Religion poisons everything (quoting Chrostopher Hitchens). Thoughts anyone?

[KimKevorkian]

As Putin has invaded Ukraine allegedly now to "de-Nazify" the country (though Putin's a dictatorial thug himself, who uses Gestapo tactics against his critics--so what moral high ground has he?). However, he isn't wrong about the HUGE Nazi ultra-violent contingent in Ukraine. Maybe he could try de-Nazifying his buddy Trump's moth-breathing toadies.

Anyhow, my grandparents, Ukrainian-Russina-Belo-Russian Jews who fled from that part of the world to America, and pretty much left the idea of a god behind as well, I feel a special animus as an Atheist born into a culture founded on utter nonsense, as all religions are, to post some items so others might wake up as well. Religious guilt and "morality" pervade our countries like a pernicious mind-virus (the very definition of a "meme"). If anyone has felt unfairly screwed over, directly or indirectly, by all this hocus pocus bull puckey, share your thoughts. Cheers. Pray for atheism.
It ain't pretty, people. But I feel a whole hell of alot better breaking free of the chains of religion and Christian "morality" that is as pervasive as lead in our (holy?) water in good ol 'Murica.

//
Book recommendation:
"Why there is no God"
"The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan"
"Did Jesus Exist"
"Nailed Ten Christian Myths that shows Jesus never existed"
"Why I Became an Atheist - John W. Lotus"
"Did Moses Exist?"
"Remembering the Holocaust"
"Nazism is as American as apple pie it seems"
"God and the Fascist"
"Project Paperclip Nazis in America"
"Operation Gladio, the unholy alliance between the Vatican, the CIA and the Mafia"
"The Rise of the Fourth Reich. The Secret Societies that threathen to take over America."
//

 

[Sherri]

Most do yes, like my dad beating me up at 16 to go to church, and finally my mum took over and said, if she doesn't wanna come let her be, the Lord doesn't want anyone to go to his house against their will. Thank you mum, even though we are not close now. Life turn me into an ateistt and whatever tge bible told me not to do I did it plus 10.

 

[timf]

When the brutal, greedy, vain, and ambitious get a hold of religion, they can do great damage. One might see the seeker after truth sifting through how all the various religions are presented like a prospector trying to find a nugget or two of truth.

It sounds like your experiences have led to to be an evangelist for atheism. You might want to tone things down a bit as there are some who receive comfort and are sustained by their religion.

 

[Sherri]

For yesrs they are spreading tge second coming coming Jesus, everything bad in tge world for them is a sign, imo personal opinion if there is such a God, why diesnt he come once and for all to end all this pain and suffering in tge world, cause that js all fairly tales. At church we couldn't wear make up, the skirts needed to be bellow the knee, yeah tight when I broke lose also wearing ear rings was phorbiden. Was the first thing I've done than tattoos, alcohol and drugs and enjoyed and every moment of it, call me black sheep I couldn't care less.

 

[KimKevorkian]

Most do yes, like my dad beating me up at 16 to go to church, and finally my mum took over and said, if she doesn't wanna come let her be, the Lord doesn't want anyone to go to his house against their will. Thank you mum, even though we are not close now. Life turn me into an ateistt and whatever tge bible told me not to do I did it plus 10.

Jesus! That is hideous on all sorts of levels. I'm really sorry you received such treatment by the very people who were supposed to love and nurture you. I couldn't believe the number of homicides perpetrated by men and women against their kids and animals all in the name of the "Lord". Of course, they were only expelling demons inside them. Madness. But I fear it's here to stay. That bus better not have any preachers on it or I'm kicking them off at the next crossroads.

 

[Pluto]

Religion as we know it is just another expression of human manipulation, cruelty and ruthlessness. Mainstream religions attract and promote power-hungry psychopaths just like politics (ever heard of that Putin guy?) or corporations. However, this in itself is not an argument against legitimate political processes, responsible business practice or high quality spiritual discourse. One just has to have a basic understanding that the loudest voices are often the ones you need to ignore.

 

[LastFlowers]

You might want to tone things down a bit as there are some who receive comfort and are sustained by their religion.

