I found this this morning while stumbling, just laying in bed. (By the way, as a side note, if you have never used stumble upon you should seriously check it out, it is the only way to surf the web.)
Anyway, as I read this, it brought back to mind a few things about the intellectual issues I have with religion. Now first, allow me to say, that I get it; religion is not about intellect it is about emotions. I understand that there are a great many people I see that I would consider fairly to extremely intellectual and yet are religious and I get that they are either out of comfort or convenience (family, politics, career, social acceptance, etc)
Some of us, however, have a hard time truly accepting religion due to intellectual consistencies. I personally hold no animosity for religion but others do. I participate in religion in a limited fashion for both reasons, comfort and convenience, but that does not lessen the fact that I hold some very strong views about the lack of intellectual logic and reason in religion. Consider the following thoughts:
1. God did not create man in his image, quite the contrary, man created god in his image.
Man has always had gods. These gods have always been a reflection of who they are, how they think and the cultural values that matter to them. If you consider the Vikings or the Norse gods you find a pantheon built on war and a war like people. Their heaven was for brave warriors and their hell for cowards. The Greeks, being a much more intellectual people, had gods that were more complex, with some of their gods being gods of war but others having nothing to with war at all. The Roman pantheon was, as was the case in almost all things Roman, a messy agglomeration of all the gods of cultures they had conquered, but overall they were a force in practicality. Humans have always created and worshipped gods that reflected their views and culture.
2. Religion is too conveniently aligned with our own views and wants.
Think about, what I see, as the biggest hoax in history: a book written by Hebrews, about Hebrews, tells the rest of the world (vile Gentiles, lesser humans and secondary choices in their God's eyes) that if the world does not bless and protect them their Hebrew god will curse and punish them. And we bought it! Why else would we as a nation and as a civilized world put up with the bullshit Israel does all the time and defend her unconditionally?! Our leaders cannot even get elected unless they prove they swear allegiance to Israel over a defunct and selfish prophecy written by a bunch of goat herders in the name of their God! But we buy it hook line and sinker.
How about this one? A book written by men in the name of a male God says that women are "the weaker vessel" and are gullible and are, overall with a few exceptions, incapable of leading. This book goes so far as to say that women should be silent in the congregation and if they have a question they should ask their husband! That doesn't strike you as a little too convenient? Yet women are still fighting to dig themselves out from under a culture bound by religious values to prove they are equals. Why women would be religious is beyond me yet they often are the most devout believers.
3. When religious views and values clash with stronger needs, desires or instincts, religion's secondary importance becomes too evident.
A perfect example of this was the recent farce of a special election in South Carolina, a Republican stronghold. Mark Sanford enjoyed support from a vast number of people that wanted Bill Clinton impeached for doing the same exact thing! Now I personally don't care what a politician does in his personal life I will vote on the issues that affect governance not his or her marriage. That is their business and given how wide spread "adultery" is in our nation a politician that cheats truly only represents the bigger picture. The point is that in a state as religious as South Carolina, a state that is so pro "family values" based on their deeply held religious views proved for any that cared to look that their loyalty to their values, their loyalty to their religious views and their loyalty to their god takes a back seat to their loyalty to their political party.
4. A system that claims to worship a being that owns all things and controls all things but then complains how they need money and how the world is out to get them and is succeeding in doing so, is a farce.
Just sit in your Sunday morning service and listen to the confusing rhetoric from your pastor and how on the one hand your god owns the world and all that is in it and has so much power that he holds the world and the entire universe in his hands but still needs ten percent of your income to keep the lights on and is being over run by heathens and god haters that would vote Barack Obama into office not once but twice and it shouldn't take long for an intelligent person to scratch their head!
The ugly truth about religion is simply put this...through a complex system of smoke and mirrors, in the end, religion is about man deifying himself and worshipping himself. Simple as that. We worship our views, our values and our ideas and then we reward our adherence to those views, values and ideas by creating miracles out of coincidences and our own hard work and the work of our fellow humans by accrediting those miracles and blessings to a divine being that was in our head all along.
(I published this from my phone so if there are spelling or grammatical errors or a word that just doesn't make sense please excuse it and blame it on the damn autocorrect!)
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