I say some harsh things about religion/religious people and I’ve “become just as dangerous” as religion/religious people? Boy that’s one slippery slope.

When I’m responsible for the death or suffering of ONE person, come back and we’ll talk.

And yes lots of churches have “missions” here in America. But they do the same thing they do in foreign countries. They go find poor, hungry people in need of food and medicine and shelter, and say “you can have some food/medicine/a place to sleep BUT you have to learn about how Jesus died for your sins in exchange.” You don’t see missions in Beverly Hills trying to convert the billionaires.

Again, pass a law that says religious people can feed and give medical care and shelter to poor people BUT they are not allowed to proselytize or mention their religion in any way, and that will be the immediate end of their “missionary” work. That says it all. They’re not going to spend the money on Ramen noodles and plastic spoons if they can’t get some converts out of it.

Now, you may say “But Bruce, if they’re helping people who need help, who cares if they force their religious beliefs on those people?” I care, and the point is they’re not helping them out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather, only to sign up more paying customers and holy warriors for their particular brand of religion. Also, the poor, sick, imprisoned and homeless are the most vulnerable people out there, and to prey on them is truly evil. Evil always disguises itself as good. Best example ever: the drug war.

I’ll be my usual blunt self and stipulate that I’d rather have thousands of people starve to death than get a little bit of food on the condition that they convert to X religion. Wanna teach them something, teach them how to farm/raise their own food. They don’t need bible lessons, they need agriculture lessons. Giving them religion just means they’re going to become divided between religious groups which means they’re going to start hacking each other’s limbs off, raping each other’s women and children, and burning down each other’s villages. It’s better they starve in peace. Religion is like alcohol – it brings out the inner violent asshole in people (and it’s easy to see why).

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll never be hungry again. Teach a man to pray, and he’ll starve to death praying for a fish.

Actually, Christian communities like the Mormons send their missionaries to every spot on the globe. Also, while it maybe “EVIL” to give charity in exchange for indoctrination, hey, at least that’s something good you could say about missionaries: they’re the ones actually going to these poor, starving people and, well, giving them food (and sure a bible and a pamphlet too, but is providing literature really so immoral?). When was the last time you went to a third world country to offer aid?

I don’t hate you, of course. You’re a bristly bugger… but I don’t hate you. I think of you as my ally in this battle. A prickly ally, but an ally, just the same. We don’t have to agree on absolutely everything to be allies.

That’s fine. I refuse to waste my energy by hating you and for what good purpose. It’s just your opinion. If I allow anger or disappointment to turn to hatred… it’ll hurt me worse than you, anyway.

BruceM: Do you actually understand what Marx meant when he said “religion is the opiate of the masses”? He meant that it keeps the people docile and easy to control, as though they were heavily medicated with opium. He didn’t mean “opium is the spiritual balm the people need in place of religion!”

Indeed, he meant that religion keeps people docile and easy to control. But how does it do that? It makes them feel good and takes away their worries, concerns, and pain. The “knowledge” that there is a singular creator of the universe who loves you and has a personal relationship with you, who answers your prayers, and who will reward you with everlasting euphoria after you die is an extremely powerful euphoriant. Neurotheologists who have viewed the brains of religious people under an fMRI have found that the same pleasure centers of the brain are firing off as someone who has taken an opiate.

Surely Marx didn’t know about the chemical/neurological similarities between religion and mu-agonists like morphine, heroin, oxycodone, fentanyl, etc. But if you’ve ever seen someone deep in prayer with their eyes closed, blabbering and drooling all over themselves (having what I call a “jesus orgasm”) and someone deep in an opiate nod, you can’t deny it’s the same neuro-chemical process going on. Just by differing means.

Religious leaders all oppose recreational drug use because their business model is threatened by it. Instead of giving money to the church, people will buy drugs. Drugs are a safer, more effective means of acquiring artificial happiness than religion.

Religion and opiates are fungible. Some drugs, like marijuana, may compliment rather than replace religion. But opiates work on the brain just like religion does.

Servetus: I do try hard to focus my hatred on religion rather than the religious. But when I make excuses for religious people, too often do I feel like I’m giving them a free pass merely because they’re a person rather than an idea. I do believe in the person/idea distinction. But that doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t be angry at – or just plain hate – a religious person.

Religious people who go to poor countries as “missionaries” to spread their religion to a captive, starving, desperate audience in exchange for food and medicine and basic humanitarian services is a horrible, cruel thing to do. You never see “christian missionaries” in wealthy countries like Japan. No, they go to poor countries, search out poor, desperate, hungry, sick non-christians, and say “aww you look hungry and sick? You want some food and medicine? Well come over here and learn about jesus and you can have some!” That is pure, despicable EVIL.

If you passed a universal, worldwide law (somehow) that said missionaries are allowed to go wherever they want to give food and medical care to the needy but under no circumstances are they allowed to so much as MENTION their religion, let alone proselytize, it would put an instant end to all “missionary” work. Within 12 hours every last “missionary” would be on the next flight home.

Hope: are you saying it’s hypocritical to hate those who hate us? If so, that’s just a classic case of Emerson’s “foolish consistency.”

There were so many. So many atrocities. But when they murdered Esequial Hernandaz… a floodgate of anger and outrage gave way in me. I promised myself, and that young man’s spirit and memory, that I would never forget him, as long as I had a mind, and that I would speak out against the atrocities done to him and so many others.

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/drug-war-victim/

DdC. You did a great job of making that song speak of the War on Drugs.

Bruce. There are many what I call “traps”, in life and the way we think. One of them, and it is very real, is that we can become like that which we hate. Very easily, it seems.

There are probably few people out there who have a lower opinion of religion than I do. Few can remain unaffected when they read the trial records of 16th century Spain in which eight-year-old boys were tortured to elicit confessions of Judaism. Especially when one of the few examples we have of someone not breaking under inquisitorial torture was an eight-year-old boy.

What I try not to do is make my feelings personal. Individuals must be treated and regarded as such. I’m acquainted with people on the religious left, for example, aspiring missionaries in fact, who think much in same way we do on the subject of the drug war. For all we know, Veronica Bowers had little or no use for the drug war. It’s doubtful her husband has any regard for it by now, if he ever did.

It’s not always the people, it’s the thing itself that’s objectionable. E’crasez l’infame.