Sure, but at what cost?
Practicing religion or holding certain delusional beliefs is a position that always bleeds into other areas of life and people, it's never completely harmless and to sustain yourself with what amounts to a farce is really not helpful when in order for humanity to progress and improve, all of us need to first acknowledge reality.
I find no comfort in lies, and the fact that others do has had crossover into my own life which has harmed and silenced me, against my will.
I know that even when I die, my family members who are religious/spiritual will project their own beliefs onto my corpse and shout about some nonsensical fate in the afterlife when I'm only going to be rotting in the dirt or burned to ash. (And they're not even what I would consider zealots.)
I'm tired of having to show some type of sensitivity to absolute bullshit, it only serves to enable it and let's the mirage clouding our vision prevent any meaningful change from occurring.
I've personally tried to be more forgiving and lenient with these types of people but all it did was bite me in the ass, as they took my diplomatic nature as some sort of permission to continue pressing me further and insisting that their specific set of beliefs are the correct ones.
I finally realized why so many people jump from the agnostic fence to the completely atheistic stance, and why they also stop beating around the (burning) bush.

 

[KimKevorkian]

No offense intended if one finds comfort in rituals, beliefs. Perhaps I should be more clear. Religion tends to, as LastFlowers wrote. "bleed into" other aspects of life and society, and I argue that instead of being a force for good (causing more ethical behavior, more empathy, etc), religious dogma leans toward the intolerant, exclusive, and psychotic (people decapitating family and pets to "get the demons out"). One lady hung her dog and lit him on fire. (Personally, I'd like to see that happen to her, but I admit I want to see the utmost pain inflicted on those who are cruel to animals and innocents.)

But I'm all for getting comfort on a personal level. However, how does one get comfort from a book written by countless humans over centuries--human who hallucinated visions and voices--whose "gods" approve and advocate whlesale murder, rape, sacrifice, slavery, terror??

www.evilbible.com

 

[Nolan96]

One lady hung her dog and lit him on fire. (Personally, I'd like to see that happen to her, but I admit I want to see the utmost pain inflicted on those who are cruel to animals and innocents.)

Jesus was the first person in history to try to move beyond this form of vengeful morality.
As a former New Atheist, the more time I spend in this terrifying world the more I see the profundity of that.
I still wouldn't call myself a believer in god or even an unhesitant admirer of Christ,
but there's something sacred there.

 

[YourNeighbor]

Religion is bad in the hands of bad people. It can be good in the hands of good people.

 

[KimKevorkian]

Religion is bad in the hands of bad people. It can be good in the hands of good people.

I'd be a believer if I saw smiting. Well correction, I see a lot of smiting in the NY Post stories, just against innocents. The giant celestial squid needs to get off his cosmic ass and protect innocentsa and smite the bad, violent people. Until then, I'm back on the atheism train. But I get it. My tendency toward comforting tales arises ever and anon--at least until I get slapped by reality and wake the hell up. All the prayer in the world won't stop a bullet. Ask the folks in Kiev. I like the saying, "Deal with the problem at the level of the problem." Metaphysical arguments aren't doing bupkis for refugees or victims of trafficking or any of a thousand horrible things. But a physical, real world approach will. My inflationary two cents anyway. God can start by sending some lightning bolts to my horrible siblings. I won't intervene. So help me god. So, HELP me, god! Make those bastards extra crispy, then we'll talk. Love ya.

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

I have problems with religion too. I too wish that evil people would be smited. I have the same doubts and contentions that you've all posted here.

I don't like labeling myself. I am a christian, but its not because I was raised that way, or indoctrinated. I don't have the answers, and I'm not going to pretend like my belief is absolutely unshakeable. The reason why I love Jesus is simple. Whether he was the son of God is not whats important to me. He sacrificed himself because he believed it would save humanity. Right, wrong, or anywhere in between, thats a lot more than anyone else did on my behalf. I appreciate that. It gives me the faintest bit of hope and stops me from being completely nihilistic and dead inside.

 

[lostundead]

Jesus was the first person in history to try to move beyond this form of vengeful morality.
As a former New Atheist, the more time I spend in this terrifying world the more I see the profundity of that.
I still wouldn't call myself a believer in god or even an unhesitant admirer of Christ,
but there's something sacred there.

