"Heaven" stands for every religion's greatest promise, the 'highest attainable good'. Even Buddhism sells ‘enlightenment’ as the antidote to a suffering ego. But the promise of some ‘eternal reward' only works when it is threatened by a highly undesirable counterpart. This is what ‘hell’ in general stands for.
To avoid hell, many believers find that living 'a good life' is not good enough, they should also help ‘non-believers’ find their faith. With most adults already firmly settled in their own belief-system, the religious aim for most gullible amongst us; indoctrinating children. But kids grow up and start to wonder, particularly about things that seem to contradict common sense. Like Santa Claus. There are no rational counterarguments to science, so science itself must be denied to uphold the religious narrative. Foisted guilt, the pressure of the community, and mass-delusion are powerful tools to suppress individual, independent critical thinking. ‘Speaking in tongues’ is just one example of believers openly acting totally insane, but somehow this practice is still acceptable in modern western Christian churches. Deranged religious mass-hysteria can be found anywhere, with the yearly “Ashura festival" in Iran as one of the most gruesome, blood-thirsty examples.
Those are still relatively innocent consequences. People creating some rules for themselves, what’s wrong with that? But the real damage happens below the surface. Corruption is literally at the foundation of the Catholic church. Financial extortion is the blatant businessmodel of Scientology. Bankrupting followers makes them more dependent on the church. Many mega-churches rake up huge profits from ‘donations’, their priests flying around in private jets, without having to pay any taxes. Apparently God needs money, and a lot of it. And he doesn’t like women. Most holy books explicitly mention the ‘inferior' nature of women, which is reflected in their treatment. Homo-sexuality is of course even lower, and forbidden by almost all religious doctrines. Sexuality in general is a very uncomfortable subject for the most pious amongst us. Merely feeling lust can already be sinful, and God can see inside your brain… This often leads to frustration, unbearable guilt, and in too many cases; sexual abuse. When accusations arise, the religious communities often tend to protect the abuser and expel the victim, in a desperate attempt to cover up their ungodly mess. Sometimes, it’s the genitalia themselves that deem to be cut out, literally. Millions of teen-aged muslim girls and jewish boys worldwide are mutilated with knives, often screaming in panic in front of their families, leaving them traumatized for life. But hey, at least their God is pleased.
Obviously, someone who dug this deep into delusion can still see large parts of the world do not abide by His Holy Rules. They dream of guaranteed victory and some eternal glorious place besides Him, which sometimes justifies using violence. This is at the base of almost all acts of terrorism, and therefor also most wars..
These are all consequences of what I call the “Drain of Blind Faith”.
The word “blind” is imperative here, because it’s not (the belief in) God that poisons religion. And not simply because he doesn’t exist. For most believers, their religion offers hope, inspiration, community, wisdom, tradition, consolation and celebration. All very valuable aspects of life! It only becomes "blind" faith when upholding some religious belief or practice requires the contradiction of common sense, while obviously doing more harm than good. In order to justify that, believers around the world all use similar excuses.
The word “blind” is imperative here, because it’s not (the belief in) God that poisons religion. And not simply because he doesn’t exist. For most believers, their religion offers hope, inspiration, community, wisdom, tradition, consolation and celebration. All very valuable aspects of life! It only becomes "blind" faith when upholding some religious belief or practice requires the contradiction of common sense, while obviously doing more harm than good. In order to justify that, believers around the world all use similar excuses.
These are the top 10 religious apologies.
1• Denial
Dismissing everything is usually the first reaction when some religion’s problematic issues are raised. There’s a long list of historic as well as contemporary factual religious mishaps that ultimately can’t be denied, which will usually lead believers to delve right into their second line of defense:
2• Being offended
Dismissing everything is usually the first reaction when some religion’s problematic issues are raised. There’s a long list of historic as well as contemporary factual religious mishaps that ultimately can’t be denied, which will usually lead believers to delve right into their second line of defense:
2• Being offended
Playing this ‘get-out-of-jail-free-card’ can be an effective conversation-stopper, but claiming victimhood is not a real argument. It does not prove or disprove any fact, except maybe the expressers personal lack of emotional maturity.
3• Pointing fingers
The logical fallacy of discrediting the opponent by accusing him of doing the same, is called “Tu quoque” (Latin for “you too”). In debates about the many wars and tortures done in the name of religion, the religious often point at the horrors of communism or nazism, to ‘prove’ atheism is even worse than religion. This distraction attempt does not disprove the horrors of religion in any way. But more importantly it omits the fact that these crimes against humanity were not carried out in the name of atheism, but in the name of some other extremist ideology. Communism and nazism also demanded god-like adoration of their leaders, prosecuted opposition, indoctrinated children, vilified intellectualism, persecuted gays, upheld strict hierarchy with elaborate ceremonies, and denied facts and unfavorable science. None of these common denominators can be attributed to 'atheism' in any way, but they are all still a part of modern organized religion.
