I guess it all started when I was young. I was born into a very religious family. My parents are still hardcore religious. What religion you ask? Mormonism. I was baptized at the ripe ole age of 8 years old. The Mormons figure that at 8 years old you should know what is right and wrong and be able to make up your own mind as to whether or not you want to be baptized. This is a load of shit. I was baptized while I was crying my eyes out because I didn't want to. So I'm assuming that at some point in my child hood, I can't remember exactly when but at some point I decided I didn't want to be religious.
However, I stayed with it for a while. I was active in the church. I went to early morning seminary everyday before school to study scripture. I know the bible very well. When I was around 14 and really knew the bible well, I started to ask questions. Questions no one could answer, things like "How can God be all powerful if he couldn't create a world where sin doesn't exist?" They would answer with you just have to have faith.
That is what it always boiled down to, faith. Religion didn't make sense to me, so I was told to have faith. I tried. I stuck with it for several more years.
I stuck with it because every single person I cared about and that cared about me was Mormon.
When I was 19 I went on my mission. I went to England. I loved England, but I began to see the hypocrisy that was inherent in the church. I was even made into a district leader. That is when I'm in charge of looking after other missionaries. I, who knew a ridiculous amount about the church and the gospel in general but who never had any faith in it at all. Not without trying though. I would pray and pray and pray. The faith never came. I never saw anything that would make me have faith that god exists.
Eventually I decided that I couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to come home from my mission. So I did. In the process I ended up getting ex-communicated from the church. This is partially because they said I wasn't repentant enough.
Which is true. I don't feel remorse for anything I've done. I've felt apologetic, but everything I've done and all of the experience I've had has turned me into the person I am today, and I kinda like him.
Where am I now? I'm roughly 20 years old and my whole world has been torn apart. Everyone I know has turned away from me. You'd think that when I was having the most trying experience of my life that everyone would want to be there for me. Not true. All the friends I had in the church all of a sudden started treating me like I had the plague.
I needed some form of support. I needed something to fill that void that the church left. Did I do anything stupid like turn to drugs, or alcohol? No I didn't. I instead turned to education.
I have the majority of my degree in philosophy. (the only reason I don't have the degree is because I needed to get a career out of my education philosophy doesn't offer that)
I took every possible course I could find on religion, ethics and morality. I learned a lot. Eventually I formed enough of an opinion to say that I was an atheist.
Since then, however I've learned more about history and more about belief systems that have nothing to do with philosophy.
How barbaric certain religions are and are allowed to be for religious reasons. Halal meat for instance.
Modern day slaughterhouses use compressed air and a metal rod to kill our meat. The rod is pushed into the brain using massive amounts of compressed air. The animal dies instantly feeling almost nothing. In Halal, the animal has to bleed out. Don't believe me. Watch this.Warning though VERY GRAPHIC. If you can't watch it, and agree with it, it shouldn't exist as a sanctioned permissible action.
This is just one act that still happens every day that is sanctioned by religions.
How about the fact that the Catholic church doesn't allow birth control but that allows and hides child abuse when committed by the priests.
There are countless atrocities that have happened in the past that were entirely the fault of religious people and sometimes condoned by the reigning religion at the time.
History will be bound to repeat itself unless we find the cause and stop it. We can't just stop believing in one part of religion like halal. That wouldn't be good enough. We can't get rid of one religion, it isn't the Islamic people that are doing all the atrocities. How about Christians and their lobby to have creationism taught in public school as if it were fact.
Circumcision is genital mutilation.
The problem is religions tendency to tell you to do something and you do it without thinking. It is the principal behind just about every form of hate and intolerance in the world right now.
Homosexuality is hated because of religion, when it is something that occurs naturally in nature as well has existed in human culture since before history.
Some people will argue and say that religion does more good than harm.
Charities and morals will still exist regardless of religion.
The only argument people have for religion it seems is. "Knowing god is out there and loves me makes me feel good" or "I can't imagine living life thinking there isn't an afterlife".
These are like security blankets like the blanket Linus from peanuts walks around with.
Religion, if it isn't an excuse for violence, hate and discrimination, it's a security blanket. Regardless of what it is, it is a suspension of logic and reason for the substitution of faith.
When I realized all of this I turned into an anti-theist. However, I won't come knock on your door to tell you about it.
If you're interested in learning more have a look here http://www.facebook.com/Antitheists
Later days.
