religion rage

Religion is a nightmarish danger to our lives and freedoms. Gods, or rather those that worship them, are poised to royally screw up civilisation once again! Let me begin with a confession: my own atheism springs from doubt. I refuse to rule out any possibility, but likewise I have a reluctance to rule anything in without objective evidence.

Given that (in my opinion) there is no apparent objective reason to believe in god(s) - or anything supernatural - I choose not to, but I'm keeping a close eye on developments. For instance, some research into the paranormal is kicking up ambiguous results that might hint at a tiny ESP effect. As you can't prove a negative, I am happy to admit that the supernatural in general, and gods in particular, might exist. However, by the same token, so might orcs, elves, hobbitses and dragons. I am also fond of slicing reality with that shiny tool Occam's razor! It is best to avoid the invocation of intricate events, when simpler concepts will do.

Why should I seek evidence, and not trust in a "faith"? Well, with the faith option, it is easy to fall into a subtle trap. Isn't it amazing how all these different followers of various faiths can all be so absolutely certain their own belief is correct! It is amazing that they can be so sure, in the face of the fact that followers of other, mutually incompatible, faiths are as convinced as they! The faithful dismiss other faiths as freely as they declare their self-certainty in their own! Faith itself demands it. Faith depends upon sustaining the illusions of its victims to survive and in that sense faith is the prison of the mind.

Some faiths and religions seem more open minded than others. I love some of the ideas of Zen Buddhism, (if Zen can be said to be a religion). I have qualms about the supernatural Buddhist stuff that alludes to the mind being independent of the brain, and all that mumbo jumbo, but I find that the practical stuff that Buddhists do, their philosophy and their penchant for meditation, appeals to me. Buddhism is the opposite of many popular religions, which tend to be conducive to inducing blind faith, fundamentalism and violence. Examples are Islam, some flavours of Hindu and Sikh religions and - principally historically speaking - Christianity (medieval torture, Crusades, Catholics vs Protestants troubles etc). History acted out in the name of Christianity is very bloody, but these days civilisation has civilised Christians, who in turn helped to bring about civilisation. Contrary to all this unpleasantness, I understand that followers of Zen Buddhism are happier than most: scientific brain-scans reveal that the pleasure centres of the minds of Buddhists are significantly alight compared to non-Buddhists!

Most of my religious arguments are made at the expense of Christianity, so let me try to balance things out slightly by discussing Islam for a change. In my station of infidel I'm reassured by the faithful followers of loving gods that I'm destined for Hell anyway :) The creed of Islam, the Qu'ran, or Koran, some of which dates back to the 7th and 8th centuries (those oldest scripts show awkward deviations from modern koran texts, incidentally) is ambiguous on many points. Some of it is hardly reassuring, here are a few charming quotes from the Koran, for your delectation.

9.29: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

9.73: O Prophet! strive hard [make war] against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.

As is obvious from recent history, the fact is that at least some Muslims take such antiquated blurb very seriously: muslim terrorists are willing to kill and die in the name of their god. Infinitely worse, they slaughter innocents in the hope of achieving some perverse glory. I imagine a devil, not a benevolent god, would be best delighted at the sick spectacle of a god's followers taking it upon themselves to murder innocent people.

Islam, Judaism and Christianity are all descended from the Old Testament or Torah. In that book there is, amidst all the nuttiness, some sage advice. Thou shall not kill. Perverse admirers of Bin Laden should take heed. Thou shall not kill - that is your God (or Allah) instructing you. Seems plenty of Muslims with blood on their hands will join the Infidel for an eternal knees up in Hell. And to think those 9/11 terrorists were expecting to wake up with seventy horny virgins ravishing them. Must have been a Hell of a wake up call to be greeted with, in the place of the bequeathed virgins, seventy horny demons tearing out their spleens sans anaesthetic. Duh!

