I am a god-fearing–fearing¹ person. This multi-hyphenated word concisely captures my true feelings about the uncountable mass of tera–terra-idiots. ‘Tera,’ as in: the uncountable quantity of every dead, living, and yet-to-be-conceived bag of H20 and minerals who once crabbed, is crabbing, or will crab about on the planet; and ‘terra-idiots’ are those who: once claimed/now claim/or will claim, to believe in an invisible omniscient-omnipresent-omnipotent entity who created, controls, or will destroy, this ball of H20 and minerals currently crawling through space at 134K mph² (relative to the space of our universe) 486K mph (relative to the Milky Way Galaxy) and 67K mph (relative to Sol).
I believe that those who claim to believe in an invisible-magic-sky-entity have questionable rationality and live a self-deceit-packed life filled with hypocrisy and bigotry³. I point out that, ‘they claim to believe’ because within the uncountable tera–terra-idiot mass, there are many uncountable giga–terra-fools who (once/are/will) claim to believe in a vengeful/loving-being-who-patiently-listens-to-their-every-murmur solely because of societal, familial, political, or cultural pressures....but they never actually believe (they just don’t want to be excommunicated, stoned, banished, disowned, disinherited, shunned, or ostracized).
All belief-systems preach that their followers are clever, altruistic, kind, generous, honest, and noble people. And they all preach to their followers that the other belief-systems are filled with foolish, self-centered, stingy, deceptive and corrupt people. Every religion and church teaches hatred and distrust of others. Even the most open minded and ‘liberal’ religions sell themselves to their parishioners by pointing out the less open minded qualities of other religions.
Being afraid of people who claim to have faith in things that do not exist is merely a good defense mechanism—like being afraid of the insane. The actions of god-fearing and insane people are equally unpredictable, unfettered by common sense, and not grounded in reality.
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church—after eight hundred years—gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain. — Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere (1923)
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1 comment:
Y'know, the funny thing is -- it's the twentyfirst century. You'd think humanity would've really gotten past the 'need' for an invisible sky god to cling to when things don't go their way. You'd think.
Fear as a survival mechanism works great whether you're being hunted by a sabre-toothed tiger, or being hunted by a Blood or a Crip, but in civil, day-to-day situations, sane and rational people should be able to use facts and logic, not nebulous belief. Unfortunately, a person has to be sane to use facts and logic, and that's where a lot of believers fall short.
What saddens me are the giga-terra-fools that don't actually believe, but they just bob along with the common herd, simply cos they don't know any better. Or worse, they have an inkling of knowing better, but don't want to be viewed as thinking individuals... err, sorry, pariahs, by their peers.
Speaking (as we weren't) of snappy atheist quotes, you'd do well to look here.
VC: gateama
As in 'Gateama' Buddha? Nice one. :-)
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