Churchmice 2: Religion’s Real Purpose
I was about to post this as a comment, but I realized that I wanted the second part of this comment to be read by everybody around the world, because… I think it will shake them up. Those religious tightasses, I mean.
rollchan: that’s you, right? Don’t bullshit now, how many Filipinos don’t speak Tagalog? And how many Filipinos read this blog anyway?
manga, 0blade: I think the cause of all this is because religious people don’t respect other people’s beliefs. It’s pretty obvious when you go to a freaking church and all they do is try to convert you over (or if not, just generally speak of God and how he must exist), and when in the Quran they speak of setting non-believers on fire. This results in an “us versus them” mentality, where the “us” is on the good side, of course. This can be used to justify anything, up to wars and feuds. All because of something that is supposed to exist for the cause of good, which doesn’t intervene when its followers fight amongst themselves.
This a bit reminiscent of my primary school days, when we would be friends with each other one day and the next we wouldn’t because those ‘friends’ were friends with our enemies too. There was always an us vs them. Or perhaps I should compare this to comic books, just to emphasize the sheer absurdity?
I think religion was originally created to get people to adhere to an honest way of life, back when the concept of police hadn’t been invented yet. I mean, the whole point of Hell is to scare away people from doing bad things. It’s like a jail, but far worse, because it’s always a life sentence. Heaven and the #virgins are like a candy cane that your mom gives you when you’ve followed her instructions. It’s a marvel that adults spun up this yarn, based on how they bring up their own children (the boogeyman will come and get you), and still managed to believe in it. A thousand years after Christianity came to be, its original purpose was forgotten, and stuff like the Crusades happened. Fast forward yet another thousand years, and you see more people like Osama who just don’t get it. You just don’t get it, do you, Muslims? You don’t.
Even worse is that any idiot who sits down for a moment could have figured this out. Even a religious idiot. Sadly, what the religious idiot will do is simply deny it and strap himself to a pack of explosives, instead of saying ‘hey, wtf are we doing’, mostly because his new views on the religion’s origin/how they’re behaving in the context of a primary school won’t be tolerated readily by most of the group, and in any case, his higher ups have invested so much into this religion that it would be quite absurd to hear of any new ideas. Social pressure, then, makes everybody within that group follow the leader. Read: social pressure (or the fear of hell), not law.
Religion is misinterpreted, and now the source of many conflicts and even false facts (flat earth, anyone?). Based on the second reason alone, it is enough to say that religion no longer serves its original purpose in this world, and therefore needs to die. In fact, the only benefit it may bring to its followers is that it gives them peace of mind – that they’re doing the right thing, the world works this way and that (don’t question me), the purpose of life is so and so, and they will be rewarded with x virgins if they follow this path to the very end.
I had no idea humans were this weak.
ahh, religion is such a broad topic. no more of this. hehe.
thanks for the post.
“And how many Filipinos read this blog anyway?” <- I’m Filipino too. rollchan must be hanging out with fundamentalists or something.
I believe that essentially religion was to be a sort of guide for people to be better people (the fact that it was used as a tool for colonization notwithstanding) and to give them something to hope for (or cling onto). However, because of the idiocy of the general populace, or, as you put it, the peer pressure that forces others to bend over to the commonly accepted norms (how ironic) of that religion/group, the entire point of religion is slowly decaying.
I don’t think it’s a problem of religion. There’s really nothing bad about it (believing in a higher being/s that may or may not exist), to be honest; these sorts of things give us hope, however fleeting or abstract (because yes, we are that weak). It’s just that the people and the actions that they take are slowly undermining the core point of religion, which is what probably gave rise to atheists and agnostics and such.
That being said, I’m not defending any particular religion. I just follow the belief that they (the religious tightasses) can do what they want, provided they don’t fuck it up for everyone else.
first things first: I do not want to see any generalisations being made. Since in the eyes of a muslim, Osama isn´t a believer. And in my mind he isn´t either. Neither are any believer that uses his or her religion as a reason to hurt anyone else.
And to be precise, I´m no believer. I dislike religion since it´s like saying: Oh hey I don´t want a free mind but one that is ruled by someone else, please take my free mind away.
I meet a couple of muslims to discuss religion. One of them was way better to discuss things with as he could think for himself :p The other, a girl though seemed to look for answer in the holy book of the muslims for each and every thing.
So as with everything else there are certain degrees of the believers and actors of religion.
Religion is a way to controll people, a way of soothing ones mind, a way to find true peace, something that gives people hope. Religion is a lot of things.
I´ve never heard of any virgins being a prize for living by the rules. The first I heard of that was as a comedy spoof with Achmad the dead terrorist singing a christmas carol. So that´s something Osama tricks his followers with, not something that is written anywhere.
