From where I stand, Christianity strives to eliminate one of many things: the human expedition of knowledge. I can explain this in numerous ways, and can provide the evidence too. But first, let me begin by saying that I do not believe that the Bible is the true word of God. I consider it nothing more than an elaborate work of fiction, created by men who wish to control masses via fear and false prophecies.
All throughout the Bible, there are what I call, "leakages" wherein the text reveals more than what it had intended. Let's not forget the brutal genocides commanded by God on men, women and children in the Old Testament where God is known as destructive, powerful and ruthless. But only to remarkably change in the New Testament to become an all-caring, peaceful, lover-of-children. It was still the same God. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the God in three persons, right? So how come the remarkable change? The same yesterday, today and forever?! This used to be a God that instructed his followers to slaughter masses because of differences in race and religion! Then, he suddenly transformed into a man who was graceful and caring? Another "leakage".
Logic is one of those things that ruffles religions' feathers. Religion relies on faith to keep men and women fooled into believing. Logic destroys the need for faith, so religion loses followers and therefore power. The only way religion can maintain its power, is to eliminate the expedition of knowledge. To destroy every resource of logical information, or at least fool people into not using their own brains. In fact, in most cases religion imposes fear and guilt upon people to prohibit them from knowledge and the exploration of the truth.
How did sin apparently enter the world? The expedition of knowledge, that how. Not believe me? Look at the first chapter of Genesis and you'll find the answer. Eve, the first woman on earth, took fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil to acquire knowledge, and because of this God got angry and sin entered the world. There you have it.
From the very beginning, religion has hated the expedition of knowledge. It can't survive if the truth is revealed. Powerful men want to control you, religion desires to bound you.
Great uncompromising essay. Just thought I would offer a little counter-point about "faith," to balance things out:
ReplyDeleteSince we are limited beings, we are never dealing with the whole picture. We always have fragments of truth, and we attempt to put those jigsaw pieces together in a way that makes coherent sense. And when we encounter missing pieces, we conceptualise possibilities and rely on ... faith. If we don't rely on faith, our only choice is to believe in nothing, even though the idea of nothing creating the universe is irrational.
Now, I see where you're coming from. You're talking about the sort of credulous blind faith that religion asks for. And yes, we have to overcome that. I suppose the best way to put it is this:
Use as little faith as possible, but somewhere along the line, you're going to find that you need some. :-)
I understand what you're saying. I guess what I meant in regards to religious faith is that more often than not you're putting ALL your trust in religion. Rarely are you encouraged to think for yourself, you're just fed religious teachings over and over again.
ReplyDeletePutting faith in something that you've deducted with a fair amount of logic is different in my opinion. You've thought out the possibilities using your brain rather than a preacher in a pulpit babbling dogma at you.
Of course we'll never know all there is to know, but I'd rather try my best than have religion do the thinking for me.