Angry

[thermalsatsuma]

On the 7th of April this year, a seventeen year old girl was dragged from her house, stripped and beaten to death in the most barbaric way imaginable. Some of the crowd filmed it on their mobile phones. Armed police officers stood by and watched it happen and didn't intervene to save her. She was a Yazidi and her supposed crime was to have a Sunni Muslim boyfriend. Twenty or more Yazidis have been killed in revenge killings since.

Is there anybody out there anywhere, with anything positive to say about religion? I am increasingly of the opinion that any religion, of any stripe, is a cancer on the human psyche. By encouraging belief in things that are insubstantial and imaginary, religion makes its adherents see others as less than human and not worthy of human dignity. A principal of an Oxford college, supposedly a bastion of enlightened thought, was recently reported to have said that 95% of Britons deserve eternal damnation in the fires of hell. If you think that somebody is going to end up being tormented by a vindictive deity, then you are not going to give two hoots about their life in the here and now.

A pox on all their houses.

Comments

[wood-rose.livejournal.com]

This is why I am a pagan...

Why I hold my own beliefs...

Why I believe on what I see and feel.

[bunnyboiler.livejournal.com]

I can't get the images of that stoning out of my head at all, since I saw them in a magazine a week or so ago. And people wonder why people seek asylum - I couldn't live like that and it reminds me that I'm very, very lucky.

[meroveus.livejournal.com]

Yes it cruel and pointless.

Yes it has been fueled by a religion with rediculous edicts.

yes there are other religions who say and do stupid things, but to say
"of any stripe, is a cancer on the human psyche. By encouraging belief in things that are insubstantial and imaginary, religion makes its adherents see others as less than human and not worthy of human dignity"
Is avery harsh generalisation, and you run the risk of causing offence to the majority of religious folk (of any religion) who lead perfectly normal lives.

please try not to bundle me in with people who do revenge killings or see other peolple as less than human because I have a belief, it's simply not true.

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

Causing offence is the last thing I'd want to do. However, if somebody chooses to take offence when I point out that their belief in imaginary things is at best misguided and at worst utterly barbaric then it's their problem not mine. They don't seem to realise just how offensive their pleading of special privilege for their beliefs is - they call for somebody to be beheaded for publishing a cartoon, they beat a girl to death in public, they think that it is acceptable to condemn people to hell, they think that they can claim special powers to impress the credulous. The danger comes when a threat to that belief shows how shallow it is, and then they feel the need to defend it with violence.

[meroveus.livejournal.com]

It is your responsibility though, for the massive sweeping generalisations you are posting. Once more, and I wont say this again, please, don't lump me and my faith with someone who causes atrocities in the name of their "religion". I am not the same as a radical muslim, I am not even similar, our mindsets are not even in the same world. please be aware that your generalisation that "all faith is bad" is just that, a generalisation, and is causing offence.

It might be best at this stage to drop the subject online, I tend to get stubborn about my faith (I am neither muslim, hindu nor christian).

it might be worth us talking this further face to face though, maybe we can both learn something.

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

I would be very interested to learn about what you believe and more importantly why, but as you say it might be better to do it over a sociable drink or two one night.

[shullie.livejournal.com]

I agree with you it’s sickening, but it’s not 'religion', that does this, it's human beings, it’s about greed, it's jealously, it's about men believing that they 'own' women, it's archaic, she was not seen as daughter, but as property, which is not necessarily a religious belief, more about fear, it's tribal, it's about culture, it's about perception... religion is used as an excuse.

If they couldn't use religion they would find something else...look at Chinese communist, Stalinists, etc., where religion was outlawed, they did still did horrific things to their own people as well as others. Look at the National Front, BNP etc they don’t need religion to want to kill, eliminate anything that they see as ‘different’, or as ‘other’ or as deviant etc. Look at the Animal Welfare people who go round and threaten and have killed people because they didn’t agree with their ethics.

I have said this before, but Fundamentalism in any sphere is scary… Religious or non religious

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

No, I think that's a fatuous comparison. Chinese communism under Mao was a personality cult with a leader being ascribed mystical status. They may not have called it worship, but the effect of large crowds waving their little red books and looking at pictures of the glorious leader amounts to the same thing. You can see the same thing in North Korea today.

The difference with organisations like the BNP is that they are not afforded special protection for their abhorrent views. I can publish a cartoon ridiculing their beliefs without somebody saying that I should worry about offending their delicate sensibilities. They don't get seats reserved for them in the house of Lords, they don't get time set aside in schools for compulsory study of their policies, they don't get a five minute slot on the Today programme for an uncritical broadcast of their views.

I have said before that I have no problem with people believing whatever they like in the privacy of their own homes, but as soon as they make their beliefs public then they are fair game for critical assessment. It is a nonsense that religious people should make claims for the existence of the supernatural, or that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, or that allah demands that infidels be beheaded, and then be offended if somebody asks them to prove it.

Religion may not be the root of all evil, but it is the root of at least 95% of it.

[(Anonymous)]

Chinese communism may have become a personality cult, but part of its tenants were to eradicated religions, like Marx, Mao saw it as opium to the masses. The idiom power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely... comes to mind.

I also think that people have a need to believe in 'something' if the religious option was/is removed, they remade in the Chinese instance it in the image of Mao.

I am assuming that you are talking about Islam here, but of course the blasphemy laws still exist so it could be Christianity too. I agree with you that it was preposterous and horrendous that they were able to create in such a way that had much of the western non Islamic countries and nations apologising for what really was a freedom of speech issue.

Re the BNP they would if they could, and aspects of their ideologies are discussed if not in RE lesson then in PSE and the soon to be Citizenship classes. They do get broadcasting rights too, as they are a political party and have the same rights as other political parties.

Re the Christian assembly and RE issue, it's every parents’ right to ask for their children not to have to attend. Every parent can withdraw their child from such. Atheism is from my knowledge and understanding is also part of the curriculum, as is understanding, respect for and other people’s beliefs and cultures.

And I agree with you that as soon as people make their own beliefs public then they should be fair game for those who disagree - what ever their belief system is - religious or otherwise.

I disagree with religion being the root of all evil. I think people are, human nature/desire is to blame. Power, greed, anger, jealousy, fear, even love, all drive us. Religions are just a hook that some choose to hang their desires/natures onto and to use as an excuse for what can be abhorrent human behaviour. I think if all religions were wiped ou today, we would as a species find something else to use as an excuse for what we do and don’t do to each other.