RELIGIOUS CRAP Will somebody please take out the garbage? Sometimes (I gotta tell ya) I find it difficult to express how completely fed up I am with what I can only call religious crap. It truly has the feel of garbage that we need desperately to get rid of. We all know how it is with garbage. If you leave it lying around too long it starts to stink. After a while the stink really gets to you. That's sort of what's happening to me with the religious stuff. I have an increasingly strong feeling that it is something we need to completely dispose of. Dependence upon religious effluvia, its rites and rituals (not to mention the totally false premises upon which all of its bullshit is based), is one of the things that makes me dislike people so much. So many of them seem to be caught up in it (like the vast majority of people on the whole freakin' planet). If they have to be this way, I'd just as soon not hang with them. I'll just remain in my own little cave, thank you, and silently tell them all to fuck off. There is no question that I am in the minority on this issue. One argument that they would surely throw at me would go something like, "Well, since so many people say so, there must be something to it. Seems to me like you're the one who's out of whack, dude." That may be. Maybe I really am out of whack. It certainly feels like it. I'm definitely not in step with the masses. But that in itself does not make the masses right, just more powerful. I truly believe their obsession with religion is just that, an obsession, founded on little more than fear. It is not faith-based; it is fear-based. Basically, they're afraid to die and (depending on the exact form of their belief) go to hell. To me, this is absurd. What they are really doing is giving up on life now, at this moment, in the hope of securing it later, like in heaven or something. They only believe this stuff of course. They have no knowledge of it whatsoever. And the only reason they believe it is because someone told them to believe it, like a parent or other figure of authority. The vast majority of believers do not cling to their beliefs because they have gone to the trouble to think deeply about them. Hell, no. They're just going along with the crowd. And admittedly it is hard to resist the crowd. Even Aristotle noted that man is a social animal; he seems to have some sort of hive, or herd, instinct, which prompts him, almost irresistibly, to follow the group. The faithful truly lack knowledge, but make up for it with a plethora of beliefs and/or superstitions. Or, perhaps they don't lack knowledge, but simply don't want to pay it any mind. They'd much rather wallow in their primal fears of death. But there is one piece of knowledge they do have (and most certainly should not ignore). They know that they are here now. Wisdom would surely dictate that they live the life they are most assured of, the one presently before them, and abandon all this speculation about some life in the future, which they may never see. But they scoff at this, preferring instead to forego the pleasures of this life (the one they hold so surely in the palm of their hand), and in its place faithfully (and persistently) invest their time and energy in the next one, the one they merely imagine Now, in a way, this shouldn't bother me, and it wouldn't if they would somehow keep their insanity to themselves. But they don't. They seem driven by some neurotic compulsion to share it. It's all over the television, and in the movies. Even certain governmental functions begin with the etiquette of an opening prayer, which is total nonsense. Prayer. I have one thing to say about it:
A man of faith never prays.
These public prayers, which we are constantly encountering, are really not prayers at all so much as tepid forms of public ritual. According to Jesus, real prayer is private, something between the prayer and the Prayee. Most all praying is prompted by fear, and a man of fear is not a man of faith. The two concepts are completely oxymoronic. The believer retorts, "What nonsense! I pray to God in order to thank Him, not just to ask for stuff." To which I reply, "Why do you thank Him? Do you think He'd harbor some sort of resentment if you did not, and possibly even withhold His blessings if you refused to offer Him thanks? If that's the reason for your thanks, then you offer it from fear. Furthermore, if you must truly thank Him, why don't you do it in private, when no one is looking? What's with this public display of ingratiation and affection? You're not so much praying as playing the exhibitionist." I thank God for every meal. You know how? By eating it! The very act of preparing food is a religious experience for me, and the partaking of it is absolutely divine. To my way of thinking, the very consumption of food is a form of worship. I show my thanks to God by fully enjoying the food He has given me. But do you think I go around saying this shit all the time? Hell, no. I repeat: A man of faith never prays. You see, I've got this arrangement with The Man. I know He's there; He knows I'm here. So what's the big deal? We both like to enjoy the moment. More often than not that means that neither of us sees the need to fill it up with a bunch of words. We mostly just shut the fuck up, sit on the riverbank and watch the river flow. Is True Religion Even Possible? The Bible: Why God Had Nothing To Do With It
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