But yes, humans are weak, put them under a little preasure and they will break. Give them an easy way out and oh, they take it. The sad story of humans
In Muslim beliefs, if you died because you fought for your religion, I forget the exact figure, but you’d go straight to heaven with 77 large-breasted virgins, or so my social science teacher told us.
Wow, I’m not sure what kind of experiences you have with religion but mine are completely different. I have friends who do believe in different religions and we get along fine. We don’t always agree with each other on certain aspects such as the existence of God and all, but we do respect each other and don’t treat each other like crap. The church you mentioned also sounds pretty extreme too but then I have no experience of churches except for Protestant.
I don’t have any qualms with your view on religion, but I think you’re being a bit misleading when you start generalizing that the Crusaders and terrorists of Al-Qaeda follow the moral principles of their own religion. Since I do have knowledge of Christianity,I can safely say that the Crusaders did not follow the principles of the Bible and more for the prospect of power instead. This was during the 1100’s back when the church had great political power and the desire to misuse it for personal gain happened often. Nowadays, people realize the foolishness of it and how corrupted the church was back then. So to say things such as Muslims “don’t get it” in association to the suicide bombers is quite outlandish since I am pretty sure that many do not believe in Bin Laden’s beliefs. He follows Qutbism, renowned for its more “radical” approach of Islam.
(and so when Ritsuko times out gets its first real, significant comment, without flaming, and rolcanjr is definitely rollchan)
m3rryweather: of course I get along with my religious friends! well, somewhat, because I don’t know which of my friends are devout and which are casual, it isn’t important for me. And yes, come to think of it, people don’t always act on their religion. The implication (unintentional) rested squarely on the official reasons of such conflicts, which involve religion, when it’s most likely about something else.
The fact that most people don’t care for Osama’s beliefs doesn’t change the fact that he is a Muslim, and that he declared a holy war. In fact, how in the world does hurting somebody while loudly proclaiming that you’re doing it for your religion make you a non-believer? Even if other people declare that you are not (religion), how does that make you not (religion)? Even if the Word of God is polluted by human agendas, it doesn’t mean its followers are non-followers.
Hello again, and thank you for taking the time to reply to an actual, serious response from me! If I am not mistaken, I can accurately sum up your next point that a terrorist is a believer if he definitely proclaims he is doing an act of violence in the name of his religion. I’d like to rebut with another point taken from an article in Newsweek written by a Muslim and his views on Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist acts. While most of it is about his personal experiences, there is one quote that I find worthy to dwell on.
“The truth is, fanaticism can spring from misguided excess in any religion, and Muslims who kill in the name of their beliefs are not true Muslims. Aggression is not a tenet of our religion, but rather something that is condemned except in self-defense. The Quran states: “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but commit no aggression; for Allah loves not transgressors” (al-Baqarah 2:190).”
I think the author makes a good point in arguing that suicide bombers cannot be true Muslims if they can senselessly kill others, even other Muslims. Misguided interpretations of religious text and fanaticism is a dangerous combination as proven by Al-Qaeda. So in summary, true believers of the major religions do not kill others for the sake of their own beliefs and the ones who do are really false believers.
OK, so let’s say for example that originally, Islam does not condone aggression. Does that mean that Osama does not believe in Islam? Far from it – if what you say is true, they’re practicing a warped form of Islam.
And this warped form of Islam does not count as a religion? Of course it does. It obviously is a religion, it has Allah, it has rituals, it has a cause to fight for, even if humans added the last part. And thus, m3rryweather, my point that religion is behind some conflicts stands unchallenged.
I have carefully considered your reply and came up with a response to your argument. I’ll address the two issues you have made:
1. A “warped” religion is still religion.
2. Religion is behind some conflicts.
Responding to the first point, we have to raise the question: does “warping” Islam still make it Islam? I’d like to bring up the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW for short) as an example. The followers believe that this is an actual religion while the other denominations treat it as a cult. The reason is because JW made a “New World Translation” that altered and completely changed many of the Bible’s original meanings. In theory, the New World Translation can be considered “twisting” the Bible. Now does this still make JW a religion? Unfortunately, I cannot give a definite answer because there are many differing opinions if this is a “true” or a “false” religion. However, what I can say is that the people can create something with identical rituals and say it is a religion, but does that not make it necessarily legit.
For the second point, I’d like to compare that statement to the controversial topic on whether violent video games is the cause of teenager school shootings. There has been quite a debate about this topic and science has yet to prove it adaquately, but my common sense tells me that violent video games are not the root of the school shootings. The real problem is in the individual doing the shooting and video games are used only for a cover. If violent video games were the cause, than everyone who plays them can potentially be a killer. The same also applies with religion. If a terrorist kills someone and said
video gamesAllah told me to do it, that doesn’t mean religion is the reason for murder. That same terrorist can say he really is a Muslim, bu that does not mean he can shift his crime and say religion is the cause. I will also have to question his credibility as a “true” Muslim since the teachings of the Qu’ran did say “commit no aggression”.