The creeping religiosity of everyday life here in the UK - not to mention the appalling acts of violent atrocity carried out by the faithful all over the world - means that it unfortunately becomes necessary to voice a view on the subject.
And so, for the record, my view is this:
(1) All the world's major religions wholly and often wilfully misrepresent the origins of the cosmos and of life on earth. Where they don't get things wrong due to the ignorance of their founders and prophets, they lie due to the desire of their priests and spiritual leaders to keep everyone else ignorant.
(2) All the world's major religions are based upon anthropomorphic conceit and human arrogance and yet they all aim to make men, women and children subservient and fearful.
(3) All the world's major religions are forms of cruelty that exercise power over the mind by punishing and torturing the flesh via practices that include sexual repression, blood sacrifice, and genital mutilation.
(4) All the world's major religions are nihilistic death cults that fantasise and call for the end of the world so that they might then establish a reign of saints and zombies afterlife, or achieve a state of total non-being.
(5) Inasmuch as points 1-4 are true - and it seems to me that they are irrefutable - then we might legitimately conclude that all the world's major religions (and not just the monotheisms of Abrahamic origin) are forms of violent psychosis, or a hatred of the real.
Thus, in my view, it is not sufficient to declare oneself agnostic on the question of religion, although, obviously, it is always preferable that an individual honestly admits their ignorance, rather than absurdly claim to know God's will. Nor is it enough, today, to simply call oneself an atheist: one has to actively declare an interest and take up the challenge by affirming nothing short of anti-theism in the courageous manner of Christopher Hitchens, for example, who wrote:
"I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effects of religious belief, is positively harmful."
- Letters to a Young Contrarian, (2001)
Like Hitchens, I think religion poisons everything and has been the one great curse upon mankind. If I could, I'd happily tear down every church, mosque, synagogue, temple, shrine or holy place and build schools, science museums, libraries, observatories, art galleries, theatres, gymnasia, dance academies and botanical gardens on the sites.
As I am unable to do so, however, I simply encourage everyone to keep reading, keep thinking, keep laughing, and keep challenging all those who would establish earthly authority in the name of heavenly power.
That's telling 'em ... I have to say my heart has hardened towards the claims of religion as abuse after abuse and the true character of essentialist belief (not just religion but ideology) and its workings have been revealed.
ReplyDeleteStill, amidst the horror are good people who have done small, kind things because of their 'irrational faith' ... but, of course, the faith often merely counters despair at the world for people who would have done kind and good things anyway.
To take the world as it is and still do good and kind things seems beyond the wit of many.