It took decades to teach the American public that their slaves were not "livestock", but human beings; that drunk driving is not an "accident", but a crime; that beating a child is not "punishment", but abuse. It will take that long, or longer, to teach our society that religious beliefs are not "glorious", but lead to wasted lives, with believers wishing and hoping, for their entire lifetimes, to avoid the reality of death through the "promise" of Paradise. Religious beliefs lead to zealous violence, with believers murdering, either singly or en masse, those whom they feel are "sinners" or "infidels", thinking that their god wants the unbelievers dead. (And the Old Testament shows again and again that the biblical god is more than willing and perfectly capable of performing his own murders.) Religious notions prompt parents to allow their children to die of treatable diseases, because obtaining medical help would show that they lack faith in their god; so everyone prays for a miracle until the child is beyond any doctor's skills (which, ironically, would more than likely provide the "miracle" cure that the sick are looking for).
All the good and charitable works that the religious feel they "own" are also achieved by the non-religious. People do not need to follow Jesus, or Mohammad, or Buddha, or Isis, or any other religious character, in order to be loving, generous, compassionate, and wise. Spirituality and similar comforts of existence can grow from other, non-religious, natural, and reasonable, roots. The end of religion will not end charity, love, or wisdom, but it will reduce acts of violence, bigotry and neglect carried out in the name of the Lord.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
We Need To Talk...
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