Why Religious Traditions Suck
By Carl S. ~
For more than a dozen years, I've followed the testimonies and comments on this site. The most responses ensue whenever a troll comes in to caustically criticize or preach. It's weird, so much time, energy, and emotion wasted in arguing and fighting over beings that don't exist! On that note, here's a quote from children's author Robert Munsch:
For more than a dozen years, I've followed the testimonies and comments on this site. The most responses ensue whenever a troll comes in to caustically criticize or preach. It's weird, so much time, energy, and emotion wasted in arguing and fighting over beings that don't exist! On that note, here's a quote from children's author Robert Munsch:
“I'm not saying there isn't a God, but there isn't a God who cares about people. And who wants a God who doesn't give a shit?”
Why waste time on those who suck up to superstitions? It'd be interesting to find out how many believers don't believe in the “theory” of evolution, but believe wholeheartedly in conspiracy theories. For that, they can thank religion.
I've spent most of my life as a humanist, not a believer. It's a really good feeling I've tried to share with others, and sometimes their attitude is “fuck off.” Really, many people don't know they're enchained to b.s. They're Christians who have never read anything by Tertullian, an early exponent and inventor of Christian dogmas. Tertullian summed up Christianity's primary “irrefutable” creed: ”The Son of God, (a. k. a., God) died. IT IS BY ALL MEANS TO BE BELIEVED BECAUSE IT'S RIDICULOUS. He was buried and rose again. The fact is CERTAIN, because it is IMPOSSIBLE.” You read that right. For centuries, if you didn't even pretend to agree with that, you could be killed! In time, more and more absurdities were added. Faith, by nature, requires not merely leaping into accepting constantly accumulating absurdities to “explain” all experiences in living; faith is a closed circuit of man-made obstacle courses without end. What a friggin' way to live life! Reason and facts are the enemy of faith, and vice versa. One represents the mind of a well-balanced individual, the other, a nut case.
Do you want to liberate your mind fast? Read “Dangerous Illusions: How Religion Deprives Us Of Happiness,” by Vitaly Malkin. Find the answers for how the world and individuals get so fucked up by religion. I'm eighty-two years old now, thinking, “Oh, if this were only available seventy years ago, how much better my life would have been.” BTW: using the book, I'm making up for time lost to beliefs.
All religions are cults. One reason people may be drawn to become members of cults is because they're already members in a common cult: belief in the “spiritual.“ Being a cult member means sacrificing one’s personality, morality, and integrity to some “spiritual” leader. Gullible personalities feel the draw of assumed security is worth that price. They don’t trust themselves with the responsibility of making moral, ethical decisions for their own lives. A psychiatrist might say they fear living, with all its changes, risks, uncertainties, and chances of happiness, which can sometimes be fleeting and disappointing. Such persons must fear the blues, rather than accepting it. They don't want to take life's chances and have to lose. Even Jesus died for his sins. In religion, indentured servitude is touted as spiritual freedom, while the doubting authentic individual is distrusted.
I'm not saying there isn't a God, but there isn't a God who cares about people. And who wants a God who doesn't give a shit? When Christian fundies found out I'm an atheist, they suddenly revealed their “other identities” Each one of them has an “authentic self,” but when challenged by a difference of opinion, each reacts as robotically as any mind-and-emotion-controlled cult follower. I've seen the sudden switch from one identity to the other. Good extreme evangelicals are clueless to the takeover of their reason and morality by indoctrinated brainwashing. They accept implanted beliefs as if those arose from their own minds. They're raised in the religion's compound of absolutist morality, and remain obedient, unquestioning, fearful insecure pets, sopping up the cult's fantasies. None of this would be possible if not for accepting that goddamned “spiritual” delusion to begin with.
There's a huge problem when entire societies accept “spiritual and spiritual realms” they're told actually exist within and outside the natural world: There's no evidence. “Spiritual” is a brain neuron game, based on reactive emotions. Sane humans get suckered into joining cults because cults claim access to enlightened knowledge by fusing the self in alleged spiritual states. “Essenceness” or “Isness” belief is an infection we are exposed to as children. Those fogs of “spiritual,” the very ones which attract people into religious cults, we are supposed to accept as a prerequisite for being members of society! Thus, most people are being prepped for religious cults. Cult roots extend wide and deep, with a non- thinking commitment to automatically believe “authority” figures.
