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I was born into a Catholic family that regularly attended church
services, socialized with other Catholic families, and I went to a
private Catholic school. However, even at a very young age I
recognized the hypocrisy, bigotry, and absurdities of the church and
the poorly written fiction, the Bible, it was based on. Now that I'm
older, educated, and matured I realize I was right all along. The other organized religions are equally bad
because they are also based on ancient fictions. One of our
countries founding fathers, Thomas Paine, expressed the truth about
organized religion in the following quote:
"All national
institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish,
appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and
enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit." Thomas Paine
I, like Thomas Paine, am a Deist and believe there is a God. I
believe God created
the universe, but I also agree with the Atheist about the lack of
intelligent design in God's creation. Therefore, I'm stuck in a
debate with myself between two contradictory theories. I want to believe in
God as the creator of all things, but at the same time I realize God's
design is deeply flawed based on my understanding of science. I don't know if my doubts will ever be
answered to my satisfaction but I do know organized religion is
not going to be my source for factual information and scientific
knowledge.
For people who are part of an organized religion, regardless if
it's Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Shinto,
Paganism, Scientology, or Rastafarianism, please consider the
following 10 reasons why you should stop attending and contributing
to any organized religion:
- You are burdening your mind with a large amount of false
notions, mythology, and dogma. You end up wasting a huge amount
of time filling your head with useless nonsense.
- You are told what to believe rather than discern the truth
for yourself based on critical thinking skills and research. If
you think you know the truth based on faith you are unlikely to seek the truth
based on science.
- You lose your depth perception of reality and truth in a way
that is designed to make you more docile and easier to control.
Religions are authoritarian hierarchies designed to dominate
your free-will and turn followers into sheepish, weak,
oppressed, and fearful followers.
- You are expected to submit to faith because the logical mind
cannot made sense of all the incongruent, confusing, and
mysterious religious information. It attracts people who fear
the responsibility of their own power by manipulating you with fear
and uncertainty.
- You waste a huge amount of money on fabrications designed by
rich people to help rich people keep control over you by making
you stupid and fearful. Why do you think the U.S. government
allows churches to operate tax free? It is an old Machiavellian
trick to keep the powerful in power and keep everyone else
obedient and dumbed down through deceptions and manipulations.
- You are rewarded for loyalty to the religion's social
networks of fellow believers, and you are punished for
freedom of thought with labels like heretic.
- You probably inherited your religion from your parents and
grandparents even though the central figure in your religion
didn't follow the religion that was created in their name. If
you want to be more like the God like central figure of your
religion you should strike out on your own like they did.
- You conscience is being hampered by religious rules and laws
that negatively effects your level of compassion. True
compassion is a matter of conscious choice, and that requires
the absence of force-backed rules and laws. Personally, I have
found that the more religious a person is the less compassionate
they tend to be.
- Your faith equals fear. Religion is the systematic marketing
of fear. Fear from God if you don't believe and obey.
- You are being manipulated by your religion: Blessed are the
poor (donate heavily). Blessed are the meek (obey). Blessed are
the humble (don't question authority). Blessed are the hungry
(make us rich until it hurts). Blessed are the merciful (if you
catch us doing something wrong, let it go). Blessed are the pure
of heart (because your brains are switched off). Blessed are the
timid, the cowardly, the fearful. Blessed are those who give us
their power and become our slaves.
"The world is my country, all mankind are my
brethren, and to do good is my religion." Thomas Paine
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