Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Alternate Reality?


CBS News is not normally my go-to source but this description of the scene at the Rowan County courthouse makes me feel like I'm there, so props to the anonymous scribe.

Because most people are religious in some way, and I am unable to comprehend religious experience or understand why anybody would literally believe in religious teachings, I suppose I must have a form of disability. Maybe it's an autistic spectrum disorder. And it's not for lack of a proper education. My uncle was a minister and my mother taught Sunday school. We went to church every Sunday, I was in the Christmas pageants and I was even thinking about confirmation and then it occurred to me that it is all a total crock. Which should be obvious to anybody.

Let me just make a few points to Ms. Davis and her fans, which I'm sure would bounce off them like nerf balls. But what the heck.

In the first place, if God in fact doesn't like homosexuals (despite having, you know, created them) and doesn't want same sex couples to marry, why do you have to get involved? Can't God take care of his own problems? If all these sinners go to hell or whatever, it doesn't affect you. God's on the job, right?

In the second place, how do you know what God wants you to do? If you find it in the Bible, he wants widows to marry their brothers-in-law, as a second, third, or fourth wife. Also, men can have sex slaves ("concubines") in addition to their wives. So what are you planning to do about that?

In the third place, just for one example, same sex marriage has been happening in Massachusetts since May 17, 2004, and so far God has not gotten around to smiting what remains one of the most prosperous places on earth.

I do not see how anybody can avoid noticing that religion is just made up. There are thousands of different religions and not one of them has any way of distinguishing its truth claims from the claims of any other. The only reason you pertain to any given religion and believe what you believe is because you were indoctrinated as  child. The person next to you was indoctrinated differently, and therefore has a different religion. It's completely arbitrary. Some Christians think same sex marriage is fine. God hasn't smitten them either.

I could go on but I just don't get it. What I am proposing here is just common sense. How can anybody with an otherwise functional brain not see it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Religion reminds me of sports. You know how some people are so identified with their teams they go on exuberant rampages after a win (or a loss). I see it as part of the primitive brain, only requiring the simplest of function and hardly any thought at all.

roger said...

your last sentence says it all