What jump-started this illusion? A Persian prophet, Zoroaster, lived anywhere from 1200 to 1500 B.C.E. became a monotheist who created alternative realities via his visions. Superstitious fear and ignorance permeated his times, so nobody questioned if his visions were the result of magic mushrooms, narcotics, other mind-altering drugs, or personal hallucinations. Back then, visions, mania, hallucinations, alcoholic stupor and dreams, were a big relief for suffering tribes trying to survive. Why not include his entertainments to relieve their fears and anxieties? God TV and the 700 Club hadn't been invented yet. It should come as no surprise major religions originated in deserts, invented by malnourished, sleep-deprived men living solitary lives in the relentless heat of the deserts! Mirages would be the least of their revelations. Charismatic personalities like Zoroaster got away with promoting self-proclaimed visions; every god's con men copy them.
Zoroaster claimed there is a “spiritual” world outside of our material one, inhabited by a god of good and a god of evil and life is a warfare between these forces. He said his followers must make sure to belong to the good god's side. He said there will be a final battle between these forces of good and evil, and then the world will end, culminating with a last judgement separating those loyal to each of the forces. Once his people believed this stuff, the doors were opened to let all kinds of b. s. to barge in. Christian and Islamic peddlers took his “visions” and ran with them. Now we're in the 21st century and, for about four thousand years, no proof has confirmed his still accepted hearsay visions.
Don't mess with spiritual. There's no heaven or hell, no spirits to bestow good or evil, to control and disrupt nature or the minds of humans. There's no such thing as “spiritual;” never has been. Everything said about it is an illusion. At the least, faiths are opinions, at the most, they're delusions. Faiths are hearsay, and every faith is faith in spokesmen.
We'd all be better off if we toss out the “spiritual.” Societies could put their energy into thanking and helping one another, rather than in praising and defending an invisible Omni-impotent god delusion. Humanity might instead amuse itself with intellectual rainbow bubbles, and enjoy fantasy worlds without dogmas. Just think how good it feels to have a mind of your own, to be not bothered by looking at another woman or man “with lust.” A man or woman is free to kiss a lover while imagining he or she is kissing all the women or men they have lusted after. See how religions make sexual desire guilty?
Only humans save and damn other humans. Life itself is good enough, you can live, learn, and survive without “spiritual” crap enchaining you, making you vulnerable to friggin' charlatans. Through the power invested in me by my state of mind, I exonerate you from each and every offense you've committed against an imaginary god or in favor of a demon, whether on purpose or unintentionally. (As for offenses to humans, you're on your own.) This peace is yours to keep. Amen, while I amend.
Isn't it time for some humans to stop making life miserable for all the others as the result of one man's delusional visions over 3200 years ago? Isn't it time to find a cure for a traditional delusional disorder?
I've spent most of my life as a humanist, not a believer. It's a really good feeling I've tried to share with others, and sometimes their attitude is “fuck off.” Really, many people don't know they're enchained to b.s. They're Christians who have never read anything by Tertullian, an early exponent and inventor of Christian dogmas. Tertullian summed up Christianity's primary “irrefutable” creed: ”The Son of God, (a. k. a., God) died. IT IS BY ALL MEANS TO BE BELIEVED BECAUSE IT'S RIDICULOUS. He was buried and rose again. The fact is CERTAIN, because it is IMPOSSIBLE.” You read that right. For centuries, if you didn't even pretend to agree with that, you could be killed! In time, more and more absurdities were added. Faith, by nature, requires not merely leaping into accepting constantly accumulating absurdities to “explain” all experiences in living; faith is a closed circuit of man-made obstacle courses without end. What a friggin' way to live life! Reason and facts are the enemy of faith, and vice versa. One represents the mind of a well-balanced individual, the other, a nut case.
Do you want to liberate your mind fast? Read “Dangerous Illusions: How Religion Deprives Us Of Happiness,” by Vitaly Malkin. Find the answers for how the world and individuals get so fucked up by religion. I'm eighty-two years old now, thinking, “Oh, if this were only available seventy years ago, how much better my life would have been.” BTW: using the book, I'm making up for time lost to beliefs.
All religions are cults. One reason people may be drawn to become members of cults is because they're already members in a common cult: belief in the “spiritual.“ Being a cult member means sacrificing one’s personality, morality, and integrity to some “spiritual” leader. Gullible personalities feel the draw of assumed security is worth that price. They don’t trust themselves with the responsibility of making moral, ethical decisions for their own lives. A psychiatrist might say they fear living, with all its changes, risks, uncertainties, and chances of happiness, which can sometimes be fleeting and disappointing. Such persons must fear the blues, rather than accepting it. They don't want to take life's chances and have to lose. Even Jesus died for his sins. In religion, indentured servitude is touted as spiritual freedom, while the doubting authentic individual is distrusted.
