Religion and Atheism.

All over the blogosphere i see people posting various 'I'm an atheist... blah blah blah' So i thought i would add my own views on the subject - which of course i will back up with facts that i pretty much make up on the spot. Of course i will use reason and common sense - before you atheists close this, I am an atheist myself so it's not going to be a Jesus fest.

Issue 1 - the bible

Recently I saw an article about how Christian's basically believe anything written in the bible and follow it like a to do list. This is not the case, especially in western culture where religion takes quite a back seat in day to day living more so in the UK and northern Europe than the United States. In fact in western culture i think it is only Evangelical Christians who follow the bible word for word. In Western culture i really don't think society cares about people being atheist or not where as in eastern countries atheism carries a death penalty. on a side note, i love how ironic religion is - they have to enforce their beliefs by penalty of death even though by their beliefs the only judgement you should receive is that of your God.

It is also relevant to point out that the stronger a peoples belief in religion the less developed their country is with a poorer standard of living. For example - northern Europeans have the highest standard of living with religion hardly effecting their day to day life. In African countries religion is strong as faith gives the people something to distract them from their lives, it gives them hope and strength.

In summary, The bible was written by humans - not by God.

Issue 2 - motives for religious belief.

Allot of people i know who call themselves 'Atheists' have had the same upbringing as me. My parents left me to come up with my own beliefs and for that, I am eternally thankful. I don't know anyone (i don't mean they don't exist) who left to their own will chose to be religious.

As a child growing up i felt no presence of God and I still don't now, that doesn't mean i dispute the existence of a God. I don't have the knowledge available to make such a statement. No one has a true understanding of what space is, it's limits, it's scale etc - So i think it's a fairly stupid statement for me to say 'there is no god' with 100% certainty considering my minuscule presence in existence and my human knowledge which if history has told us anything isn't reliable or very vast.

I have a habit of running away on thoughts, basically to conclude the 'as a child...' statement - We have no god, no divine presence watching us and showering us in his love. If you raised children free from outside influences they would be atheist, would live and die happily as humans.

to re-conclude my poor conclusion, religion is a man made object - a man made god.

I don't disapprove of religion. As humans we all desire the same things - Peace, Freedom, Happiness, Wellness and Fulfillment. The Ideals of religion are fine, basically the former desires i stated (although Fulfilment is pretty general)

Religion is a good thing on paper, but so is Communism and they are quite similar in a number of ways. As i said, the ideals are good but two factor messes the system up a bit:

1) Money (profit)
2) a voiceless God.

If as individuals and as a species we weren't all looking for the profit (cancer research, global warming, etc) then we could fulfil our basic wants as a society and as a species. Profit, control and power starts new religions and is the reason for religious war.

If there was no God but a mutual understanding of what we as humans want and how to treat each other so that we can live in peace without murdering and raping each other - but the vision of our species working together like that is just ridiculous.

Here is the thing about my belief in religion - the main reason i don't believe in a religion is why would we only be enlightened 2000 years ago? we went for hundreds of thousands of years without the world religions we see today. Surely if any religions were true it would be the first religions? The religions bestowed upon us after our creation.

Issue 3 - Foundations of religion

For my third and probably last issue i would like to talk about the foundations of religion. To my understanding religion is based on fear and created as a way to control 'the people'.

The fear? Death i assume - although i really find nothing scary about dying, of course i want to live but to me death is nothing to fear. If we where to live forever, what would living be?

Thus heaven and hell are created, people are afraid to die so give them something to take away that fear and in turn give them something to die for. Hell, if they fail your 'holly' commands they will be punished for eternity.

I mentioned controlling the people. I already mentioned one type of control 'Give them something to die for' A perfect example would be the crusades, the pope himself told commoners, peasants, murderers and criminals that going to the holy land and killing would cleanse their soul and grant them free access to heaven. win - win, the promise of plunder, women to rape and people to slaughter in exchange for bliss in the afterlife.

Another aspect of control would be marriage - I'm all in favour of marriage but the reasons for marriage go against human nature and our animal instincts. The creation of marriage in short was during a time when women where not as plentiful as men and a randy king wanted lots as his concubines and of course a spoiled woman isn't fit for a king.

On a final note I'd like to say I'm not a fan of the 'I'm and atheist' club, your religious views are personal, please keep them to yourself. Inflicting your beliefs that there are no god is just as bad if not worse than religious believers inflicting their beliefs on you.

That's it on my religious rant for now.

Thanks for reading

Sam