The most violent, torture-infested, bigoted - and least culturally sophisticated - countries in the world tend not to be the poorest countries, but Islamic states. For example, Tourists are wise to steer well clear of that hotbed of fundamentalist Islam: Pakistan, but many parts of neighbouring India are relatively safe. Guess which country is prospering more (and stealing Western jobs)?

The world is up against a grievous threat: the agenda of the Islamic terrorist organisation Al Qaida is to make the entire world an Islamic state. Because extremist muslims are now established in most countries, the enemy is within: British born muslims have been arrested for attempting to set off bombs in Britain and other British Muslims fought for the Taliban against our troops in Afghanistan. Oh and one famously tried to blow up a passenger aircraft with bombs in his shoes. Many other treacherous types are working out how to hurt us at this very moment, whilst, to add ludicrous irony, often funded by generous welfare cheques. The system was not designed to deal with this enemy within, so law reforms are needed to kick these terrorists out before they kill again. Immigration policy has been something of a catastrophe in Britain. What is annoying is that certain invasions of our privacy are necessary to weed out these terrorists.

Religion is not the only factor behind this evil: financial and political gain are powerful motives for terrorists that often usurp gods. Terrorist organisations are self-perpetuating bureaucracies. Followers of Islam, or any religion, need not be evil if wisdom prevails over blind faith.

There is a small minority of Muslim leaders that, in England at least, dares to openly protest against Islamic terrorism. Those enlightened muslim leaders are the brave ones, not the cowardly terror leaders that get others to do their dirty work: "leaders" that coerce young brainwashed muslim men and women into committing suicidal terrorist atrocities and wrecking lives.

On the other hand, I can also sympathise with Islamic rage against the corporate West. Corporations (and the World Bank, IMF, lobbies etc) have far too much power, and they are wrecking the world through encouraging pollution, destruction of people's health (smoking, bad food, obesity), destruction of people's happiness (through materialism and marketing of unobtainable ideals), destruction of our rights and freedoms (RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, software patents etc) and so on.

To reiterate, my complaint is against religion and terrorism in general, but having ranted against that blight of enlightenment that is fundamentalist Christianity in other articles on this site, I decided a change of focus was timely, hence my critique of fundamentalist Islam. I have full respect for people of Islam, christianity, of all religions so long as their faith does not cause negative repercussions on society (terrorism, censorship), education and science (attacks on the teaching of evolution), equal rights for women and so on.

The illusion of faith, particularly the illusion of religious faith, is that everyone marks themselves in the right, and everybody else in the wrong. I've not met a single religious man that claimed his faith was less likely to be true than another man's, irregardless of his chosen religion's popularity, location or civilisation. Given such irrationality that infects the human race, we are literally putting ourselves and others at great risk when we allow extreme religions to flourish.

In sum, were it not for religion, especially fundamentalist religion, the world would be a more erudite, safer, more civilised - and sane - place. Amen!



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From:	MadPole	Subject:	I am a dreamer	2004-05-19 13:31:24
From:	mke	Subject:	this	2004-05-23 06:54:10
From:	catscratch	Subject:	A word in defence	2004-06-24 17:04:56
From:	Alex	Subject:	Re: 'I am a dreamer'	2004-08-14 20:42:14
From:	dude	Subject:	The religious disease	2004-09-17 16:36:45
From:	Loki	Subject:	Hitler	2004-12-11 17:01:50
From:	Belonging Curious	Subject:	RE :Help!!!! I Wondering About .........	2005-01-21 17:14:49
From:	alyssa	Subject:	WHY?	2005-08-10 00:08:37
From:	Joy	Subject:	to: Belonging Curious	2005-08-10 00:15:26
From:	cha cha	Subject:	ummm. k??	2005-09-21 12:59:01
From:	Insect Nation	Subject:	Scary tiny Insect brains	2005-12-26 04:27:09
From:	Griff	Subject:	Well said	2006-03-11 20:57:04
From:	Griff	Subject:	Hitler	2006-03-11 21:06:12
From:	joegill	Subject:	muslims	2006-09-10 02:07:51

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