I know, I know, I should feel ashamed of myself - I have a whole bunch of religious friends who probably send me to hell every time one of these posts come up.
I'm sorry, I can't help myself. And here's why.
First off, you all have to know that as a kid I enjoyed going to "Sunday School", I liked Religion classes at school - mostly because I grew up listening to stories, and those little get-togethers every Saturday afternoon (from 15:00 to 17:00, if I remember correctly) actually made the whole thing fun. And which kid wouldn't learn anything about religion when it's paired with fun, right?
And then I had to pass two years of actual school that permitted me to attend my confirmation. You see my family is protestant (Reformed), and although nowadays we don't really go to church, confirmation is something that every one of us had to do.
I probably said this before already, but here it goes again. Obligating a teenager to attend Sunday School for two years straight and then to stand out on the middle of the Church in front of hundreds of people and answer some questions like it's a HUGE test is not something most teenagers enjoy. Especially those who are absolutely terrified of speaking out in front of crowds.
Well, I guess that was that, really. After years of me participating in actual "Olympics" in Religious topics and also singing in the church's choir for a while, I decided that this was really not something I loved anymore.
Of course, those teenage years are always the ones where you finally realize a few weird things going on around you - things that you never noticed before. Things like your parents not being the alfa and omega, things where you see that adults are hypocrites and liars and not perfect. I was 12 years old when this happened to me - at least as far as I remember - and I'm sure of this, because it was my B-day and I was home alone, waiting for mom to get home from work, and I had the TV on. Yeah, you guessed it, every channel was full of the WTC event.
But let's get back to the topic.
The first reason why there are more and more agnostic and atheist people on this world is the fact that the theists still have problems with science.
They had their issues from the start of times, and they have their issues even now. I don't understand how someone would deny the accomplishment science brought to us - when it's really all there. To me, this just says that most of these people are simply unintelligent and/or plain retarded.
The second reason is probably not for everybody out there, but I think it's still a good reason. I'm talking about religion's treatment of women. If you look around you will more than likely find at least one person who secretly- or not so secretly- thinks that women are only good to pop up children and make sandwiches. I'm not saying that women shouldn't do that - hell, I will make a full blown meal for my family if I want to- but it's a fact that every single religion out there has an atrocious history concerning women.
The third reason is something that I thought about if I should or shouldn't include in this post. I decided I will, since I already had a few posts concerning homosexuals. I hate how every single religion treats homosexuals probably as much as the previous one. Homosexuality is not a sin. Homosexuality is not a "sickness". Homosexuality is not something you chose, just because it's fun (and who the hell would actually chose to be homosexual when there are so many freaks out there who only wish to hurt you? I applaud every single openly homosexual person out there. I wish there were more of you. I do.).
The fourth reason is that with all of these ideas you are only pulling our society back to the dark ages. Are we really that stupid that we never actually learned anything from our history? Oh wait, to those radical religious people history is mainly about God making you kill everyone who looks at you the wrong way. Which practically brings me to the next reason: throughout history most of the wars were fought in the name of religion (which also makes religious people huge hypocrites, because we all know that most of these wars are actually because someone wants more gold or women or God forbid, oil). Also I want to add something here that George Carlin said: "Here's an interesting form of murder we come up with: Assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. Did you ever notice who it is? Stop to think who it is we kill? It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus. Gandhi. Lincoln. John Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy. Martin Luther King. Medgar Evers. Malcolm X. John Lennon. They all said: try to live together peacefully. BAM. Right in the fucking head. Apparently we're not ready for that."
And not only this, there are so many religions out there that are hypocritically against contraception (I say hypocritically, because funnily enough priests tend to have the most kids in their family) - even when there are so many people with AIDS, and other sexual diseases. And then they also throw out some hate on those who decide to go trough an abortion. Well, fuck that. I'm not saying that a child shouldn't be cherished, but when you KNOW that you can't provide for the kid, or the baby is suffering from a disease, I'm all for it. Why would you make someone else suffer?
