I've seen a couple of religious rants, preachings, etc scattered throughout my life the past several days and I decided as an athiest to explain why I think there is no such thing as a god and why I'm against organized religion. If you are a religious person and are reading this I'm not going to sit here and hate on religion in the sense that I'm going to make claims like "God is dumb and so is everyone who believes in one", I'm going to try and rationally explain the reasoning that lead me to believe there is no god and why I struggle to understand why people do believe in a god. I will also try to express why I am against organized religion. If you feel you'd be offended by this then, stop reading. Simple yes?
Lets start with why I don't think there is a God. First of all lets take a look at the origin of religion and the steps its taken as its evolved. Ancient people had very primitive science with no means to explain natural phenomena such as tornados or lightning. Unable to provide any logical reason for tornados and the like people invented a reason, something was angry at them, the gods. The whole concept of Gods and deities originated because people were unable to explain very simple natural occurences that we can explain today.
That then brings me to my next point, the evolution of God. Most early religions were polytheistic and now today most major religions are monotheistic. Somewhere along the line something had to change yes? The earliest religions like Zorastrianism are now nearly extinct while newer religions like Christianity and Judaism came to be. Greek Mythology is now considered just that, mythology, but to the Greeks it was just as true as Christianity is to Christains. There are so many different religions out there from Islam to Christianity to Judaism to Shintoism to Bhuddism to Hinduism to Daoism and so on. How can any member of any of those groups claim "we're the ones who are right, all the other religions have it wrong". And even if one of those religions were right and all the others were wrong does that mean everyone who was raised believing in the wrong god is doomed to eternal damnation? To me it just doesn't make any sense.
In addition to that the effect religion has had on people even in this modern era can range from silly to ridiculous. The fact that, I'm not sure of the exact statistic, but a ridiculous amount of the Republican party candidates for the presidency raised their hands when asked if they did not believe in evolution is extraordinary to me. There is so much scientific evidence to suggest that evolution is how things happen in this world that to believe otherwise would be almost outright insane. Even if evolution isn't correct, creationism is (and this might be the one direct shot I take at specific religions) absolute insanity. Creationism should've died the second the first fossil was discovered but no, to this day it's widely believed in some places and it certainly plagues the republican party. I consider myself a moderate politically and I can say I'm not a fan of Bush or Obama and many of Obama's policies concern me very much but the Democrats are going to continue to dominate elections until the Republicans stop walking around preaching because outside of the bible belt no one actually takes them seriously anymore. They need to stop being the party that caters to angry old men and go back to their fiscally conservative roots. Back on topic with Relgion however I was told that in some states creationism is required to be taught along side evolution in biology classes. So much for separation of church and state.
The idea that what I believe to be a fictional deity is so influencial in people's actions and every day behavior is both crazy and frightening to me. People making decisions because they "heard the voice of god" when what they should be doing is getting checked for schitzophrenia because they're hearing voices in their heads. More importantly many of these people who make claims like this are the ones with signifigant power (Bush). I have no problems with the message that Religion is at its heart trying to preach, be kind, be moral, etc but people have warped religion into something evil and monstrous. Religion has been a justification for countless wars and acts of violence, the crusades, 9/11 (something I could witness from my own back yard, I also knew someone who's father was killed), the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the holocaust (although this should probably be considered more genetic than religious), human sacrifices ontop of Aztec temples. The list is far to long to write up completely.
What started as a means to explain the unknown mutated into a (perfectly acceptable) message of benevolence and was then further mutated into a corrupt means to do harm onto eachother. I'm an athiest, I don't believe in God, that doesn't make me some sort of heathanistic puppy slaughtering satan worshipping psychopath like some very religious people might think. I mean I'm no saint but I'm not completely amoral either. There's no reason people need a man in a robe to tell them how to live their lives. People should live life, experience situations, and construct their own moral codes based upon those experiences. People should be taught moral codes from their parents, not that blowing themselves up and 20 other people on a bus will lead them straight to eternal paradise. Without religion the world wouldn't fall into chaos in fact I think it'd be a better place as religion sprouts so much violence that its reached the point of absolute insanity.
People fear the unknown and people are curious creatures. We can't help ourselves but to wonder what comes after life and many seek answer through religion. The truth is we really have no feaking clue. Priest X will preach one thing and Monk Y will preach another. People shouldn't look to these figures for answers, they should live life to the fullest and discover their own answers to the mystery of life. I don't believe in an afterlife, it doesn't mean I sit cowering in fear at the concept of death. Sure I'm not looking forward to the day I die but its going to come eventually and when it does that's the only time I'll ever find the real truth. Who knows maybe I'm just spouting total nonsense right now and there is a heaven. In that case, awesome. I just don't see it happening that way though.
God was invented as a means to explain simple phenomena and god has come in so many forms over the years how can anyone claim to be right. The truth is we can't really know for sure but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest the presence of a higher being. If there is a higher being it certainly isn't personally involved in everyone's life like many people want to claim. All in all I see no proof, just a supersticious explanation and that is why I don't believe in God or religion.
(athiests are the most mistrusted group in America. Kind of ridiculous that me not believing in something someone else does means I should be mistrusted. Kind of like a 4 year old not trusting their parents because they told them there was no boogeyman)
