19th March 2004, 10:55 AM
Humanity is far from a perfect evolution. We are just a continuation of the primate family, and the most developed life form yet known. We are the masters of the planet by our own assertion. Having said that, and as far advanced and developed as our minds are, humanity as a whole is still naïve and ignorant. As a whole, humanity is still imprisoned in the mental confines of religion. The extent to which humanity can evolve is still shackled; still held down. Until we can let go of our tiresome beliefs in eternal salvation and omnipotent deities, we will forever be less than what we could be.
The main arguments for and against religion are, ironically the same; neither side can be proven. For millennia, religious people have prayed to their God(s), and the atheists of the world have yearned for reason. This continues today.
Thousands of years have passed of human history, and countless forgotten religions and beliefs have come and gone; risen and faded, and been worshipped by millions with as much candor as today’s religions. Today, we discredit all of these ancient religions; yet somehow, humanity is arrogant and ignorant enough to believe that our contemporary religions are somehow different from those of the past. Somehow, contemporary theologians can say that the theologians of yesterday were all wrong and didn’t know any better, yet they themselves are in the same position. How can anyone be so ignorant? How are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and all the rest any different from the religions of the Greek gods, or the Egyptians? Well, what are the similarities between them…today, as back on those days, people blindly devoted their lives to religion. Half the fun and mystery was that it was a blind faith; a good person would blindly follow their faith, without ever questioning it. This must require a certain amount of, blatantly put, stupidity. Does no one think for them selves anymore? We simply believe that which we are told growing up, and our logic never evolves any further? A Christian knows that his religion is true; let so does a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Zoroastrian or any other theologian. These religions agree on some things to an extent, but on the whole, are different. They’re similar in as much as that they all demand blind loyalty, and only taking the word of previous generations that it’s true. Without ever seeing their deities, or anything particularly supernatural, people live all of their lives—give everything they have—to worshipping figments of their imaginations.
Religious people scoff at agnostics, free-thinkers and atheists as being afraid of believing, or afraid to open their eyes and make a leap of blind faith. The same can be turned around, though—why do they not think straight and ponder with reason instead of desire whether or not god exists. Whence there is next to no tangible evidence that he has ever existed, (no, the fact that the Earth exists doesn’t count), one would think it wouldn’t even be much of a debate.
Napoleon Bonaparte put it succinctly with “religion is very good stuff for keeping the masses happy.” Religion is, as I put it, a sedative for the curious mind. Governor Jesse Ventura called it a crutch for the weak-minded. It and keeps us content in our otherwise unbearably pointless and brief lives. It also helps explain…well, everything. Any mystery in nature? God did it. Why is the sky blue, why do we feel pain? God did it. Doesn’t it strike anyone else as a little suspicious that a being whom none of us have ever see or heard (in fact, we’ve only read about it in a 2,000 year old tome,) is somehow all around us, and controls our destinies, yet never reveals itself? He loves us all, and created us in his image (yet who created his image,) and wants us to believe in him, yet will furnish no evidence to the skeptical. Does he want us to be intelligent and evolve; naturally, the superior mind questions everything around it. Unless we’re but sheep to be herded, Isn’t it natural that people question religion? That being so, why doesn’t God reveal himself to the masses, or in some other way prove his existence? Why does he play these games of blind faith versus eternal hellfire? Wouldn’t it just be the slightest bother to perhaps appear in the sky and reveal himself to the masses, and forever prove himself and save all of humanity from disbelief? Would that be too easy? Otherwise, why would the Christian god create a race of flawed beings, and then blame them for the way they are? No one chooses to be atheist; no one chooses to be raised as a Christian. We have no power over who our parents are, and we cannot choose to believe anything, anymore than we can choose who we love. Belief, like love, is spontaneous; we can only go along for the ride. One doesn’t choose to believe anything—belief and faith are, like all emotions, based upon our minds. So, since we cannot ever CHOOSE to believe in something we don’t already believe in, thusly, it is definitely beyond our power to save ourselves (assuming that it is by blind belief in God that we are saved.)
