Monday, February 25, 2008

Religion is a disease

Religion is a disease
December 25 2001

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary for man to invent him.” Francois Voltaire

“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32


Bertrand Russell, a Nobel laureate for literature in 1950 and a renowned English philosopher, once wrote that religion is a disease born of fear, primarily one of the social phenomena, and people accept religion on emotional ground, believing that it is thought virtuous to have faith and wishing to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes—that is, what really moves people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all, as fear is the mother of the whole thing, fear of the mysterious, fear of punishment and fear of death, etc.

When the church argue in defense of Christianity, they do not give reasons for believing that God exists and the Bible is his words.
Instead, they argue that if people believe in this way, they act better than if they do not and a believer is happier than an unbeliever, therefore we should not to permit ourselves to speculate whether God exists. If any doubts raise its head, we must suppress it vigorously and historical records must be falsified if people cast doubt on the received wisdom of religion.

Because of fear, people refuse to accept the ordinary laws of science that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course.
People have come to entertain of immortality because it is pleasant and consolable to think that the invisible hand would somehow rescue us from our bodily death.
That’s why people invented God and immortality, central dogmas of the Christianity—in that Jesus Christ emphatically believed that his Second Coming would occur before the death of all the people who were living at that time, and he instilled the fear of everlasting punishment to the minds of people with vindictive fury, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell.”

However, faith eventually renders harm to people by stunting the growth of minds with a conviction that can not be shaken by contrary evidence or argument.
If contrary evidence might induce doubt, it is held that contrary evidence must be suppressed and met by fanatical hostility to both those who have other fanaticisms and those who object to all fanaticisms.
As people depend upon the absolute truth of faith contained in the saying of a certain man, like Jesus, Buddha, or Muhammad, a body of experts that interprets his saying, like church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, acquires the infallible power, dictate people’s minds, and becomes tyrannous obscurantist and cruel oppressor in high degree, where as in Inquisition that millions of people were burned as witches in the name of religion.

Because of religion, more people were murdered, tortured, maimed, hated and discriminated than any other reasons, political or economical, in the history of man. And today the only wars are religious wars no matter how they are named, the Gulf war, the Balkan war, or the Afghanistan War as George Bush termed-and-detracted it “A Crusade”, an ominous but true reminder of the Crusader of killing millions of Jewish and Muslim worshippers by the Christians.
In the affairs of all mankind, religion is the most crippling disease, among others, to the evolution of humankind, that people inflicted upon themselves by inventing a God and asking the churches mind their spiritual shop.

Religious life is a duologue between soul and God and a deeply personal matter rather than a collective behavior, and there can be no middleman in this relationship.
Not your parents, your pastor nor any other self-appointed deputy of God, such as the Pope or the Queen of England.
It is obscene at least to accept another human being as a representative or a mouthpiece of the Creator of Universe for people living on the same planet.
It is not Christianity itself that can be regarded as a dangerous bogeyman to people and its community, but the way in which its dogmas are held as sacred, infallible, and inviolable, and to doubt which is sin and deserves of severe punishment.

In an era of archeology that refutes the historical reliability of the Bible, the thumb-sucking people still gather in churches to pay tithe for the purchase of a happy meal at Heaven, heavily sedated with the social programming like “Merry Christmas” oo’la’la of a virgin birth of Jesus Christ and an overdose of Christmas hymns, tinsels, creches and stars, which present the gospel birth stories as historically real and accurate.
The Bible, our knowledge on God was derived from the human source that is mixed with an enchilada of errors, prejudices, dreams and hopes, not supernatural beyond the reach of our critique or logic but within the domain of human quest for knowledge.
A simple challenge that God is a man-made product gives a shiver down Pope’s spine, because it may put him on the unemployment list to line up for collecting the premium.

