Brother Jeff Posted April 11, 2014 Posted April 11, 2014 The Spook of Kryasst who is also somehow magically Him magically inspired me to post this to Facebook a while ago: I don't post about religion as much as I once did, but I find it difficult to be silent on the subject. That's because I know how much harm religious belief does not just to individual believers but to society as a whole.I have a friend in Texas whom I have known for 20 years who can't decide whether or not to be friends with me on Facebook because she doesn't like my anti-religious posts. The last time I posted a hilarious pic about a farting Jesus, she got offended and unfriended me. All of that drama over ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY! Wow... I find it hard to remember the days when I had religion that bad (it was 14+ years ago) but that's something I probably would have done too if Facebook had existed back in the 1990s. Thankfully, I am way past that kind of behavior now...How does religious belief hurt individual believers? Well... that's an easy question to answer. Religious believers are burdened with fear-based beliefs that don't correspond to what we know about the REAL world. There isn't the slightest bit of evidence that there is a God, a heaven, a hell, angels, demons, etc. Yet religious believers spend time that could be much better spent otherwise either with false hope in mythical beings or places or in needless fear of mythical beings or places. I can relate because I was there for many years of my life. But now... I am FREE and the Good News is that you can be FREE too! Glory!We now KNOW how the world and the universe came into being, and it had nothing to do with a God speaking a powerful magical spell from Nowhere (humorously put, but what the Bible basically asserts!).Religious belief harms society as a whole because it fosters ignorance on many levels, it hinders social and scientific progress, and it is divisive. How many wars have been fought over whose imaginary friend is the correct one or the most powerful one? How many centuries worth of social and scientific progress have been lost because of religious belief and religious fanaticism? The answers to those questions is... MANY! If not for religion, we might be traveling the stars now... We might have *really* conquered death (real work is being done on that right now!) or we might have *really* extended human life spans to the point where we could live and enjoy THIS life for hundreds of years. Or... imagine your beloved pets being able to live for decades instead of a few years... Imagine all of humanity living in peace and harmony and building a heavenly world to live in right here on earth! But instead of the incredible social and scientific progress that we could have enjoyed for centuries, religion gave us the Dark Ages and centuries of scientific ignorance and social stagnation (or worse). Religion has been used for centuries to deny women basic rights. In biblical times, women were considered property (still the case in some parts of the world today) and it was only in 1920 that women were granted the right to vote in this country. Women still today don't enjoy equal pay for doing the same job a man does, and today Conservatives are still trying to deny women the basic right to make their own decisions about what to do with their own bodies.Religious belief is harmful too because it denies those who work hard to better and extend our lives here in this world the basic credit they are due. I can't count the number of times I have heard about the alleged "power of prayer" or seen it credited for causing healing, when the obvious fact is that prayer has no power at all (believers tend to ignore the thousands of times their prayers go unanswered (which is always, in reality, and counts as a "miss") but they tend to notice the times when a prayer appears to have been answered and dismiss the "misses", which can easily be explained by the law of averages. Occasionally, believers will experience a "hit", but 99.99999999999% of the time, prayer fails spectacularly. Prayer never causes healing. Hard-working doctors and nurses should ALWAYS get the credit they are due for the life-saving work they do every day with so much dedication and skill.The Bible is often hailed as foundational to Western society, and that may well be the case. But... the harm belief in it has done to our society is plain to see, some of which I have mentioned. The Bible is not the "word" of a god. We now KNOW that it is mostly ancient mythology with some known bad "history" thrown in for good measure. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are pure mythology, and it just goes downhill from there. We have no idea who even wrote most of the Bible. We KNOW that Moses (who is almost certainly mythical) did not write the first five books of the Bible. Noah's Flood is a myth, and the story is impossible on several levels anyway. Egyptian history knows nothing of the alleged Exodus event. The Old Testament is filled with accounts of God either ordering or directly committing mass murder and genocide. Some of those events happened and some didn't. But is such a God worthy of worship? I think not... The Gospels are the only accounts we have in the Bible of the life of Jesus, yet we have no idea who wrote them (it wasn't Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) and we have no evidence that such a person as Jesus ever walked the face of this earth. Maybe he did, but any historical Jesus is hopelessly lost under layers of myth and legend... Some of the letters of Paul scholars agree are genuine. Others (such as Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and the letters to Timothy) are known forgeries. I'm supposed to base this life and hopes for a future afterlife on a collection of anonymously written ancient mythology and known forgeries? I think not...I have no idea what, if anything, happens after we die. But I see absolutely no reason to live in fear of it. I see plenty of reasons to value *this* life very highly as very precious since it is irreplaceable. I see plenty of reasons to value family and friends immensely because when they are gone... they are really gone. Perhaps they live on in some other realm, but if so, there is no evidence of it and no way for us to have access to it or them. Death is final and there is no evidence that there is an afterlife waiting for any of us. That's why it is so important to enjoy this life NOW! It's the only one you will ever get, so make the most of it!I have no idea how much longer I get to enjoy this life in this wonderful world. I might die in my sleep tonight. But if I do, know that I have no regrets about the life I have lived in this world (aside from 15 years of religion, which I do regret but I learned from). I have no idea what will happen to me when I die, but I strongly suspect that I will simply cease to exist. And I won't exist to be capable of worrying about not existing. I won't be in a mythical heaven and I won't be burning in anybody's mythical hell. I just simply won't BE anymore... and I am okay with that. My afterlife will be to live on in the memories of those I love and in the lives of those I have touched and made a difference in in a positive way. That's all any of us can realistically hope for. I will eventually be totally forgotten by those still alive in this world, and I am okay with that too, as long as my life counts for something while I and those who know me still live. No responses or likes so far but it will be interesting to see what happens... Glory! 9
Ellinas Posted April 11, 2014 Posted April 11, 2014 Don't use social media but assume a "like" is similar to the votes on these forums, so have a point on me...
francesco Posted April 12, 2014 Posted April 12, 2014 I have a friend in Texas whom I have known for 20 years who can't decide whether or not to be friends with me on Facebook because she doesn't like my anti-religious posts. The last time I posted a hilarious pic about a farting Jesus, she got offended and unfriended me. All of that drama over ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY! Wow... I wonder why an omniscient and omnipotent god need to be defended by a mortal human? it's not your god that is offended, it's your ego
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