Thursday, May 17, 2007

Can we get religion to just ... stop?

Here's a sobering report from the front lines of battle in Gaza City between Hamas and Fatah. In this case, the front lines are right at the door of this reporter's apartment, where he spends entire nights with his wife and child huddling in the outer corridor because bullets are blowing out their apartment windows. No matter how crappy your life is right now, I guarantee you've never had it as bad as what these people have to go through every day. And make no mistake, this is a religious war. You've had these two groups of people, Israelis and Palestinians, and they've been killing each other without end over possession of lands believed to be theirs by divine mandate. As a result, horror ensues. If religion did not play such a central role in this area, the hatred and tribalism and attitude of "hey, you have a beard, I have to shoot you!" would not exist. It's as simple as that.

People, could you just please please stop with the religion thing?

Just stop it! Fuck!

7 comments:

  1. I suggest that we stop it in America first so that we can offer ourselves as a model to the rest of the world. Of course, that is probably just me being selfish because I live in America and desperately want to see the end of superstitious delusion.

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  2. I'm confused. I read the blogs about Falwell yesterday, and I thought religious zealots only killed people if there were lesbians in the vacinity or someone had had an abortion? Falwell made that pretty clear, I thought.

    ;-)

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  3. "I suggest that we stop it in America first so that we can offer ourselves as a model to the rest of the world."

    That's why they want to kill us in the first place. But I agree, let's do it. Let's become a fabulous secular becon of freedom if for no other reason than to fuck with their heads.

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  4. Just stop it! Fuck!

    Those are pretty much the only words I have when it comes to stuff like this. Just...stop, please! You're not thinking!

    It's painful to hear about it and see it happening over and over and over. It's even more gut-wrenching to realize that it "just stopping" and true coexistance will more than likely never happen.

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  5. The problem I see here is that we can't stop it without becoming the same sort of violent zealots we abhor. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to change the mind of a true believer (which admittedly is why they scare the hell out of me). This is because, at it's very core, religion isn't rational, it's a irrational belief, defiant to logical argument, it therefore cannot be defeated by logical means. The only solution I can see is for those of us who oppose the blight of religion to simply leave. Find an uninhabited spot somewhere and build an isolated - secular society, because believing that they're all going to come to their senses one day is no more reasonable than a belief in a supreme being. Unfortunately.

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  6. sorry it's a bit long, but maybe helps understand the situation:

    Religion started as the first form of controlling society (before countries and even kings excited). even today native tribes in Africa, South America and other places around the world have Shamans (priests and leaders of the tribes).
    Religion slowly developed from that into Greek and Roman style religion and than into Judaism witch was very advanced to is time(one-god) and had clear social rules (starts with shall not steal and shall not kill, and develops into complicated social aid rules that based some modern rules.
    after that Christianity and Islam developed.
    it's very hard to become Jewish, easier to become Christan, and very easy to become muslim (say a sentence 3 times).
    also Islam has very strong social rules and is very appealing to the lower class and the masses.
    today most countries (not including Muslim majority countries except Turkey) have a separation between state and religion and the number are slowly growing.
    religion can be a very powerful tool for controlling people, especially poor uneducated people, and very dangerous in the wrong hands.
    Religion has another side, it can give people a frame, the many options of secular life confuse a lot of people and make them suffer, religion can make some order and help focus energy on other important aspects of life.

    ReplyDelete

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