
Originally Posted by
Brenus
“If people want to believe in something why bother them as long as it doesn't affect you.” And that is why I said anti-religions. They can believe in whatever comfort them and make them feel warm inside, until your second part of your sentence which is coming in a newspaper and killing everybody inside. Or killing others in shop because they feelings were hurt or the people inside the shop were allegedly from another belief system.
Religion is the opium of the masses, it is a pain killer, a medicament (yes, that is what Marx wrote: Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.). However it is a placebo one.
Because the first part of your sentence, we, atheists, or I, atheist, accepted all the time this kind of sentence. But the reality is: it is not true. The addicts want to impose their addiction. They want their addiction to be respectable. And they don’t want to be recognised as addicts, as they can go off when they want. Well, they don’t want, that is…
No one would say that for other drugs.
The greatest anti-depressor is alcohol. But who will tell that if a drunk kill a child on a pushchair the accident had nothing to do with alcohol? The alcoholics could argue that it make them feel warm inside, they can talk to people without been paralysed by fear, etc. But when a drunk kill (an accident, officer, I did drink just 5 pints!!!) someone on the road, he/she’s got jail now. Nobody claims that alcohol has nothing to do with it. Nobody comes that “if people want to drink alcohol why bother” as we recognised alcoholism it as a social disease.
I fall in the trap. I don’t mind people believing in Father Xmas, Fairies, trolls and others, as nobody killed in their names. But I kept for myself listening Presidents and Prime Ministers and others Heads of State offering their prayers to the dead of obscurantist religiously fanatic murderers, and I decided it was enough.
Yes, Religions have a part in the murderers they inspire. Today is the Muslim one, yesterday was the Catholic one, and I can carry-on. So until all Religions will stop to inspire hate of others, gays, women, others religions, until all of them stop to be potential for killings, I will now confront them. I will not just listen their non-sense with a (internal) smile (don’t want to hurt them, do we?), I will challenge it. Politely, gently, nicely, but I will stop to bow to their incredible pretention to be for good. Like alcohol, if consume in moderation, it helps, but like alcohol, in high doses it is dangerous and fatal. But as Religions are concerned, it is mostly for others.
Bookmarks