Food for thought

My thoughts are dominated lately with religion and the problems I believe it poses to a society that, without which, would be entirely better off. I am unfortunate to live in a world (and more specifically, country), that is still dominated by religious belief, which makes it nearly impossible for me to speak face to face with living humans about the issues that I address in my blog. As unfortunate as that is, the mere fact that I can send the ideas I have into cyberspace is somewhat of a comfort, so I will continue to express how I feel to the internet universe so long as that remains so.

A couple of things, spoken as clear-headed, rationally and calmly as I can manage:

1. The world is not black and white. There are countless shades of gray. What works for you may or very well MAY NOT work for me. Religion teaches its followers to see things in only black and white. This is detrimental if our concern should (and honestly, MUST) be to understand one another as best we can. UNDERSTANDING, not SUPERIORITY COMPLEXES or JUDGMENT.
2. Religion was invented in an age where access to scientific technologies was extremely limited if available at all. While religious texts may have certainly offered the best possible answers in the age when the Bible was written, those answers are no longer relevant or legitimate.
3. Without religion, there would be good people doing good things and bad people doing bad things. For good people to do bad things, that takes religion.
4. When two opposing points are expressed with equal fervency, it does not mean that each point is equally TRUE. It is possible for one side to simply be wrong.
5. It is my personal conviction, based on the evidence available, that the side of the argument that makes the existence of God unlikely if not implausible is the more TRUE side.
6. God and religion are separate entities. If God does, in fact, exist, however improbable I consider that to be, it would not change the way I live my life, because God, in the Biblical sense in which he is generally understood, is a God that concerns himself with human emotion and desires, cares about our day to day sufferings, and controls the laws of nature. From my 26 years on earth, I have found that whether God exists or not, he certainly takes no interest in any of my personal triumphs or struggles and seems equally apathetic about the occurrence of natural disasters, even if those natural disasters happen to wipe out hundreds of thousands of his "children" at one time, and injure countless others. For this reason, whether some kind of God exists or not, I would not change the way I live my life. Religion, on the other hand, is a man-made concept, and one that is responsible for the kinds of horrors you would not even see in Hell (if, of course, it even existed). Religion and God have absolutely nothing to do with each other. God does not depend on religion for his existence, and religion was not responsible for the creation of God. People seem to view the two concepts as one and the same, yet the two are completely unrelated and both are completely unnecessary.
7. Religion is disgustingly misogynistic. I can understand, to an extent, why over millennia men have appreciated religion if solely for the fact that most, if not all of the "Holy" texts have one thing in common: they all hold men in much higher esteem than women. If women complain about the fact that they are still oppressed, still paid less than men to do the same jobs, still suffer catcalls and sexual assault and unwanted attention from the male sex, maybe they should look to religion as a scapegoat. Religion enables men, in a position of superiority, to belittle us in all these ways, but we never think to blame the "Holy" book for the existence of such misgivings.
8. Religion enslaves all of its followers, and not even to the will of a respectable human being...to the will of a 2,000 year old BOOK.

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration: courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth."

-H.L. Mencken