A young virgin was raped, her father pimped her out to the rapist for $500 shekels. We all agreed she should marry the rapist. Offended, refer to Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT and you discover its the word of the “Lord”. Or is it just a literary record of a primitive tribe behaving badly 3,000 years ago?
Introduction
I am not an Atheist. I do not deny God’s existence, I deny the things that have nothing to do with God, things like submission, prayer, revelation, the trinity, virgin births, rituals of any kind, in short; religion; hence my fondness for Deism.
If you are subjected to a systematic suppression of critical thinking and the first thing you are taught is to follow a supremacy ideology that calls for violence against anyone who does not believe as you do, maybe rethink your support for that cause, faith or creed.
I have patience for the faithful, faith is like a central cranial valve that shuts off a brain and leads the faithful in circles of irrationality. Someday that valve may switch open, I want to be there to see the awakening. Is faith harmless; Is faith something to be proud of? Only if you believe a decent of an otherwise sane mind into an acceptance of nonsense is harmless and something to proud of. (Ref 1)
People of faith have all sorts of names for people who fear thier silliness and hate. Islamaphobic, Transphobic, Homophobic,(Ref 2) Europhobic, it goes on and on. For me its not so specific.
I am not sure which is worse, a firm belief based upon the visions of a holy revelation or a vision from a political charlatan or the twisted logic of a tenured angry fool. Sadly the more idiotic the faith based belief the more likely the faithful will be called to kill others. When individuals give up reason, judgement, the testing of a hypothesis to establish facts and instead trust earnest claims of revelation, prophesy or bogus studies you have faith.
Faith exists in Religion but also in the different schools of politics, economics, alternative medicine, and various so called studies including women’s, race and gender studies.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.
Hannah Arendt The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) Part 3, Ch. 13, § 3
My Confession
I am faith-phobic; my overall vexation can be distilled to a dozen specific reasons or concerns: (Ref 3)
Concern 1: Your Truth.
Concern 2: Fantasy Escape
Concern 3: My viewpoint is evil.
Concern 4: Control thru fear
Concern 5: Unity of hatred
Concern 6: Fanatics or charlatans.
Concern 7: Just let the love shine
Concern: 8 A justification for inequality.
Concern 9: Driving us all ass backwards.
Concern 10: We need to change course fast.
Concern 11: Perpetuating terror.
Concern 12: Threatened egotism
Conclusion
References
Concern 1: Your Truth.
If you have a truth based on faith and you believe lacking any repeatable evidence, you scare me. When a text builds upon traditions and not empirical evidence it has limited value. Religious texts explained a primitive world to primitive minds. The truths of Bronze age tribes are mostly irrelevant now other than as an interesting artifact.
Insisting that an old idea that lacks repeatable evidence is the absolute truth means the chance to get it right is lost. It creates a world where reality is never within reach. It leads to a nostalgia for a world of a hundred million people when we need a plan for a world with eight billion people.
Concern 2: Fantasy Escape
As 8 Billion we have problems that fantasy will not help. Have faith in the market, technology, Jesus, an epileptic whose mis wired brain made him a visionary. No thank you.
If your selfish promise of eternal reward or your political dream is to make it all great again the reward is most likely not real. Its time to grow up, your not six years old. Faith is a fantasy escape for the selfish narcissist; who upon death expects a harem of virgins, or perfect peace, Some believe in an escape from reincarnation or that you will achieve Nirvana by staring into space and chanting nonsense in this life.
Concern 3: My viewpoint is evil.
At its worse faith leads to a view that anyone who disagrees with you is evil. If only those hair brained liberals would listen to Reagan or if only those ignorant right wing fanatics would do the work and become woke.
This is not always true of course, some religious or political adherents are nice people who unfortunately as the kinder followers are a breeding ground for the extremists.
If your faith says kill anyone who draws a bad cartoon, and you do not renounce that faith, if you think the cartoonist had it coming, yes you are part of the problem. This is all the more dangerous in an age of mass monitoring and manipulation, more can be found here in Manipulative media (Creating the BORG).
Concern 4: Control through fear
Politics, History and Religion are about manipulating opinion to a useful end. The effect is often not in the control of the people who preach, the consequences they never foresaw or intended. (Ref 4)
Fear is the tool of choice for all propagandist. When instilled from birth it is not even recognized as fear, the fear is seen as the truth. For those who seek freedom, the task is to understand the fear and the indoctrination.
In theocracies literary archetypes are controlled, in books, libraries or websites. Anything that offers an explanation of the archetypes thus leading to thinking and the end of fear is restricted.
A future of fearful followers who will submit is easy if you make everything scary and just kill a few heretics. It should be ok to question; to admit you do not know all the answers. Asking questions is where you find freedom.
