Sunday, October 5, 2008

Look At What Religion Does!!!

As a counsellor I’ve been repeatedly exposed to hearing about the horrors of relational abuse. I’ve worked with women who’ve had their jaws, fingers and arms broken. I’ve even worked with one woman who’d had her back broken by her husband. I’ve worked with men and women who have been stabbed by their partners with everything from a pitchforks, to broken boards and bottles. Sometimes I’d go home numb and practically too impaired to drive by the shock of what I’d listened to that day.

My conclusion? Rid the world of love.

Based on the evidence that I’ve witnessed I can say without a doubt that love is dangerous. Love is violent. Love does harm to everything it touches. There’s no telling how many lives have been destroyed by exposure to love. To end this senseless cycle, and to literally save the world, we must get serious about making sure that our children at not exposed to any teaching about love. Even the word "love" should be banished from schools and certainly anything supported by government funding should have nothing to do with promoting love. If any private schools open up in order to teach children of fundamentalist parents about love, I say, “Shut em down.” Why such drastic measures? In reality, love is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the small-pox virus but harder to eradicate. Love is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that love seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness. How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of love? I mean, how much do we regard children as being the property of their parents? Should so called loving parents be free to impose their beliefs that love is good onto their children? Parents, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever way they choose . . . to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma . . . or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own belief in love.

You might be saying by this point, “That’s ridiculous. Who would be so stupid as to say things like that?” Well, atheists that’s who. No, no, they don’t use the word love. They use the word religion. Most recently Bill Maher has realised that he can make a load of cash by promoting bigotry and hatred. And before him, Dawkins and Hitchens and 80% of atheist blogs take the crusades, and suicide bombers and three or four guys who shoot at abortionists and conclude that the world should be rid of religion.

To reach my conclusion about doing away with love, I didn’t consider all the good that love has instigated down through history. In fact I had to purposely avoid that evidence and only focus on how love has been misused and abused. Just so, rabid atheists seem completely immune to the historical good that religions of all types have brought to our existence. Has there been tragedy because of religion? Certainly. But in the words of Michael Shermer, past President of the Skeptics Society “However, for every one of these grand tragedies there are ten thousand acts of personal kindness and social good that go unreported . . . Religion, like all social institutions of such historical depth and cultural impact, cannot be reduced to an unambiguous good or evil.

We can only hope that Bill Maher and his cronies will be held accountable for the mass hysteria they hope to instill in Godless people around the world. We can only hope that an awareness of their bigotry and hypocrisy seeps into the minds of those who believe that they don’t need God in order to be kind and compassionate people, even as they sit in theaters for the sole purpose of laughing at an identified, specified group of people; not because of what they’ve done wrong, but because they think differently than do atheists.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Makarios,
Bill Maher isn't leading anything unless its a comedy concert at a marijuana harvest. Its the wrying of religious beliefs that lead the Atheists to lose their faith. The question that Abrahamic religions and you as their proxy need to ask themselves is
'Is Bill Maher richer than the Vatican ?'

Also the last I checked Bill didn't rape any kids - your preachers did. Repeatedly .AND they were NOT - I repeat NOT punished by the Church . Not even a slap on the wrist. It took the state and the functioning laws made by renowned Atheists to bring them to justice.

What do you have to say to that ?

Its not the mass hysteria produced by the Atheists that I am worried about. Atleast not yet. Its the God Hates Fags people that Mr.Maher talks about, its the Muslims around the world who adhere to such a strict form of their religion that it makes life difficult for the common man.

And to use your analogy

Its not love that is the culprit in all those abuses that you have seen . Its the absence of the fulfillment of the promise of love. If true love existed then it can't lead to a broken back or even a scratch on the leg. Its the absence of fulfillment of Gods promise that leads to loss of faith.

