Freethinking outloud

Science, reason, rationality, integrity, human solidarity. These are traits supressed and ignored by religion, We happen to live on the only planet in the observable universe that we know of that can support life some of the time on some of its surfaces. Most of our planet is inhabitable. It is covered by seas and oceans, filled with deserts and two opposing and equally nasty poles.

You see, for some reason I would rather not support a cult that prides itself on knowing that my mother is going to hell for finding comfort and love in the arms of another woman after the my father passed away of cancer. Now; having actually read the bible in Norwegian and English I am fully aware that I would never have been able to live up to all that is demanded by what is called a Christian. Therefore, I too am damned to hell, if of course, Christianity is the correct religion amongst the over 100 000 Gods we have invented over the last 200 000 years. And of course, then you have to choose the correct Christianity, or else you will burn.
We happen to live on the only planet in the observable universe that we know of that can support life some of the time (ice age etc) on some of its surfaces. Most of our planet is inhabitable. It is covered by seas and oceans, filled with deserts and two opposing and equally nasty poles.
Thanks to science we actually know roughly how much longer this planet will exist. Our sun will of course die out first, but the universe is expanding in a rate so fast it is sending the Andromeda galaxy on collision course towards us. The implications of this are total annihilation of our entire milky-way galaxy and everything in it. If there is such a God; it must take responsibility for this, as well as the thousands of collapsing galaxies and failing solar systems that can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky every day, what kind of design is this?
The very thought that there is a universal intergalactic celestial dictator that knows your every thought, watches your every move, never gives you any privacy and can and will convict you of thought crime in your sleep is to me terrifying, stupefying and unjustifiable. He decides who you can share your bed with, what you can eat, how many times a day you must pray, what you can say and what you may not say, what you must believe, who you must kill and hate and who you must never listen or spend time with.
Here is a being that will gleefully sentence you to eternal agony according to the choices you make during your life, and whether or not they suited his commands. HE (with emphasis on the male connotation, which to me is an obvious give away) decides if you are to forever burn and perish in firing hell, or enter heaven where you can forever worship him on your knees. They call it a supposed paradise where everyone loves everyone; with the exception of gay people and any person of a different religion and up until 1970, people of a different skin colour than white.

Therefore I decline this kind proposition of slavery to this complete unchallengeable dystopia and cacotopia, and will do my best to try and treat all my fellow beings with the same amount of respect and love I expect from them, regardless of their beliefs, sexual orientation or skin colour.
In my view, not only is science corrosive to religion, religion is corrosive to science. It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial, super national non explanations, and blinds them to the wonderful REAL explanations we have in our grasp. It teaches them to accept authority, revelation and faith; instead of always insisting on evidence.
Being religious is like living in North Korea. You have endless opportunity to praise the dear leader, to thank him for giving you everything, to thank him for looking after you, to thank him for all his boundless gifts, to thank him for all his tireless efforts on your behalf. A celestial North Korea is what the religious believer wants, but there are two differences;
1. You can defect from North Korea.
2. You can die and seize to exist in North Korea.

If you are a religious believer, the leader goes on persecuting you after you are dead. You have to go on praising him forever; thanking him for being born. This is servility by definition. It is the slave mentality, it is contemptible and cowardly, and it is the enemy of intellect, inquiry and reason. Those who practice or practice or preach it are the worse by thinking they are being humble. The reason I am personally ecumenical about it is because all mono-theisms partake in the same illusions and absurdities. I have nothing but contempt from this, and the people who believe in it. But if they keep it in the home, where it belongs, and do not poison the minds of their and my and our children, them can have it.
The things I like are free expression, enquiry, reason and debate.

less