Concern 5: Unity of hatred
There is an inherent “us vs. them” outlook in a faith based world view. The divisions deeper than race or nationality because they confront the purpose of life
As Andrea Dworkin noted “Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination.”
Faith is identity based; lacking character you strive for an identity, if you are not “trained to withhold judgement in the absence of evidence” your leaders will be dishonest charlatans who will use racial, cultural or sexual hatred to divide you. This hatred needs to be instill from birth; and then reinforced throughout the entirety of their life. Do not educate towards character, but emphsize identity. Identity is the groundwork for mass manipulation.
In the case of Canada and mass immigration the planned division will causes an insurmountable distraction that enables the internal corruption that will destroy the democracy and lead to fascism. Those in power are well aware that a community divided amongst itself has no strength to withstand tyranny. A society unified and aware is able to make lasting changes to benefit all.
The planned shattering of Canada is to keep Quebec intact, English Canada will be divided along tribal lines. The People being brought in will see themselves as different; the difference will be the conflict between thier religion and science.
The implanted ignorance from a religious upbringing and the resulting Tribalism feels natural as your focus on identity over character. This will be a driving forces for propagandist working towards the breakup of English speaking Canada and the supremacy of Quebec. After all is done, asserting sovereignty is the only tangible outcome of the worlds religions today.
Concern 6: Fanatics or charlatans.
Religious moderates create the infrastructure needed by extremist theocratic. A theocracy is a constant threat as dishonest charlatans will take advantage of the religious to further their career goals. (Ref 5)
“A study of theocratic societies demonstrates how oppressive religiously governed countries are towards their people. Societies crumble beneath a stranglehold of religious oppression. Women are disparaged, mutilated and controlled by governments whose religious rule makes such atrocities acceptable. Religiously motivated wars, massacres, stonings, bombings, inquisitions, crusades, intentional suppression of knowledge and inhumane policies are experienced under fascist and theocratic government rule. Both are a horrific way to live as a citizen.”
Concern 7: Just let the love shine
All religious texts have “hundreds of verses where the story instructs people to rape young girls whose family members they have just murdered, kill disobedient children and women, commit genocide and infanticide, subdue and silence women, commit incest, oppress mass communities, force marriage on rape victims, torture, enslave, loot and pillage entire societies. All in the name of god.”
Yet the religious teach us that it is completely about love. Moderates who ignore the fine print, are supporting the psychopaths who read it all and act as the “good book” instructs with devastating results.
Sadly it is the moderates that supports the wrongdoings of the extremist. It is not love when the interpretation is sadistic and violent acts.
Concern: 8 A justification for inequality.
“Holy” texts are used to subjugate women, minorities, and foreigners. The Caste system is engrained into Hinduism; Imperialism built into Islam and Roman Catholicism. Today religion prevents people from living in peace, attending school, choosing their partners, or be seen in public without a bag over their head, you submit or risk beheading. Hatred of Gays is so strong in most religions that death is a punishment. Homosexuality has always existed, yet religion still fights what is essentially masturbation between consenting adults.
If the justification for treating others in an unkind way is your lord, maybe rethink what you believe your lord to be.
Concern 9: Driving us all ass backwards.
Science gives us a better crack at explaining our world, it tends to auto correct if applied relentlessly. We understand thunder and lightning, it is not the anger of our gods, dancing will not bring the rains, and we can predict eclipses, they are not a celestial dragon devouring the Sun.
Religion insists that it is not our place to understand things – but to submit – to nonsense. It makes more sense that God wants us to learn, but religion wants to keep us in ignorance. It hinders progress and perpetuates overpopulation thus the quality of our lives, health and environments are diminished.
Concern 10: We need to change course fast.
Religion uses the fear of “end times” to control the population. Corporate Media uses the denial of end times caused by the burning of fuels to control our behaviour and continue the generation of corporate profits at the expense of the planet. In both cases discernment is needed. Every generation since we crawled out of the last apocalypse have told stories about end times. Religion and politics present a problematic illusion when a crisis develops some political charlatan will seize power to profit from the crisis or some religious fanatic will claim thier efforts to bring about a crisis was a prediction.
If our world is truly going to explode in a fiery furnace – it will be by our own hands when we destroy one another by our hubris, self importance and hatred. Or, it will be by the mechanisms of our universe; a common way planets and stars actually do experience their “end times”.
Concern 11: Perpetuating terror.