No, sorry to dissappoint, but there is nothing sacred there. First of all the biblical jesus did not move on from the vengeful morality present in judaism at the time- he embraced it. He was merely a reformer who interpreted some passages of the old testament in a slightly more humane manner than the pharisees did. There is unequivocal agreement among experts that jesus was in fact loyal to judaism and did not want his teachings to spread to "heathens"(=non-jews). So he didn't even move on in the slightest from the harsh racism of judaism; only jews could be saved, so he believed. If you worship jesus as a non-jew youre an idiot.

Secondly, the new testament promotes the concept of hell, which is a much more grotesque and sadistic revenge fantasy than anything you'll find in the old testament. It was a popular concept at the time, not an invention of (what would later come to be known as) christianity, but still it managed to spread this mind virus around the globe and cause imesurable amounts of psychological and physical suffering.

The truth about Jesus is that he never saw himself as a saviour or the son of god (he would regard that as heresy) but instead an apocalyptical preacher. He expected the world to go up in flames in the near future (yep these people already existed back then). Here and there he even mentioned specific time frames when that would happen: "Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." (Mark 13:30), which must be extremly embaressing to read for christians because we are still here, the apocalypse jesus predicted didn't happen.

The reason he was sentenced to death was simply to avoid a religious uprising. Jesus came to jerusalem during passover where the tensions are always very high and a tiny spark would be enough to cause a conflict either amongst jews themselves or against the roman authorities. Either way there was a high risk of bloodshed and jesus, who's beliefs diverged from the mainstream in a few areas and was likely rhetorically skilled, could've been that spark so they decided to get rid of him preemptively to avoid having to massacre thousands to restore order.

His death on the cross wasn't a sacrifice (even if it was, it would've been only for jews). It took him by suprise, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and his desciples fled jerusalem when it happened because they were so shocked. The myth of the resurrection was created later on because his followers couln't accept this 'defeat'. While hanging on the cross jesus even cries: "My god why have you forsaken me?"(Mark 15:34).

 

[whatevs]

No, sorry to dissappoint, but there is nothing sacred there. First of all the biblical jesus did not move on from the vengeful morality present in judaism at the time- he embraced it. He was merely a reformer who interpreted some passages of the old testament in a slightly more humane manner than the pharisees did. There is unequivocal agreement among experts that jesus was in fact loyal to judaism and did not want his teachings to spread to "heathens"(=non-jews). So he didn't even move on in the slightest from the harsh racism of judaism; only jews could be saved, so he believed. If you worship jesus as a non-jew youre an idiot.

Secondly, the new testament promotes the concept of hell, which is a much more grotesque and sadistic revenge fantasy than anything you'll find in the old testament. It was a popular concept at the time, not an invention of (what would later come to be known as) christianity, but still it managed to spread this mind virus around the globe and cause imesurable amounts of psychological and physical suffering.

Jesus is obviously a semi-mythical mixture of an historical figure and conflicting religious doctrines. As you correctly pointed out, in the latter part of this character we find two religions uncomfortably sharing space, Judaism, with its rancid, shocking racism and primitive cruelty, and Gnostic/Ascetic-like concepts. These two metaphysical cosmovisions have nothing to do with each other and are even natural antagonists.

This explains perfectly the nonsensical contradiction of Jesus both clearly stating that "I came for Jews first", that he "has come to put brother against brother and fathers against sons" or that some people will be tortured eternally with another group of statements such as that we should "love our enemies as we love ourselves" and that the world that "his Father" created is inherently evil and to be rejected. "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them."

One Jesus is saying what Jews wanted to hear and the other is indirectly pointing at the visibly malignant god of the Old Testament as the creator of a world that is based on suffering and struggle. We find in other parts of the NT a more direct assertion regarding "the Devil" being the owner (and creator) of this world in the famous scene of Jesus being offered anything that he wants from the world as long as he serves "the Devil".

 

[Nolan96]

Jesus is obviously a semi-mythical mixture of an historical figure and conflicting religious doctrines. As you correctly pointed out, in the latter part of this character we find two religions uncomfortably sharing space, Judaism, with its rancid, shocking racism and primitive cruelty, and Gnostic/Ascetic-like concepts. These two metaphysical cosmovisions have nothing to do with each other and are even natural antagonists.

This explains perfectly the nonsensical contradiction of Jesus both clearly stating that "I came for Jews first", that he "has come to put brother against brother and fathers against sons" or that some people will be tortured eternally with another group of statements such as that we should "love our enemies as we love ourselves" and that the world that "his Father" created is inherently evil and to be rejected. "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them."