Why is it that everytime crap is dealt to you - you are supposed to assume that God is testing you aka Job(e) and wait for the rainbow to shine. Why can't God be the wise and kind guy and tell Satan ? I don't need to test Job. I KNOW he loves me - irrespective of your Satanic wager.


The point is religion needs to be flowing like most of the Dharmic religions are . God sure is. So maybe its time to hit that refresh button on the New Testament , as New Testament did on the Old Testament.

Tapan

Thesauros said...

“Its the wrying of religious beliefs that lead the Atheists to lose their faith.”

True, very true.
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“The question that Abrahamic religions and you as their proxy need to ask themselves is 'Is Bill Maher richer than the Vatican ?'”

I’m not Catholic but my guess is it would take about 100,000 Bill Mahers to even come close.
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“Also the last I checked Bill didn't rape any kids - your preachers did. Repeatedly .AND they were NOT - I repeat NOT punished by the Church. Not even a slap on the wrist.”

Hmm, part of me would like to hide behind the technicality that, again, I’m not Catholic. Reality is, there will be some who are genuinely Christian, just as there will be some who genuinely adhere to Dharmic faiths and those who are genuinely atheist that have raped children. I’m just tremendously thankful that there but for the Grace of God go I. As a Counsellor I’ve worked with individuals who struggle with this issue and I can’t imagine the horror of living with a lust for children. Despite what we’d like to believe, self loathing hardly comes close to describe how they feel about themselves.
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“It took the state and the functioning laws made by renowned Atheists to bring them to justice.”

That’s a bit of a stretch. I think that people of all faiths and those of no faith were repulsed by that whole affair. And if we were honest with ourselves we would have been repulsed by the recognition that our own impulse, like those who were in charge of the Church, is to hide our sins rather than openly confess them.
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“Its the God Hates Fags people that Mr.Maher talks about, its the Muslims around the world who adhere to such a strict form of their religion that it makes life difficult for the common man.”

Yes, I understand. The actions of fringe eliments are a tragedy of enormous proportions for all of humanity. I don’t see it ending well for any of us.
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“And to use your analogy “Its not love that is the culprit in all those abuses that you have seen . Its the absence of the fulfillment of the promise of love.”

Tapan, I was trying to make a point by using satire. Of course it’s the absence of love.
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“Why is it that everytime crap is dealt to you - you are supposed to assume that God is testing you aka Job(e) and wait for the rainbow to shine. Why can't God be the wise and kind guy and tell Satan ? I don't need to test Job. I KNOW he loves me - irrespective of your Satanic wager.”

I don’t think that we’re to assume that God is testing us - every time. On the other hand, my faith has been tested numerous times, all the way from childhood sexual abuse to the death of a child and much in between, and I can say, IN HIND SIGHT that I'm tremendously grateful for the testing. It has taken me from pitifully weak in nature to amazingly strong. Like a verse in Psalms says, "Those who wait upon the Lord are like Mount Zion, unmoved by any circumstance."

Having said that, I think that what we can assume and should assume is that something good can come out of it every time crap hits us. This is as true for the pagan, and the atheist as it is for the Christian. Most people have experienced this.

For the person in a forgiven, healed and intimate relationship with Jesus however, this is a guarantee. The trouble is, we usually spend so much time trying to squirm out of our difficulties that we completely miss the learning that is available to us in the midst of the difficulty. The thing is, life is full of crap, so we may as well try to get something out of it - ya?
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“The point is religion needs to be flowing like most of the Dharmic religions are.”

I don’t know Dharmic religions. What does that mean?

“God sure is. So maybe its time to hit that refresh button on the New Testament , as New Testament did on the Old Testament.”

Agreed

Unknown said...

Makarios,
You may be our target market for the Coexist comedy tour.

Our comedians use their faith - or lack of it along with fantastic sense of comedy to eliminate the fears of they , them , the others. Once you laugh at it you come out of it stronger and braver.

Thanks for being level headed and carry on the good work.
Cheers,
Tapan