Religion

Apr 18, 2010

I am an atheist.  Been solid in that thinking since my high school days when a classmate tried to dispel the Big Bang Theory by comparing it to putting a bunch of computer parts in a box and thinking you'll get a working computer out of it.  My response was it's more likely than hoping to get a working computer from an empty box.  Not the most completely thought out argument, I know, but that moment was the one that pushed me from not having an opinion to knowing that religion was useless to me.

I wasn't raised with much religion.  My mom is Jewish but the kind of Jewish that's only on the holidays and still eats pork the rest of the year.  And my dad was raised Catholic but he never mentioned religion at all except to say how horrible the nuns at school were.  We had a menorah and a Christmas tree in December.  Did Passover and Easter in the springtime. But it never had any meaning really.  I have serious Jewish relatives and it was always super lame when we had to visit.

Beyond the obvious proof that science gives us about evolution and geology and chemistry, etc as I got older and experienced the world around me I saw wonderful things come from science and research and free thinking. Medical breakthroughs, new technology to improve the way we live, the beauty in nature that science explains.

And I saw terrible things like wars and hatred come from religion.  In religion I saw women being looked down upon as a lesser member of society and little more than a baby machine.  I saw people judged for being different.  I saw the most blatant hypocrisy, people that maintained their belief in a god but were so mean and hurtful to the people in their lives.

I decided to align myself with science and logic and openness. I decided I didn't need anyone to thank or blame for things that happened in my life or in the world.  I use my brain to think about the world around me, the consequences of my actions and what is right and wrong.

I have never read any religious text so I won't pretend I know it at all but I've seen enough taken out of context to make arguments for both sides.  The fact of the matter is the time we live in now has no, and I mean NO, similarities to the time in which those texts were written and they have no meaning on life today. You can still be a person with good morals and ethics without believing in stories that are centuries old. If you want to follow the bible then get rid of your phones and computers and cars and indoor plumbing and walmart and go raise sheep.