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| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
There is nothing wrong with religion and beliefs. It's an ugly world - always has been - so it's easy to see why people want to believe in some higher being that will deliver them from this place if they follow arbitrary guidelines(???). However, there is something very wrong when people try to shove their fucked up sense of ancient morality down your throat and try to convince you that you are an evil creature because you have violated some senseless law that was, for all you know, re-written into history by a lying politician or priest so that he could control his flock of peasants and has been unquestionably followed by the descended flock ever since.
It's not God that sucks. It's not the religion that sucks. It's the idiot people. |
I really don't agree. The world consists of roughly equal parts ugliness and beauty - necessarily so because the concepts are interpreted relatively. Of course it is natural to find displeasure in the ugly, but it would be wise to still appreciate the role it plays in shaping our ability to appreciate the beautiful.
Personally I'm quite satisfied with the world overall. Are there many aspects of it I would prefer to change? Certainly. But that, too, is a blessing of sorts. To be totally content with every aspect of one's world is a rather stagnant existence - undesirable, if you ask me, compared with experiencing the broad spectrum of the favorable and disfavorable that we deal with in our lives.
The notion that "it would be nice if religion or true" or that religion paints a picture of some kind of idyllic world that we would naturally prefer over reality is one that I disagree with quite vehemently. Is it really so preferable to view our lives as infinitesimal fractions of our existence? If we have a limited time, that makes every minute more valuable. Is it so ameliorable to think that we stand in constant judgment by a being who realistically we could not ever comprehend? Is it such an ideal that good and evil are concepts woven into the fabric of the universe, rather than things we can develop our own sense of? It seems to me that you could take the world that religion presents you with, remove all the specific concepts that religious believers are already precognitively biased towards perceiving as favorable, and write quite a nice piece of dystopian fiction based on the result.
I don't think, either, that religion is innocuous as long as those who believe keep it to themselves as opposed to trying to proselytize others. Religion acts upon the mind like a drug, distorting the individual's perceptions, as well as altering their behavior and emotional state. Consequently, it is my view that those who turn to religion as a means to cope with their problems seem to be to be as much in need of help as those who turn to drugs or alcohol.
More to the point, however, is the simple fact that few people, and perhaps none among the sane, would be believers if they weren't proselytized at some point in their life - almost exclusively at a time when they are particularly vulnerable, such as early childhood, or a time of extended emotional distress. It should strike one as quite poignant how opportunistically religion invades the mind while the mind is in a state of diminished capacity, just as a pathogenic disease might opportunistically attack an individual who is in a state of diminished physical capacity. I don't really care if some religious person wants to try to convert me. They will be a nuisance, perhaps, but they will not cause anyone harm in that course of action. The harm is their own to bear - it is the harm of believing. Tragically, they were probably innocents, once, and only believe now because religion set upon them while they were vulnerable. I don't begrudge them, but rather I would like to see them get the help that they need to free themselves.
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