4• Shifting the burden of proof
4• Shifting the burden of proof
This is another often used logical fallacy. Someone claims for instance that ‘you can not disprove the existence of God’, which is undeniable true. It is impossible by definition to prove a negative. You can't claim the existence of unicorns, based on the lack of proof for their non-existence. That’s why the burden of proof always rests with the one who makes the claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and for the existence of God, there simply is none.
5• Exclusion
5• Exclusion
Every reasonable person naturally denounces violence, and all believers will do the same. They exclude themselves from their religions violent extremists, by claiming that’s not part of their ‘true’ religion. But obviously the extremists will claim the same about them! Who has the 'right interpretation' of religion and who doesn’t, doesn't matter. When perpetrators of violence act in the name of religion, you have to regard the role religion plays in their motivation.
6• Self-pity is another victim-card often played. It can be a valid issue, some religious people really are oppressed and deserve to be protected. But that is no excuse for any of the mishaps of their religion.
6• Self-pity is another victim-card often played. It can be a valid issue, some religious people really are oppressed and deserve to be protected. But that is no excuse for any of the mishaps of their religion.
7• Conspiracies thrive in the religious mind. After all, believers are often conditioned to view themselves as the ‘chosen ones’. All other people must therefor be considered as 'God-less'. In such a black-and-white worldview it’s very easy to dismiss unfavorable facts as 'lies'. But closing your eyes never solved any problem.
8• Downplaying the problems caused by religion doesn’t solve them either. For sure, the majority of religious people are very nice, kind and reasonable. Just like the majority of all humanity. And of course you will find ‘rotten apples’ anywhere. It's also just a tiny minority of people who are thieves, still we implement strong measures and laws against stealing. Chances are small your car will be stolen, but you still lock your car. The minority claim is no reason to disregard problematic issues.
9• Rejection by claiming that something “has nothing to do with religion” is usually followed up by offering some alternative cultural/social/economic explanation. While all society’s issues are obviously complex and multi-facetted, this reaction is exemplary for religions more divisive tendency, separating itself from all ‘non-believers’, allowing any problems to continue.
8• Downplaying the problems caused by religion doesn’t solve them either. For sure, the majority of religious people are very nice, kind and reasonable. Just like the majority of all humanity. And of course you will find ‘rotten apples’ anywhere. It's also just a tiny minority of people who are thieves, still we implement strong measures and laws against stealing. Chances are small your car will be stolen, but you still lock your car. The minority claim is no reason to disregard problematic issues.
9• Rejection by claiming that something “has nothing to do with religion” is usually followed up by offering some alternative cultural/social/economic explanation. While all society’s issues are obviously complex and multi-facetted, this reaction is exemplary for religions more divisive tendency, separating itself from all ‘non-believers’, allowing any problems to continue.
10• Willfully blind
“God works in mysterious ways” is the often heard last resort. Unable to deny, explain or justify some religions problematic contradictions, many believers choose to simply surrender to their own ignorance. But the real answer is obvious; God does not "work in mysterious ways", he doesn't exist. Humanity is completely and totally responsible for it's own behavior.
Why bother? Let everybody believe what they want.
That certainly sounds agreeable, but it’s not that simple. We must not forget there are real consequences, with real victims involved here. And it’s not only the far-away casualties from terrorism and war either, or 'just' the children who are abused by priests, or families torn apart by cults, etc. People with extremist ideas also vote. Vaccine-hesitancy is prevalent amongst religious communities. Creationism is forced upon schools. Birth control is made impossible or even criminal. Gays are not only denied marriage, but specific jobs, services or positions. Diversity of thought, opinion, ethnic background or sexual identity is usually not really embraced in churches. Racism may be openly rejected, but behind the closed doors of houses of worship discrimination rages unchecked. Satire is seriously stifled by death threats and attacks on anyone making fun of 'holy' figures, especially Mohammed. This threatens essential parts of the freedom, science and technology we depend on in our society. Even the freedom of religion itself is at stake! It’s not ‘freedom’ when can't openly choose another belief, or reject religion all together. And that's not just about some ultra-orthodox communities in the middle east, being openly atheist in the USA still means committing political suicide. We risk losing our hard-fought separation of church and state, if we allow religion to abuse it’s privileged (financial) position and entertain its demand for power for too long. But obviously we can not and should not forbid anyone to believe whatever they want..
The only common sense solution is education. Religious indoctrination should be regarded for what it is; an assault on the minds of children. Young developing human beings should be introduced to all kinds of different ideas, concepts and world-views. They should be taught critical thinking, how to recognize logical fallacies, judge new information, filter out fake news, and make up their OWN minds. We should stimulate their talents and encourage them to get out of their comfort zones. We should tax all the churches, stop all public funding for religious schools, ban religious indoctrination, invest drastically in secular education, and encourage young people to travel the world and meet other cultures. Let’s make sure when kids grow up they won’t drown in blind faith, but will be able to see far and wide beyond the horizon of their parents.