I understand that there are many cliques of Christianity, and no two believe in the exact same thing. Some don’t believe in hell, some don’t respect the organized religion of the Vatican, some believe different theories about the Holy Trinity, etc. Doesn’t this also discredit them---that there are so many different takes on Christianity, they can’t all be right. Using common sense, if there are so many varying degrees and classes of Christianity, only one can be truly right, or none can be right at all. Or perhaps God is a laid-back individual, who doesn’t really care what you believe in, as long as he gets his prayers—in which case, our only purpose is to worship him. Doesn’t this make him vain—creating all of existence simply to worship him—and since vanity is a sin, isn’t God also a hypocrite?
Some of the stronger anti-religion statements are as follows:
1.) If God is real, and wants all of us to believe in him and thusly earn passage to Heaven, why doesn’t he reveal himself to the masses, and thusly prove beyond any doubt to all humanity that he does exist, and thusly save us all forever?
2.) Why does he allow so much suffering, doubt and ignorance to exist in the world he created?
3.) The Bible decidedly ignores the existence of the other solar planets, and the very existence of space. We now know that there are very many numerous other planets in the infinite universe. What purpose do they serve? They play no role in the Bible at all.
4.) The human body is definitely flawed; and yet if Man is created in God’s image, does this not also mean that the perfect God is also flawed?
5.) God condemned snakes to slither on the ground in return for having tempted Eve (Genesis.) If such a means of living is so terrible and degrading, what did worms do?
6.) Talking snakes roamed the Earth 5,000 years ago? Really…
7.) The Bible tells in detail how God created the Earth and man, and how the world is only approximately 6,006 years old (as told in my 1870 King James’ Bible). Science has time and time again disavowed and proven this timeline false.
8.) The Bible tells how all animals were made to serve and be subordinate to man (Genesis 1:26) If this is true, why do animals even today continue to injure and kill humans…? Shouldn’t they all be docile in best serving God?
9.) A prominent, recurring theme of Christianity is forgiveness. If that is true, why does God not forgive Adam and Eve for Eve’s having eaten the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden? Furthermore, why does he make all of humanity suffer eternally for it…? Furthermore still, if the fruit was forbidden and never to be touched, what purpose did it serve, and why did he put it there, within reach and sight of the humans who, imperfect as we are could be easily tempted? Wasn’t this a trap waiting to happen?
10.) In Genesis, God created man first, and later woman. Whereas Man was created instantaneously by God, Woman had to be taken from one of Adam’s ribs…this is simply ridiculous; wouldn’t it have been easier to have just spontaneously created a Woman too? Furthermore, why a rib?
11.) God made man in all his form. Surely, this including reproductive genitalia. Then, as an afterthought, God later created woman from one of Adam’s ribs…why didn’t he create man and woman together? If not to reproduce with a woman, what were the penis and testicles for originally…? Using logic, if not to reproduce with, they could only realistically be used for masturbating to obtain self-sexual gratification. Does this then not mean that masturbation is acceptable, despite the Catholic Church being against it?
12.) If God made man in his image, and Eve could not resist temptation, doesn’t this also mean that God himself is susceptible to similar things?
13.) Why did God create humanity with only a minority believing in him from the start? If we believe the Bible, at the time of Jesus, Christians were only deciphals of Jesus, and other non-Christian believers comprised the other 99.99% of humanity. Why did he leave it up to those few who believed in him to go out and convert “all other heathen?” Why didn’t he just snap his fingers and have all of humanity believe in him? Furthermore, since the world was evenly populated, why did Jesus only appear in the Middle East—isn’t it unfair to the other people all around the world? Did they all go to hell for lack of Jesus ever getting to them?
14.) Since it is a sin to have any other god(s) before “the one, true god”, does that mean that 5 out of ever 6 people alive today await eternal damnation?
15.) If God can indeed do anything, can he make a rock so large than even he can’t move it? (A childish riddle, but very true. The logic is impeccable.)
