OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Religion Will Be the Death of Us All

Of course, some sort of truth would not suffice, this leader needs to be charismatic, quite clever and bright, to come up with instant answers about everything, and usually would be so caring, and the people around as well, that it must give a sense of importance to the disciples of any religion. We all feel the need to feel important, to feel that people care about us, love us, to fulfill this need of belonging to a group of people who share our philosophy, whether that philosophy is ours or comes from someone else, if the imagination lacks.

I never felt the need to belong to any group, must have come from the fact that I was gay and, quite early on, I was rejected by everyone from everywhere at once, most specifically by all religions and religious people.

I always wondered why my whole being and nature could be so despised and offensive to any religion, as if I was such a threat that, I alone, could bring about the end of the world as we know it. And so it is not surprising that I came to wonder why people would need a religion or set of beliefs and behaviors to believe in, and go about life always thinking in those terms their religion would have taught them. It makes no sense to me, no sense at all, as I was denied just all of that. I was a target to be eradicated as soon as possible, the sooner the better. It's a miracle I survived without committing suicide; society tried its very best to drive me to it.

So, for a long time I always believed that religious people were not that intelligent, could not think for themselves and were highly suggestible. I was so interested in this puzzle, I read a lot about religious sects and secret societies in order to better understand what happens in the macroscopic world of religions, and I found many illuminating answers about human nature.

I wrote a novel about it, in French, even though I think no one on this planet has read it or even understood what I was really trying to say in there. I'm not sure myself, since I tried to be objective, just painting a picture of reality, and that was it. People can read and interpret whatever they want from it, but at least I told them how it works, how it is that people can get caught into these beliefs which make no sense to even people of other religions suddenly getting interested in believers of other religions.

Not only will we get to believe in a certain religion, most likely the one we were born into, but then understanding and tolerating other religions is quite a feat to achieve. Because most religions have been designed to teach to despise any other sort of truth as a lie, and that if you do not believe in your own religion, you will most likely go to hell or something similar.

When you start analyzing religions, you see clearly how clever they have been in ensuring the longevity of their own truth, whilst eliminating any other religion or people in the market believing otherwise, eliminating any other possible explanation. So it becomes difficult to get out of any religion, and especially believe in another one.

Within any religion is the seed for war against anyone who does not believe in that religion, and so teaching tolerance for other religions has always been impossible.

It never seemed to be a contradiction to anyone that most religions at heart have a message of love and understanding, but then turn ugly as soon as you go beyond a certain point, then love and compassion become hate, war and destruction.

I always wondered why most religious people were blind to this fact, how they could look at history, see for themselves that most wars were caused by religions, and yet, quite willingly choose to ignore this, and probably would go to war once again for those same beliefs which caused millions if not billions to die over the centuries.

More specifically, why is it so important for any human being to have any sort of religion, when they could be quite happy without it, still be loving and caring people, and pursue on their own what could be the truth about the universe we live in?

Why do you need a religion? Why do you feel the need to belong to any group of people believing certain things and giving you truths you are not even allowed to question? Why indeed? It is something I might never understand, and I believe that anyone who is free from any religion will also be as puzzled as I am.

I would have thought that, as time goes by, more and more people would ditch religions and start seeking other answers to life. However, quite the opposite is happening, more and more people become more and more religious by the day, and 85% of the planet, from statistics I can remember, all believe in some sort of religion and God.

It is astonishing and frightening to me, as I cannot explain this behavior, and I know that most of them would be quite happy if I were to die today just because I am gay. How do I fight this, can I even fight this? Or do I simply have to accept it and hope I will still be granted the chance to lead a normal existence? Or should I be killed right now? With stones?

Most religions are also highly restrictive, no freedom whatsoever, and many of them require from you a lot of time and money and devotion and prayers, and little space to think and develop at your own pace. Why would anyone enter a new religion knowing full well all that it entails, and how much of their freedom and liberties they will lose once within it? What could possess them to give up so much, if it is not a belief that they will gain much more in return? But what do they gain if anything? Are they more peaceful with themselves? Are they now closer to God and anything spiritual? Are they more loving, or ready to kill?

Is there something I am missing here that no one told me about? Because if 85% of the population is talking directly to God, and get some hallucinogenic buzz out of it, I ought perhaps to get on the bandwagon. But then, why would they keep such ecstasy to themselves, whilst being unable to even give us a glimpse of what is it that their religion is bringing them, without us thinking they are deluded, too far gone and ready for the asylum?

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