Finding Bliss...
They say ignorance is bliss, and I am inclined to believe that, as long as you are ignorant to the point of not even knowing there is an alternative. Religion strikes me this same way. I have been told I am wrong but my, deep down in my tiny little heart, personal belief is religions popularity is generated by making people believe that there is more to life after life has ended… you know the after life… no real death. That there is “someone” that cares no matter what kind of jackass you are, and that we are not all just victims of circumstance, it’s all part of some grand plan that “I” am an important part of. Who doesn’t want to be important? Religion appeals to peoples wants kind of like nicotine appeals to a smoker. I can’t buy it though, and I attribute a lot of my cynicism to that. So today I thought I would grind the religion nerve for a little bit. Keep in mind the title of this ‘blog.
So let’s break it all down; what brings about religion? Earlier religions were based around ignorance, “Oh No! The mountain is spewing fire and really hot rocks at us… what do we do???” Instead of telling people to run like hell or at least dodge the hot rocks, responses resembling, “We must have pissed someone with power off!” and “Huddle in groups and apologize to various names until it stops!” where very logical conclusions… and hey if they were far enough away from the volcano, and apologized long enough it would stop while they were still alive. So of course it must have been heard and effective right? And so deities were “Born”. Now after several millennia of various names being prayed to, someone decided he really wanted that kick ass flint tipped spear that Jim Bob made the other day, and said “Hey that’s a nice spear…you know, *insert deity of the period here* talks to me and said you should give me that spear or else.” And so the Priest profession was born. This seems silly or misguided to you? Heard of tithing? Not at all the same you say? Mm hmm…
So now that we understand how it all got started, even though those are not actual events I bet they are “based on actual events”, let’s see where it took us. After a really long time of keeping up with 14 (random number) of their own deities and 200 of the other surrounding cultures deities, someone sat down and said “Shit! This is confusing, I wonder if we can accomplish the same thing with only one Supreme Fear… err entity?” Monotheism was born. And after a long struggle (ie killing any encountered non-believers) a following took root and grew. Ok now that we have over simplified the ignorance of man let’s get on with the Article (yep you guessed it, that’s pronounced Rant also).
The first thing I have to ask is, if you give it some honest thought how much of your religious belief is actually yours? What I mean by that is we are raised to believe things, Mommy and Daddy love us, the world is a sphere (happens to be true), and god is watching. How much of god do you believe because you objectively looked into it as opposed to it being what you were always told was true? I mean how much would it suck if mommy and daddy didn’t love you? Yeah it would suck a lot?
With that in mind let me pose a thought I am sure you have heard before, and if you know me I know you have heard before; Religion is the opiate of the masses. By opiate I don’t mean zombification (I know it’s not a word but you get the idea) I mean control. Religions have been used for as long as there have been religions to keep people from doing stupid anti-productive things like sleeping with the neighbors spouse, and shooting the neighbor for sleeping with your spouse, and all that other stuff people aren’t supposed to do for the sake of successful propagation of the species. To me to think otherwise is a fool’s errand. But hey I am sure it’s nice to believe (I mean really believe) that when you die there will be more. Truth hurts, which by the way makes me think there is no god even more, because it sucks to believe only oblivion awaits us.
Wow that sure was close… I almost went very tangent again *sigh*. So anyway, religion tells us what we want to hear “I am special” someone with infinite knowledge loves me and likes me and wants me. Well isn’t that just peachy. Why would an entity with all that going for him/her/it waste time on a bunch of clumsy self serving creatures such as us? Lets move on to some more religious reference for consideration; so we have an entity that knows all, can be anywhere, is everywhere, but still has some unfulfilled need to be worshiped? That is about as human a trait as I have ever heard, and is completely contrary to the definition of benevolent. How can you say god is not human, is omnipotent then try to apply human traits and ego to him/her/it? You can’t… at least not and survive any close inspection. While I am on the point of omnipotent, why would an omnipotent being have a book of its rules inserted to the masses then allow it to be altered to the point of non-recognition? I mean look at the King James Bible, the Catholic Bible (by the way although Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination, it is not following the original text either, don’t believe me? Look it up… “origins of Catholicism”), the book of Mormons, Jehovah’s witness (can’t remember what it is called), etc. etc. etc… aside from orthodox Jews, pick a group and look into the origin. Then for a real kick in the ass try and see why it was altered, adjusted, “Fixed”, “Improved”, as though we can improve on omnipotence. This particular quest does require objectivity, good luck. Hopefully it will re-affirm what works for you, it didn’t for me.
