Religion is Ridiculous

I was talking to a religious person the other day. They spoke with 100% confidence. Then I thought about how atheists, myself included, tiptoe around religious people. We don’t want to offend them. It’s the same feeling you get when talking about Santa Claus around kids.

I’m done with that. Religion is ridiculous. There is no god. I’m not even capitalizing the word anymore. There is no heaven.

The ONLY reason that anyone believes in these fictions is because of tradition and information being passed down through generations.

Think about this. If the history of religion was wiped from the face of this earth, and our current population had to figure out why we’re here and what’s going on, how much of it would we logically deduce down to the sorts of fables religion thrusts upon us?

None.

We look back on the funny things in history, like the Greeks attributing everything to their specialized gods, and wonder how they could be so naive. Then we turn on the TV and see Obama and McCain talking about their FAITH. In this day and age, religion is a major factor in who runs our country.

Insanity. Sometimes I think about the fact that a HUGE chunk of our population actually believes that there’s a man in the sky who is listening to their prayers and decides whether or not to grant these prayers based on a number of factors, including how often they pray for it.

This isn’t an attack on religious people, by the way. Some of the smartest people I know are religious. Not all of them, not most of them, but some of them. The best way I can reconcile this is by saying that smart people can believe dumb things. No one thinks that anything they believe is dumb, but we can all think of things we USED to believe were dumb.

Everyone has incorrect beliefs, and always will. For some people it’s the belief in religion. On one hand the whole thing is totally preposterous, but on the other hand there are certain families or communities where NOTHING is pushed as hard and confidently on a child as religion. Logic isn’t always the number one determinant of belief, even if it should be.

I also wouldn’t actually wish for religion to be erased from the Earth. I know that some people get a ton out of it. Some people need external moral compasses. Church can be a really good community, especially in a day and age where traditional communities are virtually non-existent.

I don’t want to convince anyone to not be religious, either. Let people believe what they want.

All I’m saying is this: religious is ridiculous, but it’s even more ridiculous to be quiet when Christians bring up their beliefs. Amen.