Which also brings forth the problem of money. A HUGE thing that was always a problem. Religious institutions are the biggest thieves and money laundering assholes you will ever have. Churches don't pay taxes. Churches ALWAYS beg for your money. EVERY. SINGLE.TIME.
Here's a real story. You ask me why I don't go to church. Well. Every single time I go, it always end with the priest begging for more money. Right there in the church. And religion hates beggars, right? Wait, tho. Didn't we read that story right there in the bible where it says that God doesn't want you counting money in church? Was that something I dreamed up?
And then the church always has the face to show up once more AT YOUR DOOR to ask for some more. And people give it to them, or else they won't come to your grave to drop some fake holy water on you or something. Well, fuck that. I already said it, I don't care about that stuff. You don't want to say things about how nice and kind and lovable I was - don't say it. Especially when you are freaking paid to say those things. (Something I never actually understood is why someone would PAY for this service. It's not like it's real.)
I also don't like it when people say that "I will pray for you" or some such rot. I can pray for myself if I want to, thank you very much. If I end up in Hell, it will be all MY fault, and your prayers won't help one bit. If prayer would work, there would be more people out there praying to have less wars, less diseases and less orphans. Prayer won't get you a piece of bread to eat when you're hungry, and prayer won't keep you warm at night. Also, prayer won't keep you from dying when you are so sick that you end up in a hospital. Feel free to point me to a person who managed to do any of these things with only the help of prayer and you might convince me.
Also, here's another hypocritical thing you do. You hate me for criticizing your religion openly - but then you go and knock on every door in the neighborhood and try to shove your religion down on people's throat.
I don't care about your church. If I did, a would have already searched you out. Isn't that clear by now? It's 2013 for fuck's sake. There MUST be sensible people out there who know that most people hate it when you come knocking on the door, waving around Watchtowers and crap. Do you see me knocking on your door and handing you a book by Hawking or Darwin?
And for the last thing - stop thinking and saying that you are a lot better and kinder than everyone else, just because you read the Bible. If you would be intelligent enough you would be able to see that there is still a whole bunch of weird shit going on right there in your church. The church still shields child molesters, and they still preach hate most of the time (hate against other religions, against non believers, against science, against sinners, and I could go on).
Oh, and before I forget.
Once again I have to tell you guys a short story. You see, a few years ago I visited Taizé - yeah, I'm a hypocrite too, because I loved it. But not for the reasons you might believe.
I ended up being the "leader" of a little group. I admit, I have never been a leader in my life and I had no idea what we were doing, so we just sat around and talked. There was this guy there, who only showed up once or twice throughout the whole week. I think I (or we) managed to insult him, because apparently he was a catholic theology student or something.
I managed to get into a group where most of us were of the same mind besides this guy.
He kept trying to convince us that his catholic way was the only way. When we argued, he said that this is stupid, that we shouldn't talk about these things because all of us are from different nations, and our English isn't good enough to understand each other and then he never came back again. (I say, good riddance. I mean, why would you come to a place where every religion lives in harmony when you believe things like this?).
But the best part of it was, that even if this was a religious place, most people didn't want to kill you with their great knowledge of their own religion. My group was nice, and they all agreed when I told them about the way some fanatics tend to say that their religion is the true one, and if you don't believe in it, you'll end up in hell.
I have simple reasons to saying that this isn't true. You see, if what they were saying was true, that would mean that 99% of the world would end up in hell - including people who never even heard of your damn religion. Including people who were nice, kind, law abiding citizens. That's -in my opinion- stupid.
If this is so, I don't want to belong to a religion - and a God (who apparently loves us so much that he will kill everyone who doesn't follow his rules) - that would make innocent people rot in hell, just because they were born in the wrong place.
Also, for these people, here's another thing you should take into account. Your religion is a made-up religion. Your religion is not pure. Your religion stole and stole and stole from all kinds of other religions all around the world. I'm not saying that this is bad- after all, if it didn't, we would probably still be in the ancient ages, nut please consider all of this when it comes to your "side of the story". Every single religion out there is basically an America.
Oh dear, did I stumble onto something there?