I don’t want to pick on any one organized religion so I am going to stop here before I get into my preferred rant on Christianity specifically. All of what I have said so far with only one exception (see if you can find it :p) relates to most modern religions worshipping a single entity as the supreme being, bearing in mind that the word god is not just a proper noun.
Closing thought:
You know every culture has believed in a god or gods with the same heartfelt “it’s true whether you believe in it or not”, and still we being the superior “we know better than you” types have come along and forcibly altered their perception to suit our personal comfort zone. Meanwhile the whole time telling people not to ridicule or doubt our beliefs… cause… well we have guns and a Flag! How is it our (in this case I mean European decent races) imaginary friend is more real than theirs? I mean really we have just as much proof as they (non-European decent races) did, less actually… A book is not proof, if it were then where is my Ray Gun™, and my Space Ship, and Dragons I want Dragons damn it!
So let’s break it all down; what brings about religion? Earlier religions were based around ignorance, “Oh No! The mountain is spewing fire and really hot rocks at us… what do we do???” Instead of telling people to run like hell or at least dodge the hot rocks, responses resembling, “We must have pissed someone with power off!” and “Huddle in groups and apologize to various names until it stops!” where very logical conclusions… and hey if they were far enough away from the volcano, and apologized long enough it would stop while they were still alive. So of course it must have been heard and effective right? And so deities were “Born”. Now after several millennia of various names being prayed to, someone decided he really wanted that kick ass flint tipped spear that Jim Bob made the other day, and said “Hey that’s a nice spear…you know, *insert deity of the period here* talks to me and said you should give me that spear or else.” And so the Priest profession was born. This seems silly or misguided to you? Heard of tithing? Not at all the same you say? Mm hmm…
So now that we understand how it all got started, even though those are not actual events I bet they are “based on actual events”, let’s see where it took us. After a really long time of keeping up with 14 (random number) of their own deities and 200 of the other surrounding cultures deities, someone sat down and said “Shit! This is confusing, I wonder if we can accomplish the same thing with only one Supreme Fear… err entity?” Monotheism was born. And after a long struggle (ie killing any encountered non-believers) a following took root and grew. Ok now that we have over simplified the ignorance of man let’s get on with the Article (yep you guessed it, that’s pronounced Rant also).
The first thing I have to ask is, if you give it some honest thought how much of your religious belief is actually yours? What I mean by that is we are raised to believe things, Mommy and Daddy love us, the world is a sphere (happens to be true), and god is watching. How much of god do you believe because you objectively looked into it as opposed to it being what you were always told was true? I mean how much would it suck if mommy and daddy didn’t love you? Yeah it would suck a lot?
With that in mind let me pose a thought I am sure you have heard before, and if you know me I know you have heard before; Religion is the opiate of the masses. By opiate I don’t mean zombification (I know it’s not a word but you get the idea) I mean control. Religions have been used for as long as there have been religions to keep people from doing stupid anti-productive things like sleeping with the neighbors spouse, and shooting the neighbor for sleeping with your spouse, and all that other stuff people aren’t supposed to do for the sake of successful propagation of the species. To me to think otherwise is a fool’s errand. But hey I am sure it’s nice to believe (I mean really believe) that when you die there will be more. Truth hurts, which by the way makes me think there is no god even more, because it sucks to believe only oblivion awaits us.
