I regularly discuss religion with people who both agree and, more commonly, disagree with me. I think this is an important aspect in self development and allows you to not only grow as a person but also understand both sides of an argument. In my various discussions, with people from all sorts of backgrounds and socio-economic groups, I’ve noticed a strong trend in those who are religious. It seems as though the vast majority, upwards of 95% I would estimate, find religion through one of two means. I’ve explained each of the two means below, and I’d be interested in your thoughts on each.
Rise
By far the most common way to become religious is to simply be raised religious. It happens all the time, and allows sects and fundamentalist groups to thrive within confined and controlled environments. Take the Westboro Baptist Church for example. Their beliefs are, to many, conflicting with good Christian values, yet their leader claims to be one of the best versed people on the planet when it comes to the scriptures.
Yet those within the church accept the teachings of Fred Phelps without question, so the question has to be asked, why? For many, the simple answer lies in their susceptibility to Phelps’ charisma (an interesting aside, one of the best definitions of charisma I’ve seen stated that an attribute of a charismatic person is the ability to resist other charismatic people) and authoritative way. For others, they are simply raised as part of the extended family and know no difference. I’d highly recommend this documentary by British journalist Louis Theroux. One of the most telling aspects of that documentary is the responses given the Theroux by the children he talks to. They don’t know any different, and they believe everything that protest, even though they don’t understand it.
The Westboro Baptist Church is an extreme example, but in reality, it’s no different to the situation being played out up and down the country, and all around the world. Children are being formally and informally indoctrinated into religion without really understanding it. This is something organised religion relies upon in order to perpetuate. Trying to convert developed adults, people who aren’t vulnerable, is difficult because they understand religion and can question it. They can see the obvious, gaping chasms in the logic of religion and rightly reject it. Children do not possess these skills, and in the end just become vulnerable victims of organised religion.
The baptism or christening of a child is, quite frankly, a crime against decency and should be punished as such. I always find it strange that we restrict the age at which people can drink, or get married, to protect them, to ensure they have developed mentally to the point where they can freely make informed decisions. Yet we allow children, babies even, to be indoctrinated in to a cult.
Fall
I mentioned above that it is difficult to convert adults to religion. The exception are those people who really want, or need something else to be out there. These people find themselves in difficult or traumatic circumstances and simply can’t cope. Talking to religious people, as I do, I have found that the vast majority of those who came to religion later in life did so in the midst of some form of traumatic event.
The explanation for this should be immediately apparent. People want something else, they want a way to absolve themselves of responsibility. They want something else to blame, or they want something else to do the hard work for them so they can get out of the situation they find themselves in.
One of the most common examples you’ll hear of, where people come late to religion, is a person who has lost everything, their job, their house, their money and their family. Then they “find God” and get back on their feet. What doesn’t get acknowledged is the fact that they have been helped by people working on the premise that they will receive help in exchange for joining the religious group providing the help. It’s the classic missionary scenario - “before God we had nothing, now we’ve found God we have running water and crops”.
The classic debate relating to these situations goes like so: -
The Religious say that when people open up their hearts to God in their hour of need, God will help them.
The Non-Religious say that vulnerable people are being exploited, they want something to blame, to take control, and that it’s easier to believe in something when you really want, or need it to be true.
You will of course know which side of the argument I stand on. In much the same way I don’t believe Children should be indoctrinated in religion, I don’t believe people in a vulnerable position should be either.
You’ll notice that both means described above rely on exploiting those who are vulnerable. Either through age or circumstance. This is a consistent thread throughout different religions and cults. It is difficult to convince people of something that isn’t true, and has no evidence to present unless they are in a compromised position, or are unable to logically assess the premise you are putting forward.
In my post on why I’m not a Christian, I mentioned that it was more risky to be religious than not. Some of you may be thinking, “that’s not what Blaise Pascal said, and he’s way smarter than you!” Well, you’d be right on one count, Pascal looked at it logically and decided to believe in God, even though he didn’t really. What I’m talking about, of course, is Pascal’s Wager.
To summarize Pascal’s Wager, Blaise Pascal theorized that it is impossible for man to prove or disprove the existence of God. Therefore, if we could never know that God didn’t exist, the safe thing to do would be to act as if he did. The reasoning being that, if you were to logically assess the pros, cons and effort involved. If you do this, there are four outcomes, which I’ve conveniently tabulated below, along with the outcomes.
God Exists
God Doesn’t Exist
Believe
You go the Heaven.
A bit of time wasted, and lost personal integrity.
Don’t Believe
You go to Hell.
Personal Integrity in tact, Sundays to yourself.
