The Plague of Religion

Religion is a serious issue. Everyone treats it with the utmost of respect, when in fact it is the plague of the modern man.

Since the dawn of times people have created gods to explain their surroundings. Thor, Zeus, and many others soon became the subject of awe of entire empires which extended over the seas and the continents. These gods were also the reason why many wars were fought and so many people were killed, for example the Mayans believed that every day they had to make a sacrifice to the gods, or else the sun wouldn’t shine that day.

Let’s go to when the Roman Empire ruled over a great portion of the world. Constantine the Great was trying to make Constantinople the capital of his empire and he succeeded but in succeeding he also replaced the ancient mythology with a new one: Christianity. This is the main topic of my essay and the reason why I am upset. Not only many believers were stripped from their centuries old beliefs and were called Satanists by the church but for those who didn’t change the only thing awaiting them was death.

Soon violence pushed off the Greek’s beliefs into the realm of mythology replacing the rich and complex legends with a simple story of an “all-loving god” who many times destroyed its own people and who sent his son to die for their sins. For those who don’t know the story, since then everything went down-hill. We got the rupture of the Roman Empire, the beginning of the Dark Ages, The Crusades amongst others.

The Church then almost completely ruled most of the land and was the only unifying force amongst the countries which may be perceived as good whereas it was really the reason to its incredible power. But they did not only rule the land, they also controlled wisdom. While most people during the Dark Ages were illiterate because of the high cost of education the Church had a full campus of scientists, philosophers, etc. and became the monopoly in terms of science. That’s why Galileo was killed for saying the earth was round and revolved around the sun. Something as simple as that, that we take as fact, was a matter of so much controversy when the Church ruled.

But soon things came to a stop. The development of the first printer meant there was more access to books and knowledge, the rise of bourgeois families meant new people had had access to money and power and things came to a change. Renaissance came and for the first time in millennia people did know something and where starting to use their dusty neurons. And that’s where the decline of the Church starts.

Are you connecting the dots or are you still clueless?

When the Church had the most power we were a bunch of illiterate villagers who served no real purpose. Still today we can feel the power of religion upon ourselves. Thanks to them we now colloquially use the word pagan to describe a Satanist when it really means someone who adores nature. They are also trying to eradicate other cultures, trying to transform the world into a single Christian nightmare. Little kids in Africa who once had their own cultural identity now believe purely on Jesus and Yahweh. Are we ready to live on a world where no one is unique and everyone follows the same set of beliefs? Do you want that kind of world where religion plagues the intellect of men?

Well it’s not something new to see that Religion was behind such a barbarian bloodbath as were The Crusades and the genocide of six millions Indians in the New World, who were catalogued as pagans.

Why do people believe in this, you may ask.

First of all the circle of life and death in nature made people believe that everything had a beginning and an end, even the Universe. This is wrong. In fact the Universe is eternal, due to the Conservation of Matter; no matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Well you may think that Matter is not the only thing on the Universe, there is also energy. Well kids, bad news. The Theory of relativism presents a simple equation which is e=mc², the formula is simple: e stands for energy, m for mass and c² for the speed of light on a vacuum squared. Also in most standards c stands for 1, which leaves us with a simpler equation of e=m, or in other words energy is equal to mass. If this isn’t enough there exists also the Law of Conservation of Energy which says energy cannot be created nor destroyed.

If you think this isn’t still enough then know that as the Greek believed their gods resided in Mount Olympus, Jews believed their god was literally in the skies, and as such there was no distinction between "heavens" and skies.

Convinced? No?

Then let’s tackle this debate from the religious point. I got a friend who says the Universe must have been created because everything has a start, so I come up with a simple question: Who created God?” He says God has always existed which is contrary to his original argument, something I point out during the course of the debate and the reason why he leaves prematurely, upset because having a lack of belief in a deity seems "stupid because it will send me to hell", at least he said.

That’s why I’m upset. Even in America there is no respect for different pints of view. Here is an interesting piece of information I found in www.religioustolerance.org:

“…a problem which has every likelihood of becoming more intense in the future, because of the rapid change in the religious makeup of the U.S.  Polling data from the 2001 ARIS study has revealed that the percentage of American adults who do not follow any organized religion has almost doubled from 1990 to 2001 -- from 8% to 14% of the adult population. Many of the latter are Atheists, Agnostics, Non-believers, Secularists, Humanists, etc. Many American adults -- 81% of whom identify with a specific religion -- seem unwilling to extend elementary freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly to this growing minority of fellow Americans.”

Also this:

“...Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in 'sharing their vision of American society.' Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry."

These two fragments seem devastating. Isn’t one of the main ideals of religion “love your neighbor”? Religion may look like the epitome of progress but as seen through my eyes it is only the worst loss of time ever created by man. If we cannot respect differences between humans, then are we really humans?

If knowledge, truth and tolerance have to be abandoned to be a Christian, then I’m a happy Atheist. After all, we all carry the same blood. Crimson red.

Author's Note

Kind of a rant. I hope this turns out to be a series of essays about religion and Atheism. I am so eager to write a lot.