The Problem With Religion

Religion, a metaphysical lifestyle philosophy. An inherently toxic belief system, that is for some reason given a pass. Religion as a broad concept, has had a prevailing influential role throughout history, and continues to today. It has also no doubt lead to horrible things, like wars and genocide, not to mention it’s significant promotion and enforcement of bigotry, in some way or another, throughout history and today. But underlining it all is the belief in the metaphysical, the belief in falsehoods. And how this is seen as “okay”. And how that is a major threat to the continuing progress of human society. That is what I will be discussing here.

Pseudoscience, not always religious, but a religions best friend. Pseudoscience is science with a bias, science that assumes more than the validity of pragmatism, like the truth of religion. I would say that religion is one of the largest promoters of pseudoscience today. And that is likely largely because of the “pass” it is given. Respect religion, always said like a virtue, yet no one says respect social Darwinism or Nazism. Fuck no don’t respect that shit, those bad ideas, criticize them where ever you come across them, and don’t let up cause my god what if that shit catches on. But religion, toxic bullshit, that has caught on big, and that ones gotta be respected. As some kind of argument from popularity, respect bullshit that is popular, that means, Nazis and social Darwinist, you’re out, Christianity you’re up and Islam, you’re on deck.

Anti-theism is the opposition to the belief in a god or gods. Most anti-theists oppose all religion, because weather or not a particular religion believes in a god (or gods) all religions believe in the same metaphysical, false bullshit just as vehemently and unjustly as any god-believer (theist). Although most anti-theists are atheists (non god believers) there are certainly not enough atheists who are anti-theists. Atheists who say the same ol’ “respect beliefs as long as they are not forced” bullshit, all the while forgetting how the belief in falsehoods is inherently dangerous, because the promotion and acceptance of that will lead to the growth and tolerance of pseudoscience more generally. Not even to mention the superiority complex inherent in all meaningful religions.

Now what I mean by “meaningful religion” is a religious idea that has any purpose in believing. Think about it like this, a theist will almost always believe that god loves them more than he loves me. And how the fuck do you not let something like that go to your head? If I believed that the almighty god loved me more than he loves you I would totally think I'm better than you. Now I know there are some universalist theists, who would say they think god loves everybody equally, but at that point, belief is pointless, even forgetting about it’s lack of pragmatism. And for atheistic religions the problem is the same. There is some sort of “higher connection” or “superior metaphysical understanding” that the believer has and the non-believer does not. And again, how the fuck do you not let that go to your head? Or is it pointless beyond pragmatism as well?

Epistemology is how you know things. It is the way we assign truth value. Pragmatism is an epistemology based on consistent observations, with practical implication, that can be used to make predictions, that also have practical implications. Now I would argue this makes pragmatism the best epistemology. Because of it’s basis of practical implications. Because nothing else matters I could grant every metaphysical claim you make and it would not change a single thing about the way I view the world. Because pragmatism is how we all have to live in it.

God or any sort of metaphysical thing, is not pragmatic. It is not any kind of observation, it has no predictive capabilities, and thus no practical implication. Now I know “metaphysical” is used in a lot of contexts. But what it means is “after” or “beyond” the physical. And because anything that is pragmatic can be explained in terms of the physical universe, the natural world, our common accepted reality, if you will. Therefore The only fair truth value to assign any given metaphysical claim is that of false, or indeterminate, at best. Which means to state any religion as truth is to state a falsehood. So, now tell me again why we are suppose to respect falsehoods.

Now, in case it was not obvious, I am an anti-theist. And now I want to be clear I do not hate people, condone violence, or any sort of religious persecution. I am a secularist in support of religious freedom, I am an anti-theist because I view all religions as a threat to that, and other wonderful things in the world. Like science. I said near the beginning that religion is the largest promoter of pseudoscience. And, well, in support of that I would like to bring your attention to “new-age spirituality”, and “alternative medicine” including, but not limited to, Neo-paganism, Wicca, naturopathy, homeopathy, faith-healing and even chiropractics. Now I know these things are not strictly speaking “new”, but recently these things have seen an influx of interest. And I would say a reason for that is religion and that pass it’s been given, that pseudoscience has been able to sneak into.

Last thing I'll say, is something good about religion, well, kind of. Religion is responsible for all major “enlightenment eras”, but also a threat to enlightenment. You may some times have heard it said that religion is like a primitive science. But that's bullshit. Religion is much more of a primitive government, that unlike governments before it was able to handle expanse and massive civilizations. Religion allowed these empires to grow and people to come together, share ideas, and progress quickly. However at some point this enlightenment becomes a threat to the religion. This is what I think happened in the Arabic enlightenment (AKA the golden age of Islam) and the European enlightenment. The difference is Islam won, and destroyed there own golden age, Christianity on the other hand lost, the enlightenment lead to secularism (as is inevitable) and to quote the incredibles “the time came for them to either join us, or go away”. I hope soon that time comes for Islam and all other religions, but until then, keep your guard up, criticize all religions as often as needed, stop saying things like i’m not religious, but I'm spiritual, as if to defend your lack of religion, it needs no defense, but a lot more pride. And please always remember DO NOT RESPECT RELIGION, it doesn't deserve it.