One Jesus is saying what Jews wanted to hear and the other is indirectly pointing at the visibly malignant god of the Old Testament as the creator of a world that is based on suffering and struggle. We find in other parts of the NT a more direct assertion regarding "the Devil" being the owner (and creator) of this world in the famous scene of Jesus being offered anything that he wants from the world as long as he serves "the Devil".

Are you basically saying Jesus was breaking free from the grips of Satan, and that Satan is the God of the Old Testament?
This has got to be the most unusual interpretation of Christianity I've ever encountered.

 

[whatevs]

Are you basically saying Jesus was breaking free from the grips of Satan, and that Satan is the God of the Old Testament?
This has got to be the most unusual interpretation of Christianity I've ever encountered.

Yeah, but sadly there isn't nothing novel about this take, it's just that the Vatican made sure to genocide all the gnostic sects that sprang in various periods of Christendom, most notably with the Albingensian crusade. These sects appeared because in fact there are strong gnostic or anti-life messages in the New Testament. I found information about this online across the years in various places and communities.

A lot of the antinatalists and efilists in this forum are to an extent secular gnostics, both groups agree that there is something wrong with this world or our existence, but one tries to add a metaphysical dimension to this worldview. It's known that some of these sects openly discouraged normal sexual relations as conducive to birthing "more trapped souls" or something like that. So, mystical antinatalism.

 

[Oblivion Access]

No, sorry to dissappoint, but there is nothing sacred there. First of all the biblical jesus did not move on from the vengeful morality present in judaism at the time- he embraced it. He was merely a reformer who interpreted some passages of the old testament in a slightly more humane manner than the pharisees did. There is unequivocal agreement among experts that jesus was in fact loyal to judaism and did not want his teachings to spread to "heathens"(=non-jews). So he didn't even move on in the slightest from the harsh racism of judaism; only jews could be saved, so he believed. If you worship jesus as a non-jew youre an idiot.

Do you have a source/some key phrases to look for, so I could read more about this? Especially the unequivocal agreement.

 

[Ashu]

Extremely simplistic. Hitchens wasted his intellect in the last phase of his life.

 

[lostundead]

Do you have a source/some key phrases to look for, so I could read more about this? Especially the unequivocal agreement.

I got all of this from a german book called Der Jesuswahn ("the Jesus delusion), written by a german ex-theologeon. There exists no translation so I'm afraid you'll have to look for an english equivalent yourself unless you speak german. Nevertheless I can explain to you why it's so obvious that the real Jesus wanted nothing to do with non-jews. Matthew 10:5-6 provides us with the most striking evidence: "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 ​But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The reason experts all agree that this is likely an actual belief of the real Jesus and not a fabrication is simple: All of the NT authors had the intention of spreading christianity to "gentiles", so they would never make such a thing up. The reason they didn't take it out is most likely due to their respect of Jesus' word and the fact that other people had access to Jesus' speeches too and would've given them shit if they took it out.

TL;DR
Jesus was a loyal jew-
Us gentile scum are not his brethren
He would always block our path to heaven.



If you want to know more, try looking for things like "historic Jesus", "New Testament research" etc. I'm sure there's some good books in english about this too.

 

[Lost Magic]

Religion sucks and is outdated. If believing in an afterlife is comforting you can always replace it with spirituality. At least then you are not stuck to old dogmatic books that have been re-written countless times anyway.

 

[Nolan96]

Yeah, but sadly there isn't nothing novel about this take, it's just that the Vatican made sure to genocide all the gnostic sects that sprang in various periods of Christendom, most notably with the Albingensian crusade. These sects appeared because in fact there are strong gnostic or anti-life messages in the New Testament. I found information about this online across the years in various places and communities.

A lot of the antinatalists and efilists in this forum are to an extent secular gnostics, both groups agree that there is something wrong with this world or our existence, but one tries to add a metaphysical dimension to this worldview. It's known that some of these sects openly discouraged normal sexual relations as conducive to birthing "more trapped souls" or something like that. So, mystical antinatalism.

Would definitely be branded by many as a form of Anti-Semitism. Also reminds me a bit of Schopenhauer (Hitler's favorite philosopher).

I don't necessarily agree with it but respect that you're on a spiritual and intellectual journey.