Today I'd like to say a few words about faith which I think has the potential to enslave us all by stealth. Because I think faith is a very dangerous and misleading word; it contains two completely separate entities which have got nothing at all to do with each others. One is good and one is evil. One is called spirituality and the other is called religion. One is a private experience, the other is a public nuisance. One needs to self knowledge, the other to self indulgence at everyone else's expense. In one there is no compulsion whereas the other depends on compulsion for its survival. One is grounded in innocence the other in guilt. One embraces life, the other worship death. It's hard to imagine how these two things could be anymore different, yet for some reason they're always sold to us together in a single package under the banner of faith; If you take one you've got to take the other, a bit like a pet shop giving away a free rattlesnake with every bunny rabbit. Now I'm not saying that there isn't more to this life than meets the eye, because there obviously is. Science has already shown us that in the subatomic world it turns out that nothing is actually solid, if you can understand that, and some particles are so unpredictable we're not even sure if they exist or not. They seem to be there and not be there at the same time, a bit like western democracy, or is that just me? But anyway, it's clear that we are part of a reality that we don't fully understand. If there's a life force in this universe, and let's face it there must be, otherwise there wouldn't be any life, it's natural that we would want to make some connection with it because everybody wants to feel more alive, right? But there's no evidence that it requires worshiping or any form of subservient behavior, or that we are in anyway central to its agenda or even relevant to it anymore than any other organism on the planet, or in the universe, this universe or any other universe. So in that sense I think we really need to get over ourselves BIG TIME. Also we need to stop pretending that all the man-made trappings of faith, the ornamental accessories, if you like, aren't really anything more than just that, I'm talking about scripture, dogma, ritual, prophecy, religious laws, all these things that have been put there to give religion some kind of structure, and to be fair that's why they're there isn't it? It's a bit like dressing the invisible man, once he's got some clothes on, you can see him, but of course you don't see him, you see the clothes. And that's the problem, everyone's become so obsessed with the god damn clothes we've forgotten if there was ever anyone there in the first place. If you're a spiritual person, you don't need religion, and you know it. And you're certainly not interested in forcing your beliefs onto anybody else. If you're not a spiritual person, then what the bloody hell are you doing on your knees praying like an idiot, like some dog that's been taught how to do something without understanding why. Get up and stop making a fool of yourself, because your faith is not a virtue, it's a vice. It's a slave to dogma, to scriptural certainties which are nevertheless open to self-interested interpretation by men. Now I'm sure even you can see the obvious flaw in that little arrangement. Also faith in its Alice In Wonderland way defines and measures itself according to lack of evidence; the less evidence there is, the more faith is required and the more worthy it is of respect and deference for some reason, not to mention large amounts of public money, generous tax-breaks and the freedom to fill the minds of innocent young children with violent superstitions and baseless fears. And this to me really is the curse of faith. And it's something that shames us all from generation to generation, it's the cowardly way that we allow religion to be forced onto children in a clear violation of their human rights, hypnotizing them almost at birth, hijacking their life and turning them into little Christians, little Muslims, little Jews before they have a chance to understand the first thing that's involved. Oh, we live in such a civilized times in the 21st century, don't we? Human rights there, everything to us. We fall over ourselves to give compensation to every cheap-chancer, every low-life criminal scumbag whose precious feelings have been hurt but we don't give a damn about the right of children having their minds molded and stunted by others before they've had a chance to fully form like dead heading flowers before they bloom. It's a crime against humanity, it's what it is, and one day it will be against the law. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPG3-1gogXU
pat condell always hits the nail on the head. This is spot on; "If you're a spiritual person, you don't need religion, and you know it. And you're certainly not interested in forcing your beliefs onto anybody else. If you're not a spiritual person, then what the bloody hell are you doing on your knees praying like an idiot, like some dog that's been taught how to do something without understanding why. Get up and stop making a fool of yourself, because your faith is not a virtue, it's a vice. It's a slave to dogma, to scriptural certainties which are nevertheless open to self-interested interpretation by men."
According to University of Hawaii political scientist Rudolph J. Rummel, 1 the total number killed in all of human history is estimated to be about 284,638,000. Of that number, 151,491,000 were killed during the past 100 years. The single largest killer in all of human history is, by far, atheistic Communism with a total of 110,000,000 … over 1/3 of all people ever killed! If we add to that number just two other regimes where religion of any sort was strongly discouraged, Nazi Germany and Nationalist China, the number rises to 141,160,000. Almost 50% of all the killings in human history were committed in the past 100 years by regimes that either actively promoted atheism or strongly discouraged religion. We have not considered the over one billion abortions, where Christianity seems to be particularly unwelcome. When the murders of history are tallied up, it is very clear that atheism is the most dangerous philosophy ever embraced by humanity. The most effective restraint on mankind's inherently evil tendencies is faith in God through Jesus Christ, a faith that actually follows the teachings and commands of Jesus Christ as a daily way of life. 1 http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM (all stats have come from this site) People who think like you have killed more innocent men,women, and children than any faith in all history. Just so ya know.
If I wanted to, I could thoroughly debunk this and I am sure many others could do an even better job, but that's not worth my time. What does kill, however, and what does cause violence, is in fact, ignorance. Ignorance, ego and INTOLERANCE. You would be nothing more than a collectivist also, to say that one side is more intolerant than the other. But you can ask yourself, who would be more tolerant: an athiest or someone religious. Most likely depends on education. So you see, it isn't any one religion or absence of religion that kills more than the other, but the very fact that you have to bring that up, and show that what you believe in is superior to all else, is indicative of ignorance and most likely, intolerance. Just so ya know .
There are a number of errors in that dishonest, Wildly off-topic tripe regurgitated by Ckrismoney. Firstly is the use of the word "atheistic communism". this is a phrase made up by people who want to tie atheism in with any other event or ideology that they know people will object to. it's done to make people say "well i don't like communism, So i can't like atheistic communism, And atheism must be intrinsically communistic". Obviously this is dishonest and fallacious, But Ckrismoney doesn't seem to like integrity and honesty and will push any lie as long as it supports his preconceived idea of reality (how so typically christian). It would be like saying "christian paedophilia" when talking about the obscenely high rates of sexual child abuse committed by members of the clergy. The clergy members don't abuse children BECAUSE they are christian, Just like atheist dictators don't kill people BECAUSE they were atheist. Unfortunately, For christians, The same can't be said about the crusades. The crusades were specifically BECAUSE of religion. Secondly is the statement; "Almost 50% of all the killings in human history were committed in the past 100 years". Does anyone actually believe this crap? 50% of all killings in human history, A time span of about 150,000 years, Was done in the last 100 years? Even if the murder rate has remained the same throughout history this is still inconceivable and patently inaccurate. So let's look at the murder rate throughout human history. The archaeologist Laurence Keeley found that in primitive tribes there was a 60% chance that your death would be at the hands of another man. 60% of ALL people were murdered. Since then violence has decreased rapidly, And even more rapidly since the age of reason and the enlightenment, A time when people put down religious books and thought "maybe all the stuff is complete shit" and started thinking for themselves. You are entitled to your own opinion, But you aren't entitled to your own version of reality. Steve Pinker done a great talk at TED about the decrease in violence. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/163