs are made up.
Let's just have a little religious review here:
God is a man, no doubt about it: for some reason he needs a penis.
Mary never had sex, Jesus just popped out.
Women are belittled in the bible FAR MORE than they are allotted any respect. (They are even offered for rape.) So what does this tell you about the people (yes people) who wrote the bible? Why should women even consider following such a sexist (and that's not a strong enough word to describe it) man-written book?
Everything that exists was created in six days by an invisible man who, somehow, just always existed. You must accept this premise or else the rest of the incredible stuff about religion might seem just a bit too ridiculous...
A talking snake, once again people: A TALKING SNAKE (who is actually the devil!?!) tricked adam and eve into the HORRIBLE sin of eating a forbidden fruit. God, who is all knowing, all powerful and ever-present... in all of HIS glory (reminder god has a penis), didn't see this coming.
This invisible man resides in "Heaven" which is apparently up in the sky somewhere. Which was convenient for the writers of the bible at the time because flight and spacecraft hadn't been invented yet (Why hasn't NASA found heaven?) .
There were AT LEAST 10 prior "saviors" that came BEFORE jesus in other religions. They all had the same story: virgin birth, performed miracles, disciples, crucified, died, resurrected 3 days later. What makes Jesus' story any more real or true? The fact that you were told to believe this tall tale, no questions asked, since you were born is pretty unfair. You were told by adults that this story (along with Santa Clause) were true. These adults had complete control over you, OF COURSE YOU ARE GOING TO BELIEVE IT.
Oh, and some nicknames for the "saviors" that came before jesus: The alpha and the omega, the way, the truth, the light, so on and so forth (I HOPE BY NOW YOU ARE STARTING TO GET THE POINT?)
Rhetorical Question (Thanks Richard Dawkins): Why don't you believe in Zeus? Why don't you believe in Apollo? Why don't you believe in Thor?
You might be thinking... "Well because that's ridiculous Dave. They were made up. Duh!" These were "legitimate gods" that were worshiped in the past, and now we laugh at them as being mythology.
I hope that 50 years from now at least 40% of Americans will realize that we should neatly place our religions convictions and contradictions in a book with the Greek gods and Egyptian gods and properly store them in the mythology section of book stores and libraries.
Give me one reason why we shouldn't? Can you back it up with real evidence?
Here's something we can all agree on: Santa isn't real (((shocked!?))). He was made up by humans. We, as rational adults, do not believe that ONE MAN goes flying around the ENTIRE world delivering presents to all the children in one night (Well only to the good little Christians kids, screw the rest they don't believe in the right religion).
So what's so rational about believing that ONE magical MAN who is floating in the sky(once again I don't know why god needs a penis) can hear the voices of EVERYONE ON EARTH all at once (prayer). OOooooh and not just that! He can even see your every action and he knows your every thought! He's keeping tabs on each and every one of us? Really???
Reminiscent of Santa much?
"He's knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you are bad and good so be good for goodness sake!"
When we grow up we throw out our magical beliefs about Santa. Why do we hold onto religion?
"So be good for goodness sake..."
Hmm... That's another problem: Why should we as humans have to be scared into being good? I do not put "FAITH*" in any known god or religion that has been presented to me in my life, yet, shockingly, I still don't run around killing people. Oh, minor side-note, a fair amount of people do run around killing people BECAUSE OF their belief in god.
(*Faith: (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust 3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction ; especially : a system of religious beliefs
"Well that's not me Dave, I'm on Religion-Lite. The version where we ignore all those rules in the Bible, Koran, and so on that require death to those who work on Sunday, or who wear two different kinds of threads at once, or tell us to kill any non-believers. I'm not them, so religion is good."
Technically, aren't YOU the one who isn't following the full tenets of your own religion? The people doing the killings are. So: Your religion does promote this violence and killing, you just ignore it. WHY? BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT IS WRONG. You already know that your religion is wrong, flawed, dangerous... but you conveniently ignores parts, it's just easier to ignore the truth, right? (P.S. I'd rather you drop your faith than go on a killing spree) .
And I certainly do not hope that you religious folks in the readership only behave appropriately out of FEAR OF PUNISHMENT from the ridiculous deity that I have described in this post.
By this point you may be thinking: "Wow, Dave, YOU SOUND COCKY! You think you know everything!"
I beg to differ. I do not claim to KNOW the answers. I am just pointing out the things that rational people should already know to be absurdities in religion. "Is there a god, Dave?" There could be, but you cannot prove it. AND I sure as hell hope the deity, if it exists, is NOTHING like what any of the religions preach.
Ready for some sarcasm Grandma?
- The best part about religion is that people kill each other, judge each other, belittle each other, take rights away from each other, hate each other, segregate each other, and blow the crap up out of each other because of religious beliefs that are remarkably similar to that of ancient Greek, Egyptian, and other beliefs that everyone readily regards as "MYTH."
Go SEE Religulous. Give it a chance. If you disagree with it, then do so using facts.
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