Monday, February 9, 2009

Hey hey friends and neighbors,

It's been a while since I have last posted. Took a little vacation time and spent some time debating those funny fundies out there. It is truly amazing how inconceivable it is that so many people believe in imaginary beings. I sometimes am simply overwhelmed with the credulity that many people show through their faith. Some of these people are otherwise intelligent people. I just don't get it. Well, maybe I do.

Let's chat about this for a minute. There is actually a formula for this indoctrination process. All religious use all or parts of this formula to ensure that the next generation will succumb to the mind-numbing idiocy.

1. Start Young. Religions work on the weakest among us -- children. Take a look around a many of the new churches going up around you. 75% of the space is dedicated to the indoctrination of children. They have children's church, Sunday school, vacation Bible school. Why do religions do this? Because children believe what we tell them. They are not old enough think for themselves. They do not have enough experience to know what is reality and what is not. That is also why we can get them to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. Simply stated, if churches waited until everyone was 21 years old before we started trying to indoctrinate them -- churches would no longer exist. They know that -- so they have to start early.

2. Create Impossible Expectations. All religions are notorious for creating impossible to achieve expectations. We are taught from a young age that there are certain "rights" and "wrongs" in the world. We are expected to live in the "right" and shun all that is "wrong." Sounds fine and dandy -- except the list of wrongs includes impossible items. Let's look at a couple from Christianity. The 10th Commandment is "Thou Shall Not Covet." This is a real bitch. All of the other commandments involve actions. Thou Shall Not Kill. Easy enough, no killing. Thou Shall Not Steal. Okay -- can do, won't steal. But Thou Shall Not Covet? What the fuck? This is a crime of thought -- not action. This says that you are not allowed to want what someone else may have. Impossible! This is simply impossible! Now any reasonable person always wanting what someone else has can lead to any number of issues. However, never wanting? This cannot be done. Another example is lust. It is another crime of thought -- and is impossible to evade. No matter how much we cover up women in burkas, we cannot eliminate lust. Ask any 14 year old boy -- if they are not picturing nearly every female they see naked, something is wrong. The key here is that, again, "God" is asking us to do the impossible.

Once we accept these impossible rules, we realize that without "God's help" there is no way we can meet these rules. Shit, even with "God's help" we cannot meet these rules. We are left with a sense that we are sinful and bad. And that is the crack that religion seeps into. It seeps into our own doubts about our morality and makes us believe that we are sinners -- no matter what. Nothing can stop that because none of us can live up to these silly, artificial, capricious rules.

3. Punishment. Once religion has its hooks into our self-doubt, they double the ante by suggesting that if we do not repent, or act in a certain way, or pay tribute to the church, we are doomed to punishment. Different religions have varying degrees of punishment, but none of it sounds like fun. In fact, in most cases, it is horrible. So now we are not only afraid that we cannot meet the artificial rules, we also have a terrifying punishment for this failure.

Folks, this is evil in its most terrifying degree. Religion has been able to cow people into doing or believing terrible things simply by the threat of punishment after death -- often times eternal punishment.

4. Acceptance. Finally, religions use acceptance to destroy the last shreds of reason in people. They start with kids, create artificial rules, establish torment as the consequence for failing to accept these rules, and then offer acceptance and understanding through the faith. People who are so afraid of this evil, cosmic, sky-god will grab onto anything that makes them feel okay. Religion makes people feel okay. It creates a security barrier between the person and the fear. It's like a drug company making a disease just so they can sell you the cure. If that happened we would call it unmitigated evil and would demand that the purveyors of such an atrocity would be incarcerated. Instead, in this case, we call it religion and seem to consider it good.

That's how it works -- and once the hooks are in -- people are willing to believe just about anything, even at the expense of themselves, their families, and logic. It's pretty terrifying indeed.


That's all for now.

Catch you later.