“Jesus loves me, this I know…For the Bible tells me so” is the popular children’s Sunday song. And when kids grow up with the same conviction without a query on its source because their parents, teachers, ministers or churches say so, they are warranted to suffer from the lifetime religious illiteracy that scares them a lot to keep up with millions of Christian Joneses.
In the present day in the Middle East, the Bible renders fancifully the political legitimacy of Israel and upgrades erroneously the Chosen status of Jewish people, under which conviction Jews kill their Semite brothers and sisters with no other apparent reasons than “Bible said we are superior than you”.
When the Bible, especially Old Testament, is used to forge the national identity of Israel, and gives a story how special Israel is, that legitimizes Jews killing Non-Jews, and if this Bible is a collection of legends that contains a plethora of fictitious, man-made, erroneous, and unethical bullshits, then, the truth will free people from the wrongful conviction of fear, prejudice, hatred, and retribution.
In this sense, religion is a dreadful disease that the Bible prescribes people an erroneous drugs to harm rather than love their fellow travelers on earth.

1 comment:

Pepe Sojourner said...

Re: Religion is a disease
January 4 2002

I am bit shocked at the title of your writing but nevertheless you seem to be a very well spoken person.
Why do you feel so strongly about religion as to call it fraudulent?
Are you a scholar of religion, do you feel that adequately knowledgeable to be able to call the billions of believers ignorant?

Once again, you are very well spoken!
However, let me leave you with one thought; faith cannot be studied, only experienced.

I am a believer and thus I have experienced the wrath and mercy of God.
Many have attempted to discredit God, from revered scholars to ignorant foes of truth.
The word of God will cannot be understood by mere gentiles, scholar nor less, it can only be understood through the hearts of the saved.

I was not a believer all of my days unfortunately but I have come to discover the truth Jesus bled to show.
I experienced rebirth so phenomenal and empowering that I abandoned all past scholars I so respected. The world teaches her scholars to seek secular pleasures and discredits the wonders of God.

I urge you to look around you…if you saw the world the way I see it daily, you would never doubt the omnipresence of God—the creator and the truth.
I look forward to hearing from you

By dvskoreana

Living for Christ…
January 4 2002

Many have claims against religion that it is for the weak.
Are we truly weak?

Men run away from God because they cannot live the disciplined life that Jesus asks of us.
Men stray from the religion that does not justify their life styles. The weakness is employed by the men and women who refuse to accept Christ, lest they may have to forfeit their worldly pleasure…victims of the secular world.

They attack the book of all truths utilizing semantics to their own ignorant advantage.
The word of God cannot be read through the mere eyes of the unsaved, it is read through the hearts of the reborn.
Faith cannot be learned nor be given; it can only be experienced and lived.
So how can one discuss the contents of truth when one does not know God?

Truth cannot be found if not sought. If you stand to judge the mighty words or God, then I pray may God have mercy on your soul for you speak in the tongue of evil.
I advise you not to challenge a thought conceived through ignorance. God has many at times spoken of the evils that will come to challenge his faithful children.

Note that Satan provides the world with countless foes of truth, he does not wish to suffer the mighty blows of the father alone…he demands subjects of his own, thirsting for power greater than God.
Brothers and sisters of Christ, we stand at trial to such banterings and name-callings, but we are the saved and the world has nothing of worth to offer us. I say to all, that the ones who turn away from the light will forever travel in the darkness created by the fallen one at his demise.

And in response to the well-spoken Sojourner, Christianity is not the majority of society.
Please do your research and you will find that the largest populated religion proves to be Muslim, not Christianity.
Another correction to you would be that the term believers do not portray a mere church attendee but of the truly saved who walks with God daily despite the human flaws.

Christianity never claimed to be without sin, no one is perfect but God himself.
I wonder sir, why if we are really the weak then people such as yourself feel the need to attack our faith?
Why do we trouble you so much for you to speak out against our beliefs?
Why such shocking statements as your title, are you looking to cast doubts on us?
If we are the weak, then why do we pose such threat and urgency to you sir?
Please take the time in contemplate this late question, through your writings are you trying to convince me or yourself?

By Diane choi