I had a comment on a forward post I made to Friendly Atheist that I wanted to turn into a blog post here:
Why is it always Jesus that gets picked on? How about the 6 year old here in ******* who saw the crucifix a friend was wearing and pointed it out saying, “we kill people who believe in him!” True story.. I’m not saying there aren’t tons of judgmental and disrespectful, spiteful Christians, Christians who don’t practice what they preach (e.g. charity in all things) For the record, christians who decide that THEY get to choose who to damn are idiots.
I have been, and still am, friends with several atheists, and quite honestly they can be quite spiteful and judgmental despite the fact that they are good. But maybe it’s ok to be uncharitable if you don’t believe in God (particularly Jesus) since there’s no one to tell you that you “have to”? How many religions do you know of that say “love you enemies”? There are bad christians just like there are nasty people in any religion, or lack-thereof. At least Jesus tells us to play nice, even if we don’t always listen.
That is correct: people can be malicious. The difference is that religious folk often do evil things or act a certain way or start certain wars in the name of their mythical deity. If someone needs an imaginary friend to tell them how to behave, that is a lack of character and internal motivation. Even God kills more people in the bible than the devil does. 2,270,365+ to be exact. This head count represents only men, not women and children. The devil kills 10 people, some of which he murders in conjunction with God who makes a deal with the Devil to include the death of someone. Priests who rape young boys, the crusades, prolife protesters who blow up buildings, the inquisition, fundamentalist families who pray for their diabetic child instead of taking her to the doctor whereupon she dies because their prayers did not cure her… these are all examples of instances where evil has been done in the name of the christian god. I suppose these folks are just following God’s example in the bible: the end justifies the means.
Religions like to claim love and kindness as their own, but these are human evolutionary behaviors that have evolved because of the benefit to the species as a whole (emotions are also a nice side effect of our large brains). The patterns of love and hate and fear can all be mapped in the brain through petscans and their sources pinpointed in hormone releases and/or learned patterns. It just goes to show that all superstitions eventually can be scientifically explained. The earth is round not flat, the sun is the center of the solar system not the earth, love is detectable in the brain not a mythical gift. A little comedy: “If God is love, then I just created him last night” :)
I find that religion often fosters more division and hatred than it does love and acceptance. Not any one particular religion mind you, just religions as a whole: the very concept of religion operates like a click or special club where everyone not in the club is considered not as good as those inside the club. The club uses manipulation and fear to keep its members in line. Organized religion also fosters a ‘better than thou’ mentality that promotes human division. Many people see religion as an evolutionary tool that was useful in the past but is quickly becoming obsolete. Knowledge and education has more power and influence than superstitions. Europe is proof of this movement towards knowledge away from myth: their populations poll as 43% non-religious, where as in the young USA only 16% poll as non-religious. This 16% is up from recent years, showing hope that people are educating themselves and looking at the facts and reality. Also, because non-religious are not openly welcomed in politics and other social arenas, this 16% could represent only those who have given much thought and are comfortable “coming out” as a non-religious. Religion offers easy answers to difficult questions. Humans by nature gravitate toward easy answers with outcomes that they hope will be in their favor. It is nice to think that our conscious brains continue on after our brains die but reality suggests this is not likely.
So we just barely touched on many different topics and avenues of debate here. I hope it has helped to answer the question and provided some more food for thought. Knowledge is freedom, especially freedom from superstitions.
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