I'm not saying there isn't a God, but there isn't a God who cares about people. And who wants a God who doesn't give a shit? When Christian fundies found out I'm an atheist, they suddenly revealed their “other identities” Each one of them has an “authentic self,” but when challenged by a difference of opinion, each reacts as robotically as any mind-and-emotion-controlled cult follower. I've seen the sudden switch from one identity to the other. Good extreme evangelicals are clueless to the takeover of their reason and morality by indoctrinated brainwashing. They accept implanted beliefs as if those arose from their own minds. They're raised in the religion's compound of absolutist morality, and remain obedient, unquestioning, fearful insecure pets, sopping up the cult's fantasies. None of this would be possible if not for accepting that goddamned “spiritual” delusion to begin with.
There's a huge problem when entire societies accept “spiritual and spiritual realms” they're told actually exist within and outside the natural world: There's no evidence. “Spiritual” is a brain neuron game, based on reactive emotions. Sane humans get suckered into joining cults because cults claim access to enlightened knowledge by fusing the self in alleged spiritual states. “Essenceness” or “Isness” belief is an infection we are exposed to as children. Those fogs of “spiritual,” the very ones which attract people into religious cults, we are supposed to accept as a prerequisite for being members of society! Thus, most people are being prepped for religious cults. Cult roots extend wide and deep, with a non- thinking commitment to automatically believe “authority” figures.
What jump-started this illusion? A Persian prophet, Zoroaster, lived anywhere from 1200 to 1500 B.C.E. became a monotheist who created alternative realities via his visions. Superstitious fear and ignorance permeated his times, so nobody questioned if his visions were the result of magic mushrooms, narcotics, other mind-altering drugs, or personal hallucinations. Back then, visions, mania, hallucinations, alcoholic stupor and dreams, were a big relief for suffering tribes trying to survive. Why not include his entertainments to relieve their fears and anxieties? God TV and the 700 Club hadn't been invented yet. It should come as no surprise major religions originated in deserts, invented by malnourished, sleep-deprived men living solitary lives in the relentless heat of the deserts! Mirages would be the least of their revelations. Charismatic personalities like Zoroaster got away with promoting self-proclaimed visions; every god's con men copy them.
Zoroaster claimed there is a “spiritual” world outside of our material one, inhabited by a god of good and a god of evil and life is a warfare between these forces. He said his followers must make sure to belong to the good god's side. He said there will be a final battle between these forces of good and evil, and then the world will end, culminating with a last judgement separating those loyal to each of the forces. Once his people believed this stuff, the doors were opened to let all kinds of b. s. to barge in. Christian and Islamic peddlers took his “visions” and ran with them. Now we're in the 21st century and, for about four thousand years, no proof has confirmed his still accepted hearsay visions.
Don't mess with spiritual. There's no heaven or hell, no spirits to bestow good or evil, to control and disrupt nature or the minds of humans. There's no such thing as “spiritual;” never has been. Everything said about it is an illusion. At the least, faiths are opinions, at the most, they're delusions. Faiths are hearsay, and every faith is faith in spokesmen.
We'd all be better off if we toss out the “spiritual.” Societies could put their energy into thanking and helping one another, rather than in praising and defending an invisible Omni-impotent god delusion. Humanity might instead amuse itself with intellectual rainbow bubbles, and enjoy fantasy worlds without dogmas. Just think how good it feels to have a mind of your own, to be not bothered by looking at another woman or man “with lust.” A man or woman is free to kiss a lover while imagining he or she is kissing all the women or men they have lusted after. See how religions make sexual desire guilty?
Only humans save and damn other humans. Life itself is good enough, you can live, learn, and survive without “spiritual” crap enchaining you, making you vulnerable to friggin' charlatans. Through the power invested in me by my state of mind, I exonerate you from each and every offense you've committed against an imaginary god or in favor of a demon, whether on purpose or unintentionally. (As for offenses to humans, you're on your own.) This peace is yours to keep. Amen, while I amend.
Isn't it time for some humans to stop making life miserable for all the others as the result of one man's delusional visions over 3200 years ago? Isn't it time to find a cure for a traditional delusional disorder?
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