16.) God is eternal; he has always been, and always will be. Yet, if God created the world and all life at a set point in time, what did he do in the perpetual void that existed before he did this?
17.) Satan, allegedly, was a corrupt angel, outcast from Heaven. He betrayed God. But if God is omnipotent, couldn’t he have foreseen the deceit beforehand…?
18.) Angels are helpers of God. If God is all-powerful and indeed everywhere at all times, why does he need any help at all?
19.) Returning to the man-in-God’s image theme, if we are indeed replicas of God, why do we need to eat/sleep? If God as well requires these, he is not self-sufficient. If he does not require these, then we’re not in his complete image. Either way discredits the Creationist theory of Christianity.
20.) Throughout history, there have been countless hundreds of religions. Each one for a time was believed by a number of people no less devout than Christians today. If Christians easily disavow the beliefs of other religions, why should others not disavow Christianity? In other words, isn’t it incredibly naïf and narrow-minded of them to believe in a religion and not at least doubt it?
21.) If God exists, why does he allow his Church to be so corrupt, knowing that in so doing, it is hurting belief in him and his teachings?
22.) If Christianity is the one, true, absolute religion, why do only one in every six people believe in it? In China alone there are more Daoists than there are Christians throughout all the world. Approximately 810 million Indians profess Hindu.
23.) God sent a flood to kill all but one pair of each of every species, Noah and his immediate family. Since God is all-knowing, this means that God willingly and premeditatedly meant to kill nearly all humanity from the very beginning. Isn’t killing all by 10 people out of humanity genocide, and far worse than on the scale of Stalin or Hitler? Murder is a sin; thus God sins, thus God is a hypocrite.
24.) In the Old Testament, God kept in touch with humanity for some time; to guide and council us. This is chronicled in the first few books of the Bible. There could be no doubt he existed when he blatantly showed himself and indeed walked alongside us. Why did this God-Man contact stop eventually?
25.) Genesis 2:2 claims that God created the world in seven days, and that on the seventh day, God, exhausted, had to rest…thus we have Sunday; the Lord’s day of rest. If God is all-powerful, why would he need to rest at all, ever…?
26.) Atheists say “Where did God come from?” Christians will counter with “He’s always been and always will be.” That logic being valid, cannot one just as easily claim that matter (and the universe) always have been and always will be…? Isn’t it easier to believe that atoms have always existed, than an all-powerful yet conveniently reclusive deity?
27.) Christian try to prove heaven exists that heaven exist because “when you die, where else does your soul go?” To counter this, it goes exactly back from whence it came. What is death, they ask? I can easily answer this. Do you remember what was happening five thousands years before your were born? Obviously not…because you were not yet born. You did not exist. The very exact same state of non-existence awaits us all, just as much as we have all come from it. Our mind disintegrates, as it is inextricably incorporated with the flesh.
28.) The Bible was written by prophets of Jesus and God. Why wouldn’t he just write it himself, knowing that men are easily confused and distorted, and thusly that what they say could easily be mistranslated and laughed at?
29.) If God created man, then he surely also intended for us to act and behave as we do… he knows our minds, after all. That being said, did he not intend for us to be skeptical of him, granted our gifted ability to advance and learn over time? Moreover, if he didn’t intend for man to act violent and kill his fellow man, why did he form our minds with such flawed instincts and violent intentions? We are as he created us—filled with emotion, hate, fear and the inevitable fate of eternal oblivion that awaits us in death.
The discrepancies in the Bible alone are countless. To name them all would be a monumental task; but suffice to say that not much of it is credible. The Bible talks of talking animals, and great disasters…a vengeful god who loves us all yet murders whole cities who do not believe in him. Seems more petty and jealous than loving. Furthermore, if such a deity did exist, why doesn’t he do any of this anymore; why would he reign destruction of the disobedient peoples of the past, but not today? Why didn’t God stop Hitler, or Stalin? Why do people suffer? The countless questions against God may forever go unanswered. Christians and theologians scramble to make up excuses on behalf of their absent role model, yet they are at best imaginative solutions. More often than not, theologians can sum up the absence and discrepancies of their god by simply saying: “He works in mysterious ways. We are too simple and insignificant to understand him.”