So, there you have it. In a nutshell Pascal drew that matrix and made his decision. And to be fair, you can sort of see his reasoning. I God does exist, and you don’t believe, the punishment is infinite. If God does exist, and you fo believe, the reward is infinite. These are two polar opposites in terms of outcome. The two extremes of this matrix. By contrast, betting on the fact that God does not exist, has seemingly minor implications. Essentially, it boils down to your own integrity (can you go around saying you believe on God when you don’t really) and whether or not you get your Sundays free to sit around in your underwear. No brainer really.
That’s Pascal’s view. I don’t buy into it, and, in fact, I think he’s got it completely wrong. To me, the biggest risk is believing in God. Or, to be more precise, a God. Imagine, if you will, the scenario where you have arrived at the entrance to heaven. For your entire life you have been worshiping a God, and it turns out you got the wrong one. What’s worse? Worshiping a false God, or not worshiping a God at all? If I was a betting man, I know where I would be stacking my chips.
Of course, that’s not the only flaw in Pascal’s argument. He conveniently skirts around the fact that if there was a God, he would surely know that you were only believing in him because you were betting on the outcome which was associated with the least risk (although I question that), and not because you actually believe. There’s also the small fact that believing in God isn’t enough to get you into heaven. You also have to live as a practitioner of that religion. Depending on which religion turns out to be right, that could involve some major sacrifices on your part. Thereby skewing the logic of Pascal’s Matrix.
Have you ever tried to apply logic to your (non)beliefs?
It’s easy to see that whoever conceived certain religions was clearly thinking logically, unlike the followers of these religions. There are many aspects of many religions designed solely to prevent members of these religions converting to non-believers. Sometimes these measures are blatantly obvious, sometimes you have to apply a bot more logic.
I’m going to use two examples to demonstrate my point. Firstly, Christianity. The fundamental selling point of Christianity is that when you die you can either to to heaven or hell. Heaven is a wonderful place, hell is a terrible place where you will be tortured. Forever. This is a pretty compelling sales pitch. To get to heaven you must do two things. Firstly, die. Secondly, follow the teachings of the bible, including the 10 commandments. We all think we know the 10 commandments, but have you ever really thought about their purpose? I’m guessing you’re currently muttering something about keeping order or instilling moral values or something, right? If that’s the case, look again, more closely this time. For the purpose of this little examination, we’ll have a look at the Anglican 10 commandments, just to keep it simple. That gives us the following:
I am the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol.
Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor thy Father and Mother.
Thou shalt not murder.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
So there you have it, the 10 most important rules to follow in life. I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that 40% of those rules are to do with making sure you don’t question the religion. Look at them. Only the last six have anything to do with morals, order, law etc. So to be clear, it is as important to have no other Gods as it is not to murder. It seems obvious that whoever wrote these commandments, they had self-preservation of the religion close to their heart.
And it’s not just Christianity. Fairly recently there were riots all around the world when a Danish newspaper published derogatory cartoons of the Islam Prophet Muhammad. This goes against one of the most important rules of Islam, not to provide a visual representation of the Prophet Muhammad. You have to question why a religion would prevent it’s followers from visually representing one of the most prominent characters. The reason, logically, seems clear. This”person” didn’t exist and if visual representations were allowed, they may differ substantially enough so as to cast doubt on the reliability of the material that talks about this person.
This is a reoccurring theme throughout religion. It’s like Fight Club. The first rule of religion, is don’t talk about fight club to make sure no one questions and everyone falls in line.
I know I’m a bit late to the table on this one, and it’s a table that many have been sat at for years, but this is just staggering. A Jehovah’s Witness, in her 20s, in the UK has died after giving birth. All indications are that if she had accepted a blood transfusion, she would have lived. Strangely, as pointed out in the article I’ve linked to at the BBC, the law protecting the religious beliefs of those who want to die because of something written in a book, comes under the umbrella of human rights. Oh the irony.
While I do believe human rights are important, of course, they are such a slippery subject to argue about. So many grey areas, and so many opposing views. In this case, for example, you have the human rights of the woman giving birth to consider. She, seemingly, signed a document refusing a blood transplant. We know her husband and family are also Jehovah’s Witnesses so we can’t say with any conviction that, if able to, she would have refused a blood transfusion when dieing. What no one seems to be considering is the human right of the baby she was giving birth to. Is it a human right to have a mother? Do you even have human rights as a newborn baby? In this situation it seems as though the only person who’s view mattered was that of the husband. So essentially, the human rights of two people were decided by another.
There is also the medical staff. Surely their human rights have to be considered. Of all the things you could possibly witness in this world, the mother of a new born baby dieing in front of your eyes, due to something you could prevent, must be right up there as one of the worse.
