Why do I write about the things I write about 11.10.2011

Why do I write about the things I write about?

Because I believe that holding on to superstitious beliefs in an age such as we are living in right now is more damaging than it does good. (Yes, even if you don't actively harm anyone) I don't think anyone should express belief in something, support for something or claim truth about anything they can't sufficiently justify. (Pointing towards an irrational book written thousands of years ago isn't justification by the way.)

There are more reasons than just the ones I list here, but let's get crackin'

• low self esteem; people don't realize this, but worshipping something and building your world and beliefs around this means you need to put yourself aside. Without this 'faith' a lot of theists are little or no real self image.
• teen pregnancies; is it any surprise that Texas, the state with i believe the highest percentage of theists, has the highest teen pregnancy rate? Please educate your children properly! Religion puts a taboo on so many natural instincts, it guilts people into submission. I don't have to outline all the problems teen pregnancies bring for the 'parents'.
• uneducated people; this annoys me big time. Religion comes with a set answer for *everything*. People just take everything for granted because of this and the state of science education is seriously lacking because of it. (Science, you know? The thing that brought you medicine, planes, microwaves, cars, the internet, chemistry, the printing presses bibles are made with?)
• Dominionists destroying the world; People seeking to merge church and state to establish a Christian nation, effectively forcing biblical law down everybody's throat. Coupled with the idea they feel they can do anything with this world they want to because, scripture says, "God gave us this world to rule over"
• a diminished drive for knowledge; People who feel they have an answer for everything, or a solace for everything, tend to not want to look further to actual causes of a situation. Mental disease for example, "it's just a demon". A person dying of cancer, "It's God's will, He wanted Jack with Him in heaven". Luckily we've outgrown most of these retarded (
• refusing medical help until it's too late; Do I even need to expound on people praying for healing when medicine is really needed?
• child abusers that get away with it; Everybody is familiar with the criminal organization known as the Vatican? Using tithe money to protect child molesters and obstruct investigations into child abuse? (Think about that the next time you put money on a Catholic donation plate)
• honor killings; Prevalent among Islamic countries and once in a while you get the odd Christian who feels compelled to kill his deflowered daughter.
• child abuse/neglect because of unwanted pregnancies; The countless amount of children born because people don't educate their kids about sex. These kids are mostly unwanted, can you have any idea what kind of stress and bad living environment this generates for such a child?
• spare the rod spoil the child; Doesn't need any explanation
• all the lives lost because of blocked stem cell research; Religious motivations to block stem cell research has people die every day who could be saved by the outcome of this kind of research.
• psychological trauma that the fear of hell causes; I personally know people who have had this fear of hell even after they've come to realize the threat of hell is just a myth. There are countless children who fear this place. Who fear to think anything outside of their religious doctrine because that might be the straw that tips the scale from going to heaven to going to hell. This is a sick, sick concept.
• belief in other superstition things; This one is pretty self evident. Once you accept one thing on false premises it's easy to be fooled into accepting and believing other fantastical claims, which another person might critically analyse and have a different explanation for. It also ties in to not making an effort to discover more about this beautiful world. Something weird happens and instead of trying to find out what it was, people label it as a "ghost" or "a spirit". Grown ass men being afraid because they believe demons might come and get them. This can't be right...
• children who claim they're worthless; Another pointless religious by product which is often often neglected. People who claim they are nothing without their god. How little is a person's self esteem and self respect? This shows how a person's sense of self is destroyed. Just to be rebuilt around a mysterious character.
• And possibly the least expected and thought of reason: making excuses to shelter extremists; People don't realize this, but sharing faith with an extremist puts you in a position of solidarity, even if you absolutely abhor their actions. Why? Because both of you draw your beliefs from the same source!

This image illustrates my point.

1. These are the ruthless extremist *minority* who kill and die for their beliefs.
2. Around the extremists is a layer of marginally more people who don't take action on their beliefs but agree with the worldview and actions taken by the people in group 1.
3. This is a big part of theists. People who don't agree with 1 or 2, but who hold the same core belief and shared source.
4. This is the biggest group of theists I imagine who sort of kind of have a belief, rarely practice it, but still identify with said religion.

I could have added more circles to this group, but you get the idea. You can see here that the beliefs of the outer more liberal layer creates a cover for the underlying fundamentalistic layers. Group 4 cover the beliefs of group 3, which cover the beliefs of group 2 and so on.

Now, this might be very hard to identify yourself with. And I know not everybody who 'believes' is a bad person, most of them have no ill intent at all. But realize that the things you believe in are the *same things* that people who do these horrible things believe in. You have no rational basis to really judge their actions because they find justification for doing what they do in exactly the same source materials as you do. They just came to a different conclusion as to what's acceptable behavior.

So you see, that is why I care about this. I care about trying to help people learn about the origins of their religious beliefs. I want people to realize they are creating unconscious support for the horrible things other believers do. By asking questions and revealing bits of information I hope people will start thinking about what they believe and what they do about it.

You could say I'm against religious harm through religious inaction. If you took the time, interest and effort to learn about your religion (instead of simply 'practicing' it), and if you'd try to understand how emotional arguments aren't real arguments at all, you would think about the world quite differently.

"What about all the good faith gives people?" Sure, when I do see the emotional support a religious belief can give a person, I strongly believe that a person who is firmly rooted in his own person can be equally strong, if not stronger, when things start falling apart. Besides this, I  have yet to learn about 1 thing that religion has given a person which cannot be realized through secular means.

If I'm wrong here on anything, please do let me know!