I watched the documentary Religulous with Bill Maher the other night. It sheds a light on how religion really is detrimental to the progress of humanity. I know lots of people who are of the opinion that people should just let people believe whatever they want. That's okay to a point but then they are saying that it's okay for people in Africa to murder or torture their children because they were branded as witches. This is religion, these Africans are Christians and believe in the same god that the people I know do and they believe, just as the people I know, that their beliefs are true and no one can tell them different. But then they say, people can believe in whatever they want as long as it's not hurting anyone. But religion on a world scale is hurting everyone. I'll agree that my religious friends and co-workers are harmless and their beliefs don't impact me one way or another but I'm looking at the bigger picture and every time religious beliefs get passed onto the next generation, it keeps us in the dark ages. We need to move forward and leave the superstitious thinking behind. Here are the last few minutes of Religulous. Bill Maher says things way better than I can.
"Plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken. George Bush prayed a lot about Iraq but he didn't learn a lot about it. Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about and those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing Lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do." Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people and their own corruptions and limitations and agendas. And anyone who tells you they know, they just know, what happens when you die, I promise you, they don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble and that is what man needs to be considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong.
This is why rational people, anti religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only modestly religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.
If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, with the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travellers. If the world does come to an end, here or wherever, or if it limps into the future decimated by the effects of a religion inspired nuclear terrorism. Lets remember what the real problem was. That we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up or die."
"Plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken. George Bush prayed a lot about Iraq but he didn't learn a lot about it. Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about and those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, "I'm willing Lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do." Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people and their own corruptions and limitations and agendas. And anyone who tells you they know, they just know, what happens when you die, I promise you, they don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble and that is what man needs to be considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong.
This is why rational people, anti religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only modestly religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.
If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, with the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travellers. If the world does come to an end, here or wherever, or if it limps into the future decimated by the effects of a religion inspired nuclear terrorism. Lets remember what the real problem was. That we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up or die."
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