The Poison Of Religion

I hate the polarizing effect of organized religion and the fact that if you aren't of _____ religion then you're going to hell or some other eternal damnation. If you think Ganguly is arrogant, how arrogant is a man who professes to speak on behalf of some make-believe God or professes to be able to help save your "soul"? No wonder the Church went on the great Crusades and killed thousands of Muslims who now kill thousands of others or backward ass religious leaders who burned witches at the stake. Remember The Inquisition? I've never heard of a group of realists/humanists/reasonists committing atrocities like that. Thank God I was never an altar boy that had to play Mr. Stinky Finger with a catholic priest.

I have nothing against religious people. 99.9% of my friends claim to belong to this religion or that. I don't think religion makes them good people though. I think they'd be good people without religion. Hell, how many murderers, rapists, child molesters, etc were members of a religion before they committed their crimes? Jim Jones anyone? How about Pope John XII? Religion didn't make them good people. People are people and good or bad has nothing to do with religion. But, the pendulum swings and whereas religion doesn't make you good, many religious people I know believe that a lack of religion makes a person bad. I suppose people believe in only certain parts of their own religion because some in the Christian/Catholic religions forget the part about "Judge not lest ye be judged." A friend a while back who was going through a rough time told me "If you found God, you'd find happiness." Well, I replied with... "I am happy. I don't need an imaginary force to rely on. I'm happy every day and I haven't been angry in a couple of years and I haven't been sad or depressed in many years. You evidently have found God and you're crying your ass off every day for a week. Where is that happiness?" It should be noted I wasn't knocking my friend because of his/her religion. I was only defending my beliefs because for some reason he/she thought I was unhappy. Quite the contrary.

The unfortunate side is that my "lack of religion" has caused one of my relationships with girlfriends to fall apart. Funny.. A person claiming to be a Hindu and has premarital sex and drinking and smoking most nights of the week gets upset with me because I don't go to temples or churches or mosques or believe in a higher power.

Amazing...

I should mention one thing. I don't totally negate the possibility of a higher power. I only wait to see physical evidence (proof) of said higher power and in that event, I'll shut the hell up.

Just yesterday my best friend (who is catholic) and his girlfriend (who is catholic) were here in the office. She told me that I HAD to believe in something or I would never find happiness. I told her as I've told everyone else "I am very happy." I went on to tell her "I believe in you, I believe in Joe, I believe in myself. If YOU fuck me over, it's not because of God or Satan or Mars, it's because of YOU." She shut up after that.

It's unfair in so many ways that an atheist is looked down upon no matter that the person may be kind, decent, fair, family oriented, responsible, etc.

Many of my atheist type friends prefer the term "Skeptic" since "atheist" seems more polarizing. I think religious folks should be the "skeptics". Why is a person who believes in science and can see proof of what the world is, where it came from, how old it is and what makes up the galaxy be a skeptic? The person who doesn't believe in proven science should be the skeptic. They base their lives on some religious text and mythology and can't prove any of it yet they aren't the skeptic?

There is something decidedly wrong with that.