---Darunia
The main arguments for and against religion are, ironically the same; neither side can be proven. For millennia, religious people have prayed to their God(s), and the atheists of the world have yearned for reason. This continues today.
Thousands of years have passed of human history, and countless forgotten religions and beliefs have come and gone; risen and faded, and been worshipped by millions with as much candor as today’s religions. Today, we discredit all of these ancient religions; yet somehow, humanity is arrogant and ignorant enough to believe that our contemporary religions are somehow different from those of the past. Somehow, contemporary theologians can say that the theologians of yesterday were all wrong and didn’t know any better, yet they themselves are in the same position. How can anyone be so ignorant? How are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and all the rest any different from the religions of the Greek gods, or the Egyptians? Well, what are the similarities between them…today, as back on those days, people blindly devoted their lives to religion. Half the fun and mystery was that it was a blind faith; a good person would blindly follow their faith, without ever questioning it. This must require a certain amount of, blatantly put, stupidity. Does no one think for them selves anymore? We simply believe that which we are told growing up, and our logic never evolves any further? A Christian knows that his religion is true; let so does a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Zoroastrian or any other theologian. These religions agree on some things to an extent, but on the whole, are different. They’re similar in as much as that they all demand blind loyalty, and only taking the word of previous generations that it’s true. Without ever seeing their deities, or anything particularly supernatural, people live all of their lives—give everything they have—to worshipping figments of their imaginations.
Religious people scoff at agnostics, free-thinkers and atheists as being afraid of believing, or afraid to open their eyes and make a leap of blind faith. The same can be turned around, though—why do they not think straight and ponder with reason instead of desire whether or not god exists. Whence there is next to no tangible evidence that he has ever existed, (no, the fact that the Earth exists doesn’t count), one would think it wouldn’t even be much of a debate.
Napoleon Bonaparte put it succinctly with “religion is very good stuff for keeping the masses happy.” Religion is, as I put it, a sedative for the curious mind. Governor Jesse Ventura called it a crutch for the weak-minded. It and keeps us content in our otherwise unbearably pointless and brief lives. It also helps explain…well, everything. Any mystery in nature? God did it. Why is the sky blue, why do we feel pain? God did it. Doesn’t it strike anyone else as a little suspicious that a being whom none of us have ever see or heard (in fact, we’ve only read about it in a 2,000 year old tome,) is somehow all around us, and controls our destinies, yet never reveals itself? He loves us all, and created us in his image (yet who created his image,) and wants us to believe in him, yet will furnish no evidence to the skeptical. Does he want us to be intelligent and evolve; naturally, the superior mind questions everything around it. Unless we’re but sheep to be herded, Isn’t it natural that people question religion? That being so, why doesn’t God reveal himself to the masses, or in some other way prove his existence? Why does he play these games of blind faith versus eternal hellfire? Wouldn’t it just be the slightest bother to perhaps appear in the sky and reveal himself to the masses, and forever prove himself and save all of humanity from disbelief? Would that be too easy? Otherwise, why would the Christian god create a race of flawed beings, and then blame them for the way they are? No one chooses to be atheist; no one chooses to be raised as a Christian. We have no power over who our parents are, and we cannot choose to believe anything, anymore than we can choose who we love. Belief, like love, is spontaneous; we can only go along for the ride. One doesn’t choose to believe anything—belief and faith are, like all emotions, based upon our minds. So, since we cannot ever CHOOSE to believe in something we don’t already believe in, thusly, it is definitely beyond our power to save ourselves (assuming that it is by blind belief in God that we are saved.)
I understand that there are many cliques of Christianity, and no two believe in the exact same thing. Some don’t believe in hell, some don’t respect the organized religion of the Vatican, some believe different theories about the Holy Trinity, etc. Doesn’t this also discredit them---that there are so many different takes on Christianity, they can’t all be right. Using common sense, if there are so many varying degrees and classes of Christianity, only one can be truly right, or none can be right at all. Or perhaps God is a laid-back individual, who doesn’t really care what you believe in, as long as he gets his prayers—in which case, our only purpose is to worship him. Doesn’t this make him vain—creating all of existence simply to worship him—and since vanity is a sin, isn’t God also a hypocrite?
