"There's a time to take religion seriously, and a time to laugh at it. Sometimes we have to do both at the same time".
Mon, 12. July 2010
Seriously, you're having a laugh
These were PZ Myers' opening words in a superb article >> here << and I agree - we should take religion as seriously as we would a crazed man wielding a carving knife. Religion is a very serious factor in global havoc and violence. We should take seriously religion's disproportionate influence on government policy-making at all levels; and we should take seriously the leaders of many religious organisations who are warped and corrupt. At grass roots level, we should also take seriously the fanatics from all religions who are prepared to kill and maim people and vandalise property to further their religious aims.
I can respect people who hold wacky beliefs that I do not share, without actually respecting their wacky beliefs, because most of those beliefs are pure Monty Python: supernatural creation; putting pairs of every living creature on the planet onto a single boat; the sea level rising above Mt. Everest and then disappearing down some supernatural plughole; god fathering himself with a virgin, who then becomes his Mother. It's so bizarre! Then there are the stories of three so called 'wise' men following a star rising in the East yet ending up in the West; and the legend of a man walking on water and doing conjuring tricks before dying and resurrecting himself. Millions believe the implausible tale that god sent himself down from heaven as a man so that he could be brutally tortured and killed, in order to save us from being tortured by himself for all of eternity. If you think that sounds funny, they also believe there is only one almighty god but that he is really three. I have never quite worked that one out but it must be a joke of some sort.
Then there are the Goon Show ceremonies every Sunday, with men in frocks and ridiculous hats; supposedly eating the body and drinking the blood of a man who died two thousand years ago; splashing 'holy' water on babies and smoke on coffins; blessing this and praying for that. You also have to laugh at the many inconsistencies in the bible, not the least being the contrasting perceptions of god by so many different writers. A loving caring and forgiving god portrayed by one author is a sick, homicidal, arrogant, vindictive, irrational, body mutilating, slave-driving, sex-maniac to another. Yet the flock just ignore the nasty bits. Some of them think pigs are 'sacred', whilst others think it's the cows. Some object to condoms, whilst others will not allow life-saving medical assistance. One group here in Sydney won't allow women to push prams on their sabbath day - until a twenty-two kilometer rope is strung up to surround the entire suburb, making it a religious conclave, where they can then do as they please. The most comical boast is that the lack of evidence for it's faith is the cornerstone of religion.
I think there is one more aspect of religion that needs to be neither respected nor treated as joke - the disgusting aspects, of which there are far too many examples. Religion is so often hilarious, until you are confronted with it's disgusting side. All religions very proudly give children a religious label from birth and attack their minds until they are brainwashed. That's disgusting. Many religions are obsessed with carving bits off the bodies of new-born babies and children and guess what? it's always the most private and sensitive bits they attack with their knives. That's disgusting. Priests use their power and authority to rape innocent children. That's disgusting. When they do, the church leadership obstructs the course of justice to cover it up. That's disgusting. All religions hook gullible people and reel them in on the basis of an outlandish promise that cannot be fulfilled during their lifetime - and in the meantime they take their money. That's disgusting. All religions impose irrational beliefs in places where critical analysis ought to reside and revere a book that advocates mass murder, slavery, misogyny and paedophilia. That's disgusting.