OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Religion Will Be the Death of Us All

Could 85% of the planet suffer from mass delusion? I sometimes think so. Just think of Allah, then you will begin to understand how I feel. "Because Allah has declared a Jihad on you, and you all need to die, all of you, non-believers in Allah! I will kill you myself, in the name of Allah!"

I will try to be a bit objective. If my father had divorced my mother when I was quite young, and if I had spent most of my younger years with my mom without my dad around, God knows how much brainwashing I would have suffered and how good a Catholic I would be right now.

You see, my father never believed in religion or God, whilst my mom was completely devoted to them, and still is. It would have been difficult for me, if not impossible, not to believe in God and fall back into religion, if both my parents had been nuts about it. It is nearly impossible to shake off something that you have been banged on the head about from an early age. This is how I explain why people can still respect any religion and believe in God, even when they are quite intelligent, and should normally, in my opinion, have at least some doubts about it all.

There are plenty of reasons to at least take a step back and assess the whole question of religion, God and other related beliefs as hypothesis, and not the complete truth about this world.

The very fact that whatever you believe in, whatever if it is the biggest or smallest religion there is, you can count on the fact that not even one person out of five on this planet will believe any of it. There is not one religion on the planet that 20% of humanity will agree on is the truth. How can it be the real truth then, when a whopping majority would say no, it is all a lie?

Why would that Muslim or that Jew be more wrong than I would be, being a Catholic or a Christian? It should tell any reasonable person, capable of taking a step back, that perhaps others are right, or that perhaps, no one is, because no one really knows the truth. I have not seen any proof anywhere, none of us have. I'm sorry, faith alone does not make it true.

How could we be right? Religion is worse than philosophy, and philosophy has a really bad track record. In philosophy, no one can agree on anything, and yet, it is based on logic. Religion is not. And millions of people are forced to believe the most fanciful inventions about humanity, its origins, about whatever could be out there in this universe.

It is so sad when you meet the most intelligent person you have ever met, the most logical, and yet, when the time comes to talk about religion, there go logic and good common sense. They've been brainwashed, they will not let go. They will not compromise, they will not even consider other possibilities to explain the unexplainable. No need for proof, no need for half convincing arguments; this is the truth; this is how we all came to be; this is what this existence is all about.

Religion is quite important in a way here, because it addresses what this existence is all about, and all religions claim to know the answer. There was a creation of some sort, there is a God of some sort who created us, we appeared one day out of nothing, out of nowhere, and God controls everything, as he is some sort of control freak, and if you're a bad boy, he won't come down the chimney and bring you gifts at Christmas. Or am I confusing God with Santa Claus? Oh dear.

When I was in fifth grade, I stopped my English teacher in front of the class and I asked her, "What is Santa Claus?" Everyone around me seemed to know; we were hearing about it every day in English classes, and yet, I had no clue about Santa Claus and what it was. She laughed, everyone did, it seemed that I was the only lost one out there who had no idea about who was Santa Claus. I must have been 10 years old by then. And then she said that Santa Claus was the "Père Noël". I instantly knew then what Santa Claus was, it existed in French as well, though, never in my life had I believed he existed. Like I never believed the "Bonhomme Sept Heures" existed, though most kids in my area were so afraid of the "7 pm Man", they all went to bed, frightened to death that this monster would come to eat them alive if he found them not in bed and sleeping by 7 pm.

I have to admit that my sister and I never slept when we were young. We would fall asleep out of exhaustion at 4 am every night, after talking all night and getting up all evening, to the astonishment of my parents. My parents never believed in lying to us in order to convince us to act a certain way, so they could have peace once in a while. As a result we were wild, but at least we were not fed lies.

I would guess that if you control your kids through fear at an early age, you will most certainly make them perfect slaves to some other opportunistic pri*k or b*tch later on in life. Leave your kids to become wild, and they're most likely going to end up being management, controlling the other weak minds around. Never mind. All that to say that it is easy to have beliefs when they were implanted at a young age. And then logic and common sense seem to go out the window.

I don't know if there is a God, I don't know if what any of these religions state is true or not. I can only take it all as possibility, hypothesis, and to be honest, not very convincing at that, for someone like me who was not brainwashed at all on any religion or philosophy at an early age. Again, I value my liberty or freedom far too much to adhere to any religion or philosophy. And that's the problem, isn't it? The real conundrum of any religion.

Religion is not about some sort of distorted truth about the origin of existence and whatever might happen after death or in between re-incarnations. No. If religion was simply that, some sort of truth about a God who created us and the universe, it would be great, it would be bearable.

Religion is about control and power, and so adhering to any religion implies following many rules, obligations, giving up your life, freedom, liberty, and whatever else, everything. But to whom? The high priests, the leaders, to whoever profits from it all. It is like giving up everything you have, everything you are, and any sort of individuality you might wish to have, to some half baked ideas or concepts, which in the end, makes no sense at all.

Religion is the end of your freedom, the end of your own individuality, your identity, who you are, who you could possibly become. Religion becomes you, you no longer exist. You serve, you're a slave, no longer in charge of your own thoughts or your destiny, frightened to death of one simple thought, the idea of sin, which in itself, is completely meaningless.

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