Some of the stronger anti-religion statements are as follows:
1.) If God is real, and wants all of us to believe in him and thusly earn passage to Heaven, why doesn’t he reveal himself to the masses, and thusly prove beyond any doubt to all humanity that he does exist, and thusly save us all forever?
2.) Why does he allow so much suffering, doubt and ignorance to exist in the world he created?
3.) The Bible decidedly ignores the existence of the other solar planets, and the very existence of space. We now know that there are very many numerous other planets in the infinite universe. What purpose do they serve? They play no role in the Bible at all.
4.) The human body is definitely flawed; and yet if Man is created in God’s image, does this not also mean that the perfect God is also flawed?
5.) God condemned snakes to slither on the ground in return for having tempted Eve (Genesis.) If such a means of living is so terrible and degrading, what did worms do?
6.) Talking snakes roamed the Earth 5,000 years ago? Really…
7.) The Bible tells in detail how God created the Earth and man, and how the world is only approximately 6,006 years old (as told in my 1870 King James’ Bible). Science has time and time again disavowed and proven this timeline false.
8.) The Bible tells how all animals were made to serve and be subordinate to man (Genesis 1:26) If this is true, why do animals even today continue to injure and kill humans…? Shouldn’t they all be docile in best serving God?
9.) A prominent, recurring theme of Christianity is forgiveness. If that is true, why does God not forgive Adam and Eve for Eve’s having eaten the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden? Furthermore, why does he make all of humanity suffer eternally for it…? Furthermore still, if the fruit was forbidden and never to be touched, what purpose did it serve, and why did he put it there, within reach and sight of the humans who, imperfect as we are could be easily tempted? Wasn’t this a trap waiting to happen?
10.) In Genesis, God created man first, and later woman. Whereas Man was created instantaneously by God, Woman had to be taken from one of Adam’s ribs…this is simply ridiculous; wouldn’t it have been easier to have just spontaneously created a Woman too? Furthermore, why a rib?
11.) God made man in all his form. Surely, this including reproductive genitalia. Then, as an afterthought, God later created woman from one of Adam’s ribs…why didn’t he create man and woman together? If not to reproduce with a woman, what were the penis and testicles for originally…? Using logic, if not to reproduce with, they could only realistically be used for masturbating to obtain self-sexual gratification. Does this then not mean that masturbation is acceptable, despite the Catholic Church being against it?
12.) If God made man in his image, and Eve could not resist temptation, doesn’t this also mean that God himself is susceptible to similar things?
13.) Why did God create humanity with only a minority believing in him from the start? If we believe the Bible, at the time of Jesus, Christians were only deciphals of Jesus, and other non-Christian believers comprised the other 99.99% of humanity. Why did he leave it up to those few who believed in him to go out and convert “all other heathen?” Why didn’t he just snap his fingers and have all of humanity believe in him? Furthermore, since the world was evenly populated, why did Jesus only appear in the Middle East—isn’t it unfair to the other people all around the world? Did they all go to hell for lack of Jesus ever getting to them?
14.) Since it is a sin to have any other god(s) before “the one, true god”, does that mean that 5 out of ever 6 people alive today await eternal damnation?
15.) If God can indeed do anything, can he make a rock so large than even he can’t move it? (A childish riddle, but very true. The logic is impeccable.)
16.) God is eternal; he has always been, and always will be. Yet, if God created the world and all life at a set point in time, what did he do in the perpetual void that existed before he did this?
17.) Satan, allegedly, was a corrupt angel, outcast from Heaven. He betrayed God. But if God is omnipotent, couldn’t he have foreseen the deceit beforehand…?
18.) Angels are helpers of God. If God is all-powerful and indeed everywhere at all times, why does he need any help at all?