To make the decision to die from a condition that can be prevented crosses into the realms of mental illness in my book. It is to decline and suppress one of the most powerful instincts, the instinct to survive. The Johova’s Witnesses interpretation of the relevant bible quote can also be questioned. The text specifically refers to drinking blood. To drink another person’s blood is not the same as having a blood transfusion. A transfusion using blood from a willing donor. I can’t see how any decent, loving God would be against this and just reaffirms my belief that, if there was a God, I wouldn’t like him.
I wanted to share an email I was recently sent, just so you can see how some religious zealots form arguments in the name of a God.
I came to your site out of curiosity and was suprised to see that your arguments
are so weak and full of false statements touted as undisputable facts. I
expected it to be more of a honest appraisal instead of a mindless rant. Let
me cut to the chase for you. Both positions require faith. In my study and
investigation, the evidence for intelligent design so far outweighs evolutional
theory as to be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Sad becuase most won’t dig and
study for themselves. I read scientists who admit that evolution is wrong, but
that it’s the best thing we’ve got right now because there can’t be a God.
You’ve made your profession of faith in science and in the theory that all
animal, plant, bird and fish life forms came from an explosion of really
condensed dirt. So I believe in the beginning God and you believe in the
beginning dirt. One thing we both agree on is time will tell. Take good care,
my friend.
This gave me a right chuckle. In fact, I may have actually snorted. So, just to be clear lets look at what this (valued) visitor as to say.
Firstly, I’d like to be alerted to any false or untrue statements on this blog made by me. If something is touted as an undisputable fact, it is because to any sane and logical person, it is undisputable. i.e. beyond dispute, widely accepted. If you dispute the fact, you must not be a sane or logical person.
So, this whole intelligent design thing. Where’s the evidence? Please, someone show me this evidence. And remember, a book written thousands of years ago doesn’t count as evidence. If there really was enough evidence in favor of intelligent design to render evolution laughable, I’m sure we would have heard about it. Instead, there seems to be a move, even amongst Christians, away from creationism and intelligent design. Maybe it’s the overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution. Even where Christians try and cast doubt on scientific studies, the truth will always out. As a starting point for your enlightenment, I’d suggest the references section of the Wikipedia article on evolution. Considering the article doesn’t delve too deeply into the mechanics of evolution, there are still 170 references, which I’m sure makes it one of the more trustworthy and researched articles on Wikipedia.
Please, I’d like to see evidence and places on this blog where I haven’t been accurate. Just saying there is evidence and saying this blog is inaccurate doesn’t make it true. Unless you believe inaccurate statements with nothing to back them up, which, considering you are religious, you obviously do.
For me, religion is pretty clear cut. I’m not religious, and won’t ever be. The easiest religion to discount as being credible is, in my opinion, Christianity. Most of the points I’ll raise below apply to other religions as well, but everything just seems to clear cut when it comes to Christianity. I’ll also cover all these points in more detail at a later date, so I’ll just touch on them briefly here.
So why am I not a Christian?
I don’t like your God - I guess this is fairly fundamental, but it’s true. Bearing in mind the God doesn’t actually exist, I don’t like the concept. The one thing that really gets me is the whole “Worshiping” thing. If God is all powerful, why does he demand that people worship him? Does he crave the attention that much?
Free Will - So this whole “free will” thing, the reason bad things happen to good people, it’s bollocks. If there really was free will, and it was supported by God, surely Christians wouldn’t be forced to attend Church? You can’t have it both ways.
Church - Christians have to go to church. Why? Well, if you believe in something that isn’t logical, something you can’t see or hear, something that doesn’t exist, there’s nothing like surrounding yourself with people who think the same to reaffirm your beliefs.
The Risk - A favorite question asked by Christians is “what if your wrong?”. As an argument, it’s slightly ridiculous, it’s almost suggesting that people should be Christians just in case their right. I’ve embedded a video at the end of this post which has Richard Dawkins answering this very question and he raises a very good point. My logical argument goes thus. If I am wrong, I’m in a better position that if a Christian is wrong. Imagine the day you die and you suddenly realize there is a God judging you. Would you rather have gone through your life having not worshiped anything, or gone through your life worshiping the wrong God? Would you rather have murdered the wrong person, or not murdered anyone at all?
Your Heaven is my Hell - Seriously, the one thing that annoys me about Christians more than practitioners of any other religion is the fact they push their beliefs on you at every opportunity. If heaven is full of Christians, I don’t want to be there.
So those are my five top reasons for not being a Christian. I’ve left out the obvious (there’s no God, I wasn’t raised a Christian) and approached it from a more logical angle. I’m going to try and expand on the thoughts on each of the points over the next few weeks.