Humanity’s most vicious ambitions have been carried out in the name of faith by kings and clergy and their followers not willing to question or forced to obey under threat of torture or the gallows. Until we shed our unverified beliefs and learn to challenge ridiculous political and religious leaders , wars waged in ignorance will continue to plague our species and prevent lasting peace. It’s time our faith based excuses are called out for what they are – irrational thinking based upon archaic concepts that no longer serve our human advancement towards a sustainable and peaceful future.
Concern 12: Threatened egotism
When bruised egos are more important than life, when humour and sarcasm are subservient to religious communities you are dealing with a fragile childish identity and a threatened egotism.
“Child psychologist Jean Piaget noted that in infants ego centrism is not an intentional or conscious process. A child has no idea that he is egocentric. He believes everybody thinks the way he does, and this is due simply to an absence of any sense of limits on his individuality.” In this light, the ego centricism of infants and fundamentalist are quite comparable: both stem from the absence or the weakness of the sense of self. In other words your willingness to die or kill for your beliefs is a sign of nothing more than infantile ignorance.
Generally speaking, violence always arises out of impotence. It is the hope of those who have no power.
Hannah Arendt
Conclusion:
Ego centric ideas such as a personal God, or having access to “the truth”, even the idea that you are something other than a small part of a greater whole is to separate yourself from reality.
The waves belong to the Oceans, not the Oceans to the waves. To realize this is to approach an understanding of the oneness of all creation and your part in it. [Ref 6]
It is that separation that leads to hate, division and war. Any tolerance of a childish faith leads to oppression, intellectual regression, society decay and probably a limp dick. Call your ignorance or violence “faith based” and there is no accountability.
Paedophile priests rape of small children and spreading of aids by refusing condoms in the name of scripture are all acceptable because the “faith based” are unaccountable.
Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. Unless we are willing to expose religious irrationality whenever it arises, we will encourage irrational public policy and promote ignorance over education for our children.
References
Ref 1 Definition of faith at https://www.wordnik.com/words/faith
Faith
~noun The assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete evidence; belief in general.
~noun In a more restricted sense: In theology, spiritual perception of the invisible objects of religious veneration; a belief founded on such spiritual perception.
~noun Belief or confidence in a person, founded upon a perception of his moral excellence: as, faith in Christ.
noun Intuitive belief.
~noun The doctrines or articles which are the subjects of belief, especially of religious belief; a creed; a system of religion; specifically, the Christian religion.
Ref 2 Notes on Transphobia, Homophobia as Faith based beliefs
Being trans or being gay are not tangible things, they are feelings. There is no way to measure for it, prove or disprove it, its just the way you behave, think, feel, and as such a personal thing that really is of little consequence so long as you do not encounter the faithful. The best explanation of this this comes from the Feminist Community in a lovely article in Feminist Current by Meghan Murphy “This is why the ‘true trans’ approach is a problem’.
Ref 3 Credit to and inspired by “11-ways-religion-is-destroying-humanity” by By Shanna Babilonia | 4 August 2015. Highly recommend the website churchandstate.org.uk The article was heavily edited and my own comments were added. Quotations indicate direct copy from original text. All credit to Shanna, all mistakes are mine.
Ref 4 a rewrite a Hannah Arendt quote
Manipulations of opinion, insofar as they are inspired by well-defined interests, have limited goals; their effect, however, if they happen to touch upon an issue of authentic concern, is no longer subject to their control and may easily produce consequences they never foresaw or intended.
Hannah Arendt Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Postscript to the revised (1965) edition
Ref 5 Unpopular Essays (1950) is a book by Bertrand Russell. It constitutes a collection of his more controversial essays.
“So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans.”
Bertrand Russell Unpopular Essays Chapter 2: Philosophy for Laymen p. 27 1950
Ref 6
The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as “I am such an important man” or “I am so and so”. Level the mound of “I” to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.
Ramakrishna
~Definition of solophism https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solophism&t=newext&atb=v248-1&ia=definition
~Piaget from Wikipedia
~https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-01-23/tribal-divisions-created-by-religion-most-harmful-in-global-conflict-experts-say
~2016 Somali “Soldiers of the Islamic state” infiltrate / immigrate as a religion of peace then kill 8.
~2015 Nine Somali-Minnesotans are convicted in a plot to travel to Syria to join ISIS. Several dozen male residents left to join Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group working to turn Somalia into an Islamist state.
When people of faith get elected power they move us all in the direction of thier faith.
~In 2023 the first all Muslim city council in in Michigan voted to permanently ban Pride flags from display on public property.
~In 2022 Roman Cathoolics become the majority in the US senate overturning Roe vs Wade enforcing thier beliefs on countless women.
~In 2021 : Twisted thinking spreads like a virus, Trans people who insist thier gender is some kind of inner truth that is more important than the biological fact of thier genitalia.
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