A short article from my new blog The God Virus. The entire article is here, no need to follow the link unless you're curious about the site This is my first foray into writing on or about religion for public consumption. The conclusions I draw here are all very basic; I'm not saying anything that a good amount of us have already figured out. Enjoy and debate! Is your god a virus? The short answer: an emphatic yes. If you believe in a monotheistic god, you believe in a fantasy concocted by humankind. I could spend hours writing articles explaining why this is true, but for the purpose of answering this question, that isn’t necessary. Your god is a virus because, although it doesn’t exist, the belief in it has only negative repercussions. I’ll introduce two facts to make my case: - Many millions of people have been killed in the name of one god or another. - A belief in a monotheistic god, because it doesn’t exist, simply clouds and distracts the human mind from reality. These two points are of equal importance. If the death, destruction and hatred spread in the name of your god isn’t enough to convince you (and it obviously isn’t), then take a moment to consider yourself and your place in life. Imagine for a moment that, instead of wasting your time praying or preaching, you spent your free time giving your fellow men and women the attention that you typically reserve for your god. Even if you are a passive Christian or Muslim (or subscribe to any other foolish theology), take a second to realize the mental and spiritual growth that you are neglecting and therefore not experiencing, simply because you’ve closed your mind to any other line of reasoning. Your god is a virus, and that virus exists only in your mind. Your god is a virus because, so long as you waste your time on supernatural foolishness, you neglect the potential truths that are out there waiting for you. What are those truths? - There is no god that we are aware of in any way. If a single higher power does exist, it has never shown itself to you or anyone, ever. - Your time would be much better spent stretching your mind and learning about the spiritual greatness that exists within you. - Humankind has always suffered at the hands of you and your fellow believers; religion, because it is a lie, is inherently wrong. The end of religion would the single largest forward stride for humankind in recognizing that we are all the same and that we owe ourselves and each other the respect and reverence that so many of us reserve for a fictional god instead. Your god is a virus because your god is false. There are obviously great and unanswerable mysteries that accompany our time in this life, and covering up those mysteries with a simple fairy tale is the worst possible thing that we could do to ourselves. Instead, we should reach within ourselves and out to one another with a message of peace and love for the sake of peace and love. We don’t need to have all of the answers; we simply have to make the very best of the answers that we do have. A belief in a monotheistic god is an illness of the mind, a plague that has tortured humankind for thousands and thousands of years. That belief keeps you from asking the important questions of yourself and the people around you. That belief acts as sword and shield for many believers, corrupting their minds so thoroughly that they believe they should shed blood in the name of their god. Organized religion is simply a farce that has gone on too long. Your god is a virus because your belief in that god, at the very least, causes you to close your mind to the truths that are available to us. Spiritual exploration is one of the most important practices that we can take up in this life and a whole-hearted belief that you already know everything there is to know is stupid, naive, self-important, and dangerous.
We also use God as an explanation for things we don't understand. Like if you don't know how gravity works , you can just say God is pushing everything down with his hands.
I wish it were that easy with everyone You're absolutely correct! My point here is that we should have evolved past that by now. Science and modern spirituality have completely debunked organized religion for some time now, yet there are billions of fundamental believers out there. It takes nothing but a clear mind to begin to figure things out; clearing out the minds is the difficult part.
Pretty much all religions generally have a shared belief that there is higher power - there is no argument there. However, the crap starts to hit the fan with the prophets. Unfortunately mankind made this bed, so now we must all lay in it...
The crap starts to hit the fan with any belief in any obviously false god, from Christians to Muslims. The crap has continued to hit the fan for thousands of years.
Did you ever read "snow crash"? In it there is a computer virus that spread to humans in the form of a religion, initially you have to able to program computers to get it, but once people where infected they could spread it to non-programmers, which formed a cult
Ironically, no I haven't - the name of the site and article is just coincidence. I'll look into it though, it sounds interesting!
But the two religions in question are simply lies and falsehoods at their base; no need to even mention the prophets.
interesting read, but it has no validity what-so-ever at all. taking scripture out of context is easy to do and doesn't take any thought. I could find reasons to kill people if I wanted to, just by taking things out of context.
The real point of the article is that the 'scripture' is simply a set of instructions for the believers written by men. Why would you worship words written by some guy down the street, let alone kill for them?
I never said there wasn't a god; I said that there wasn't a god that any of us are aware of. I'm humble enough to admit that I just don't know, but I'm intelligent and introspective enough to leave it at that instead of latching onto an alternate theory (no matter how utterly foolish it is).
I think that I'm one of the most "aware" people I know, but that awareness stems from my humility in the face of things that I simply cannot understand. My awareness and the growth of that awareness would simply end if I placed all of that wonder and nature at the feet of "god". I believe that organized religions such as Christianity and Islam simply cause people to stop looking any further into themselves - and that is where all of the answers to our spiritual questions are!
What a crock of shit! It is ignorant of you to assume that you know anything for certain. I am not going to say whether God is real or not. You do not believe in God. And you may or may not be right. But for you to emphatically state that God does not exist is rediculous. But your mind does not have the the depth or scope to make that determination.(No one's does) You only have the ability to believe or not believe. I have noticed in my life that intellegent person's generally have the ability to say "I don't know" or "It is my belief that..." But to assume you know the unknowable is the mark of ignorance.
Only if that was your choice. It isnt necessary to follow these religions to have a belief in God - and I somewhat reluctantly agree with you there, but it isnt true for everyone.
Myself and others have the right to assume that god does not exist, same as you have the right to assume god does exist.