CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLEMAN

Let's talk about religion.

Robert, in his latest and likely soon to be removed post published this:

"Called to Search for God (27-28)

God has placed a desire for himself in every person. He draws man to himself and facilitates man's search. Man is called to speak with God and be in communion with him (Second Vatican Council)." From the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As I am the designated shopper I set off to Pak n Save Lower Hutt. If God wants me to face a terrorist then so be it. I knew as a Catholic that I need not worry. God protects his own! Then I went to the tip and bought KFC."

OK, probably the only thing that made sense in that was the fact that he went to the tip (New Zealand term for rubbish dump) to buy KFC for his dinner.

As you know, a lot of what Christianity and other religions say is confusing and basically makes no sense.

I bet if you were to pick any religion at all, and their subsets, you will quickly come across tautologies, fabrications, inconsistencies, misrepresentations and dubious concepts.

I recently read Sam Harris discussing some of the silliest things that are part of the major religions.

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"What does Sam Harris think of religion?

— Sam Harris rejects the dichotomy between spirituality and rationality, favouring a middle path that preserves spirituality and science but does not involve religion. He writes that spirituality should be understood in light of scientific disciplines like neuroscience and psychology."

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Here are some of the silly things paraphrased:

Religious groups are like gangs. They invent and use gang-type symbols to demonstrate their superiority over other gangs  religious groups. Think of gang patches, clothing, hairstyles, language and paraphernalia including weapons and vehicles and then think of the arcane trappings of religion with gang patches,  religious motifs, clothing, hairstyles, language and paraphernalia including weapons and vehicles  religious icons, trinkets, medals and, I guess, the popemobile.

 Most religious groups have a kind of glorified suffering incorporated into their strange practices. 

Monks flagellate themselves. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during  festivals.

Asceticism and fasting and other forms of deprivation are used in both eastern and Western religions because religious people believe that through suffering can they be closer to their god(s). 

Most religions have a built in process for handling heretics, infidels or unbelievers - read atheists here.

Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt and, depending on the time in history or political state should be outed, ousted, banished or killed.

Holy Wars have been waged forever. The medieval Roman Catholic Church exterminated heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries, most recently in conflicts in Iraq. All sanctioned by the god of choice of the dominant faction. Divine sanction lets them kill the elderly and children and take virgin females as sexual slaves—all while retaining a sense of moral superiority. This is happening now in Afghanistan by ISIS and The Taliban.

Blasphemy is a catch-all 'sin' that has the precept that some ideas are inviolable and cannot be criticised.

They are not allowed to be satirised or questioned. Think about Robert's silly notions of faith and that ridiculous concepts don't have to be scientifically explained or proved as long as you have faith that 'god will provide'. It's just as well that he doesn't own a Kalashnikov (he doesn't does he?). The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers.  The Quran is not as explicit but radical Islamists have misinterpreted it and advocated similar sanctions as Christianity: death to unbelievers became part of Shariah during medieval times and as practised by Iranians and other Muslims - see the attacks on French satirists in recent times. The idea that blasphemy must be wiped out has resulted in millions of murders over the centuries. 

Blood sacrifice was the norm in all forms of religion from ancient Aztecs to modern Christians (e.g. Spain)  Hindus and  Muslims continue to ritually slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale even though Hindu sacred texts forbid it. Christians mock Satanism and Black Masses but blindly attend Mass each week and 'eat' the body of Christ and 'drink' his blood. How weird is that?

Our ancestors lived in times when people had no way to control or, in many cases, prevent pain. Pain killers that we take for granted would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to accept it and make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering—turning it into a spiritual good—has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including children, slaves and the ill or dying. 

Hell, whether the  Christian,  Islamic or Buddhist original versions consisted of an afterlife of eternal  torment variously filled with demons and monsters.  Torture was the worst suffering that Medieval religious people could come up with to control the behaviour of the masses and became a means of coercing behaviour and belief.
Most Buddhists see hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self but many Muslims and Christians believe that it is a real place, full of pain and suffering for sinners and non-believers.

Male Ownership of Female Fertility – The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs. -  Sam Harris

All of this (and a whole lot of other stuff) makes me think that if there was a god, or gods, then they've stuffed up. Instead of creating a perfect world they created a faulty one that is full of violence, hunger, poverty, sickness and .... sin. Just about all of the gods, via their respective religions, over time have had to try and fix things along the way - sort of like putting on a band aid. If gods are so perfect, as religions tell us, why didn't they get it sorted straight away and, if there was a stuff up then fix it properly kind of like doing a computer reset.

This 'God protects his own!' crap that Robert, and the other religious nutters espouse is just plain silly. Why can't they face the fact that they're backing losers. Maybe we just need to cut out these 'middlemen'.

Take Christianity as a case in point. According to christianity's own writings and teachings god stuffed up. He created an imperfect world in which mankind is flawed. Sinners in other words. Instead of just doing a reset - wiping everything out and starting again he sent his son (via a very silly and convoluted way) to fix things - by dying for mankind's sins. 

OK, that wasn't the cleverest idea. It was like sending the trainee computer guy to fix a really big computer but, accepting that it was a done deal, why didn't this fix all of the sin thing including poverty, famine, pain and suffering, violence and wars, crime, etc.? Why, even after that grandstanding event do new people, born every day, start out with sins? Someone didn't do a very good job of wiping and cleaning them up. I use 'Clean My Mac' as a computer cleaner, uninstaller and speed booster. It does a better job that Jesus did, let me tell you.