Wow that sure was close… I almost went very tangent again *sigh*. So anyway, religion tells us what we want to hear “I am special” someone with infinite knowledge loves me and likes me and wants me. Well isn’t that just peachy. Why would an entity with all that going for him/her/it waste time on a bunch of clumsy self serving creatures such as us? Lets move on to some more religious reference for consideration; so we have an entity that knows all, can be anywhere, is everywhere, but still has some unfulfilled need to be worshiped? That is about as human a trait as I have ever heard, and is completely contrary to the definition of benevolent. How can you say god is not human, is omnipotent then try to apply human traits and ego to him/her/it? You can’t… at least not and survive any close inspection. While I am on the point of omnipotent, why would an omnipotent being have a book of its rules inserted to the masses then allow it to be altered to the point of non-recognition? I mean look at the King James Bible, the Catholic Bible (by the way although Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination, it is not following the original text either, don’t believe me? Look it up… “origins of Catholicism”), the book of Mormons, Jehovah’s witness (can’t remember what it is called), etc. etc. etc… aside from orthodox Jews, pick a group and look into the origin. Then for a real kick in the ass try and see why it was altered, adjusted, “Fixed”, “Improved”, as though we can improve on omnipotence. This particular quest does require objectivity, good luck. Hopefully it will re-affirm what works for you, it didn’t for me.
I don’t want to pick on any one organized religion so I am going to stop here before I get into my preferred rant on Christianity specifically. All of what I have said so far with only one exception (see if you can find it :p) relates to most modern religions worshipping a single entity as the supreme being, bearing in mind that the word god is not just a proper noun.
Closing thought:
You know every culture has believed in a god or gods with the same heartfelt “it’s true whether you believe in it or not”, and still we being the superior “we know better than you” types have come along and forcibly altered their perception to suit our personal comfort zone. Meanwhile the whole time telling people not to ridicule or doubt our beliefs… cause… well we have guns and a Flag! How is it our (in this case I mean European decent races) imaginary friend is more real than theirs? I mean really we have just as much proof as they (non-European decent races) did, less actually… A book is not proof, if it were then where is my Ray Gun™, and my Space Ship, and Dragons I want Dragons damn it!
posted by Capt. Obvious at 6:38 AM
5 Comments:
HAHAHAHAHAH... if I thought you were serious I would cry... na no I wouldn't.
"No Really your imaginary friend doesn't scare me" Quote end quote. I still die laughing when I remember that.
Though Harvey is a little upset by this whole religion thing though his long ears and fluffy tail are all bent outa shape, Somthing about kissing his furry ass. I'm pretty sure he's going to smite you as soon as his book is writen and he's omni-poe-tent.
Bring it on Harvey :P I am not afraid of a rabbit.. Trix are for kids after all
Captain I understand where you are coming from. Your argument in my opinion has one fatal flaw. You are confusing organized religion and the will of it's various religious leaders with the will of God.
You say.. God loves us all so much that we get to burn in hell if we don't kiss his ass. What could be better than that?
God never said anything like that to my knowledge. Not that I'm an authority on the subject but I have given it some thought. That is the number 1 reason that I don't belong to a church. Interesting subject.
Hi all, this is Madcap. Having trouble logging in. First I would like to say to OOB, Captain didn't say "God loves us all so much that we get to burn in hell if we don't kiss his ass. What could be better than that?", I did. That is the sentiment of Protestant Christianity. That you do not deserve salvation and you can't earn it, but God is gracious enough to give it to you provided you declare him your savior and live by his rules. Now you make a statement saying that organized religion is different than the will of God. How do you know that? Essentially, your declaration that current organized religions have it wrong and you have a better way is the first step down the path of creating a new organized religion. If you dispute a doctrine by saying God never said that, how can you be sure? Is God talking to you directly? Because those voices in your head can be quieted with Thorazine.
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