19.) Returning to the man-in-God’s image theme, if we are indeed replicas of God, why do we need to eat/sleep? If God as well requires these, he is not self-sufficient. If he does not require these, then we’re not in his complete image. Either way discredits the Creationist theory of Christianity.
20.) Throughout history, there have been countless hundreds of religions. Each one for a time was believed by a number of people no less devout than Christians today. If Christians easily disavow the beliefs of other religions, why should others not disavow Christianity? In other words, isn’t it incredibly naïf and narrow-minded of them to believe in a religion and not at least doubt it?
21.) If God exists, why does he allow his Church to be so corrupt, knowing that in so doing, it is hurting belief in him and his teachings?
22.) If Christianity is the one, true, absolute religion, why do only one in every six people believe in it? In China alone there are more Daoists than there are Christians throughout all the world. Approximately 810 million Indians profess Hindu.
23.) God sent a flood to kill all but one pair of each of every species, Noah and his immediate family. Since God is all-knowing, this means that God willingly and premeditatedly meant to kill nearly all humanity from the very beginning. Isn’t killing all by 10 people out of humanity genocide, and far worse than on the scale of Stalin or Hitler? Murder is a sin; thus God sins, thus God is a hypocrite.
24.) In the Old Testament, God kept in touch with humanity for some time; to guide and council us. This is chronicled in the first few books of the Bible. There could be no doubt he existed when he blatantly showed himself and indeed walked alongside us. Why did this God-Man contact stop eventually?
25.) Genesis 2:2 claims that God created the world in seven days, and that on the seventh day, God, exhausted, had to rest…thus we have Sunday; the Lord’s day of rest. If God is all-powerful, why would he need to rest at all, ever…?
26.) Atheists say “Where did God come from?” Christians will counter with “He’s always been and always will be.” That logic being valid, cannot one just as easily claim that matter (and the universe) always have been and always will be…? Isn’t it easier to believe that atoms have always existed, than an all-powerful yet conveniently reclusive deity?
27.) Christian try to prove heaven exists that heaven exist because “when you die, where else does your soul go?” To counter this, it goes exactly back from whence it came. What is death, they ask? I can easily answer this. Do you remember what was happening five thousands years before your were born? Obviously not…because you were not yet born. You did not exist. The very exact same state of non-existence awaits us all, just as much as we have all come from it. Our mind disintegrates, as it is inextricably incorporated with the flesh.
28.) The Bible was written by prophets of Jesus and God. Why wouldn’t he just write it himself, knowing that men are easily confused and distorted, and thusly that what they say could easily be mistranslated and laughed at?
29.) If God created man, then he surely also intended for us to act and behave as we do… he knows our minds, after all. That being said, did he not intend for us to be skeptical of him, granted our gifted ability to advance and learn over time? Moreover, if he didn’t intend for man to act violent and kill his fellow man, why did he form our minds with such flawed instincts and violent intentions? We are as he created us—filled with emotion, hate, fear and the inevitable fate of eternal oblivion that awaits us in death.
The discrepancies in the Bible alone are countless. To name them all would be a monumental task; but suffice to say that not much of it is credible. The Bible talks of talking animals, and great disasters…a vengeful god who loves us all yet murders whole cities who do not believe in him. Seems more petty and jealous than loving. Furthermore, if such a deity did exist, why doesn’t he do any of this anymore; why would he reign destruction of the disobedient peoples of the past, but not today? Why didn’t God stop Hitler, or Stalin? Why do people suffer? The countless questions against God may forever go unanswered. Christians and theologians scramble to make up excuses on behalf of their absent role model, yet they are at best imaginative solutions. More often than not, theologians can sum up the absence and discrepancies of their god by simply saying: “He works in mysterious ways. We are too simple and insignificant to understand him.”
---Darunia
H.R.M. DARVNIVS MAXIMVS EX TENEBRIS EXIT REX DEVSQVE GORONORVMQVE TENDORVM ROMANORVM ET GRÆCORVM OMNIS SEMPER EST