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The
Problem with Religion
Most religions require a blind acceptance of their
particular belief system. There is an implicit understanding
that you cannot question these beliefs. This resistance to questioning
shows the fundamental instability of religion.
If you were truly convinced that you were right you would strongly
encourage questioning. When questioning is disallowed
it implies that there are embarrassing questions that cannot be
answered.
Most
religions, particularly the
most popular ones, contain a great core of wisdom. The early creators
and maintainers of the worlds religions had a huge problem though. The
common
people greatly needed to be taught this wisdom. The problem was that
the
common people were not that interested. Often they were just trying to
survive. They did not have time to think about living well and being
good to each other. The stewards of the religions therefore needed a hook to
entice
common people to look at their religion. So they created captivating
stories and myths sometimes interspersed with remnants of truth and
wise teachings.
One
big problem with religion is the common theme of God as creator. If
there was a god that created the Universe that implies that something
must have created God and so on. Its much simpler to me to equate God
with the Universe and nothing more. Maybe something created the
Universe but how would we ever know? How can we believe in something
that has no basis?
Argument for the absence of a personal god
Another
problem with many religions is the idea of a personal god. The idea of
a personal god is a myth that has
been made up by ancient people long ago. A personal
god is a god that created us in his image, loves us and watches over
us. The belief is that if we follow his teachings and lead a good life
we will be taken care of. If you don't follow god you will endure great
suffering for all eternity. The problem is that many evil people seem
to lead great
lives largely devoid of suffering. Many devoutly religious people in
turn suffer desperate lives of misery. People and animals
die brutal deaths and endure horrific torture and abuse. Often those
who suffer are seen by the religious of having brought it on by
themselves. How
are babies supposed to follow this god's rules though? When babies are
raped,
brutally murdered, tortured, die a slow and painful deaths by
starvation they are
to blame for this? No god that loves us and looks after us would
allow such suffering of the innocent. If there was such a personal god
it would be more like
satan than a kind loving entity to allow such horrifying things to
happen. This god appear to be in actuality a malevolent satanic evil
entity. It is evil
because he deliberately created a world in which his creations would
suffer no matter what they did. Yet countless people continue to
believe in the concept of a personal god. Why? They believe in this god
because they were merely told this god exists. Someone told them
something and they believed it without question, without any facts or
logic to support this notion of god they accept it as undeniable truth.
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