Of Religion and Faith

Apart from our use of fire and our own consciousness, Religion is the only thing that separates us as humans from other animals. I have never heard of an animal that sops what it is doing five distinct and separate times a day so that it can talk (telepathically, no less) to a city that is several thousand miles away. I have never heard of any animal who is circumcised by its birth-parents, without a say in the matter. Nor have I ever heard of an animal who tells another animal all that it did wrong that week in an effort to please an invisible man in the sky.

All three of these are religious activities. All of these are activities participated in by the three monotheistic religions. All three of these are a waste of otherwise valuable time.

Now, while having your own personal faith might be good for you, it is no the only way to do things. And while your way might work for you, nobody is more qualified than another person to tell whether or not it will work for said other person.

In short, I am "pro-Private-Faith", but "Anti-Religion". While faith might give people the social and moral stability that they need and crave, religion propogates stagnation. If some people wish to meet once a week, twice a week, or once a day then it does no harm to me. But when these meetings start to encourage people to convert others, to actively try and convert people, then these meetings are harmful to me.

I am all for Freedom of Religion, but in the end, when one person infringes upon the rights of another, the first person's rights end where the second person's begin.

I do, however, feel that nothing should presently be done to end religion. I feel this way because of two reasons. The first is that doing so would be bringing an injustice against theists.

The second reason is that the current trend in the world is for atheism to spread. This is happening because atheists are going out and spreading rationality, it is also because rational thinking is starting to spread. (On the notes of atheists "converting" people, I've never heard of an atheist doing anything more than a persuasive argument to try and "convert" someone.)

People are not tied to racks and stretched until they admit that they are fools and that they should start thinking rationally. Wars have never been waged for rational reasons. A society has never been hurt because its citizens became too rational. Nobody has ever disowned his or her child because he or she was not an atheist.

As said before, atheism is the next, logical step in an evolving society. The more dependent on science a society is, the more prone to atheism it is.

Please leave comments of your own opinion. If you wish for me to talk about something in a future post, please be sure to email me at billvoltage@alltel.net. Please include the words "Tolerance and Peace" in the subject line, so that it is not kicked back by my SPAM filter. Thank you.