Praise God and Pass the Ammunition

A few thoughts about religion.

If God loves me and I am his child, why does he subscribe to cruel and inhuman punishment?

The big threat from every religion is that if you are not good, you will go to Hell "FOREVER." Let's look at this as a punishment. If we decide that "forever" means the life of the universe as we know it, and we are currently in the middle of the universes' life span of 30 billion years, that means that forever, currently, is about 15 billion years.

So ..... religion tells me God loves me and cares for me and wants the best for me, but, if I somehow screw up during my measly 80+ year life span, God will sentence me to at LEAST 15 BILLION YEARS of pain, torture and anguish. That seems to be quite an overreaction and quite a punishment for someone you "love." The whole concept is rediculous.

Plus, isn't God supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful? Isn't Heaven supposed to be the place where you will go to earn your "perfect" reward if you are good?

Yet, Satan and his followers were angels in Heaven. They turned against God (because he gave Man free will and angels didn't have that - wait a minute - if angels didn't have free will, how could Satan have turned evil and decided to challenge God? Oh that's right, I'm not supposed to question that). They started a WAR IN HEAVEN and tried to take over. If God is all-powerful, why would Satan have even tried to challenge him? Why didn't God just make them all disappear? If God is all-knowing, why didn't he see this coming and just prevent it? (God seems to be surprised and angered quite frequently for an all-knowing being) And notice that God didn't actually defeat Satan. They actually came to an agreement to stop the war where Satan and his followers got their own country. And they were then allowed to torture mankind. Doesnt sound like a crushing victory for an all-powerful being.

If you subscribe to the idea that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then nearly every story in the Bible makes no sense. If you believe the stories in the Bible, then you have to accept that God is, at best, maybe just "slightly" superior. But certainly not all-knowing and all-powerful.

This is why religion makes no sense and is bunk. The stories and the rules are completely contradictory.

The purpose of religion is to pretend you are doing good for others so you can convinve your religious leaders to tell God you are good to save your own ass from going to hell. In the meantime, religion fosters intolerance, hatred, elitism, and the persecution of anyone not "of the faith." Thou Shalt Not Kill .... this is a COMMANDMENT .... unless your religious leaders tell you God said it was ok to kill "this time."

Rediculous.

Friendship Tied to the Tracks

I felt badly for many years because I just kind of abandoned my friend Dale when he got into drugs and alcohol. I wasn't sure how to deal with it, he scared the crud out of me, so I just avoided him. Over the last 9 months, we discovered each other and re-opened our friendship on Facebook. I knew he had cleaned himself up and that he was now a religious nut, but, I felt we could still be friends. However, over the last couple of months he went through a personal scare and operation for prostate cancer. The result was that he suddenly went DEEP into his religious fervor. That's what religious people do when faced with the thought of death. They start being more religious in the hopes that they can convinve everyone (including God) they are good people so they can make sure to get their asses into Heaven. That's all religion is about. It's not about helping others to be good. It's about doing good works (as defined by your religious leaders) so you can save your own ass and not go to Hell. He began posting between 5 and 10 different religious messages to Facebook almost on a daily basis. I do not believe in religion. God may exist, I think that question may be open, but the absolute bullshit that people created that they call religion is nonsense and I don't subscribe to any of it. I challenged Dale on several occasions, pointing out the discrepancies and inconsistencies with what he was writing. At first he tried to be a little understanding of me and my position (I was doing it mainly to try to get him to tone it down a bit) but he became more increasingly fundamentalist. He became intolerant, angry, and started suggesting that I should not be allowed to post anti-religious stuff while he was allowed to post as much religious stuff as he wanted. I subscribe to the Freedom from Religion Foundation and he even created posts calling them a CULT. What utter nonsense. He said he felt "sorry" for me and became convinced that "something" was controlling my life. The implication was that I was somehow under Satan's control. This was the last straw. This time I walked away voluntarily. Sick or not, friend or not, I do not have to be abused by any religious nuts just because they feel morally superior to me and decide I need to be suppressed. I asked him when they were going to tie me to a stake and burn me, or call me a heretic and kill me. What's the difference? The same arrogant attitudes and religious hate that has fueled religious murder for centuries will not put any of those freaks into "heaven." If I am going to hell, I expect to see a lot of those persecuting murderers there with me. So this friendship, as screwy as it has been, is now over. I live my life just fine without religious oppression, fear, and arrogant hatred of others. If you don't believe the same things, that's fine, I believe you have that right. But don't you try to deprive me of MY rights.