A Rude Awakening

     I love my friends and family, I really do, but sometimes I can't help but think of how some see things. It is really disheartening to see such smart people believe in something so... deranged. Of course I remind myself that I used to believe in such fairy tales. I spend a great amount of time reading up on theist literature, watching theists’ videos, and then realizing that people really do believe that a creator is responsible for our existence and that this creator is male, of course. This belief is strange to me now that I analyze it from the outside looking in: that such a character exists who would condemn me for all eternity if I do not believe in him, not only without evidence, but also in spite of the evidence against him, is simply preposterous. I see people who possess a very analytical, critical, and scientific mind apply their inquisitive nature towards everything else but the state of their beliefs; the one person who took my challenge happened to have traded her faith with knowledge and reason - of course I am talking about my wife. 

     

     Words cannot describe the distress I feel whenever people make condemning statements about themselves in the name of humility and righteousness compared to a "perfect" being that condones rape, slavery, and overall ignorance, as well as being restrictive of the inquisitive nature of his own creation. I must question the reasons for such deliberate self-loathing. Why is it considered healthy to condemn yourself in a religious context? Why is it ok to call yourself a worthless being undeserving of a life of happiness? How come this deity sounds as petty and human as those of ancient Greece? Could it be because Bronze Age cultures projected their own fears and biases on the deity they created? Could it be because the very nature of our creator is human as we do not worship anything but ourselves? 

     Also, what is it with public displays of religious behaviors such as prayer? Isn't that in direct contradiction of Jesus' teachings (Matthew 6:6)? If Jesus is in fact God, and what he says is absolute Law, I question the motives of Christians who post publically their prayers on a forum, or even worse, demand that their religious type of wish making be made official in the eyes of the Government by declaring official days of prayer! I propose that it is in fact to boost their own egos and to try and keep the majority of people in the dark and afflicted by the shallowness of their beliefs. I find it amazing that MOST Christians I have talked to refuse to get their news from anywhere other than their beloved conservative religious news source. They refuse to hear the other side of the story, whereas, in the skeptic community, MOST watch several different liberal and conservative programs, though admittedly in order to learn about what the opposition thinks and to address the insane amount of bias on either side of the spectrum.

      In closing, I would like to expand on a quote from Steven Weinberg: 

   

  "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

    

      It still amazes me that we are willing to deny people different rights according to our own religious bias, in America with Marriage Equality, as well as in the Middle East, where people are not even given the right to worship their own way because their Big Book Of Fairy Tales tells them that it should be the Law of the Land. Too long the skeptic community has held its tongue, too long have we been shackled by fear of judgment from our communities! It is time we fight back! They only have Tinkerbell on their side and we have Reason!