(this comment does NOT protect the Catholic church or any Christian sect/religion)
ReplyDeleteI think if you take ANY religious text literally, then you're bound to disagree and find contradictions. You'd have to be dumber than a "Sack of hammers" if you would believe everything in a Greek myth, so why should you apply the same blind beliefs on the bible? Those stories/parables are meant to introduce morals, and there's a reason why they are translations of ancient languages (meaning you shouldn't be sure of what authorities dish out when you don't know if what you're reading isn't a translation meant to lead you to a certain belief).
And you know there are people who are homophobic even without the religion. It just so happens religious institutions are more vindicated in doing so - and more commercially vociferous. But see, religions ARE institutions, and anything that is turned into institutions are bound to become faulty and corrupt. Once the individual succumbs to collectivization, this will happen. You lose sense of your OWN authority, and succumb to immoral authority. So I agree with you when because of religion, many unethical things are possible.
Oh and the priest thing is a fallacy (not that it doesn't happen. It obviously does). But you don't have to be a priest to want to hide that shit. If you were representing a famous authority, you would do your best to hide their garbage so you can make a living. In a lot of ways, the Catholic church isn't any different from a bureaucracy
I honestly don't think the bible or what have you ancient scripture is talking about a phallic god pointing fingers upon celestial clouds. I believe the bible is supposed to lead you to a type of individuation where you can come with your own conclusions, in the same way primitive societies use (seemingly insane) rituals as catabolic rites of passages. What's-his-face who got swallowed by the whale (yeah I know i'm legit) is analogous to the symbolic meaning of the auroboros (sp?) snake. Discerning the meaning of which has been pondered upon by many philosophers alike, and the great poet Percy Shelley wrote "The Cloud" in a similar theme.
The beauty of finding oneself through deconstruction and reconstruction is very Daoist, but it has its roots in Christianity as that had its roots in even more ancient civilizations. I believe repudiating non-rational, non-empirical, and non-straight-forward texts/concepts is just as ignorant as the Catholic church repudiating just about every modernist thing. I think it takes an educated person to find that not even science can explain the world around you (I forgot who the philosopher was but...). Science, especially the Newtonian physics, can only explain our perception of the world, and it didn't take a hundred years to figure out that the universe is more befuddled and encrypted than we can ever imagine.
By the way, you blame the blight of society on religion. I think you're finding a scapegoat in the same way the Medieval Church blamed women for the fall of man. I blame our "emptiness" and how our consumerist culture perpetuates it by brainwashing us into thinking we have to have more and more and more and more. And there's also our attitudes about love and place in the world, most people are into this fad of hedonistic vagrancy which to me, is just as blind as trying to follow a church and giddily echoing its slogans.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying everything is religions' fault. There will always be bad people. I'm just saying religion does more harm than good.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the priest thing, is the hypocrisy on top of the evil act itself. The church is supposed to stand for higher morals, not hide a pedophile priest's past time.
Morals would exist without the bible, in fact probably better morals. Ones that don't include racial bias or homophobia, or condone incest. The bible is fucked up even if you read it metaphorically.
You talk about non-rational texts so on and so forth. I agree with you that reading these is important. However one must understand that they are fiction, which most people don't.
I'm not an advocate for hedonism, at all either. I advocate logic and reason, understanding and tolerance. But I will not be so tolerant as to tolerate intolerance.
I'm totally not going to post some huge long comment.... just because I don't have the brain for it right now. But 1- thanks for letting me know that my post inspired you, and two..... I kind of feel like actual religion in itself isn't the bad part... It's what man... errr... the human race, has DONE to religion. It's people that use religion to control other people. I truly believe it was never meant to be what it is now. But as soon as someone on a power trip realized they could use it to control the masses, it was on like donkey kong. And it was never the same. I also hate the fuck out of people using it as a security blanket. It's like, grow a pair and use your damn brain already! You are an adult.... a little too old for imaginary friends and fairy tales. I could just as easily start a religion and have Edward Cullen be my God, and convince everyone that he is fucking real. And that Forks, WA is the holy ground. (I may have had balls to post what I did on my page.... but I didn't let it all out... clearly...lol).
ReplyDelete@heather: You say "What the human race has done to religion" Like religion existed without man? From the moment religion existed it was about control and manipulation. As soon as people realize that is what it is about the better. Without man, and social control there is no religion.
ReplyDeleteActually I am sick of both the religion nuts and the aethists or however you spell it. They both give me a headache.
ReplyDeleteLike I said I wasn't trying to defend religion, but you can't repudiate it like the world WILL be a better place without it. If it's not religion, it will be another man-made concept/object which will ruin humans. Man finds its own way to destroy itself
ReplyDelete