Go Psychology!

#def Believing_without+thinking GOOD
#def Thinking BAD

Those lines are in the source code of all these religious mind-viruses - it’s an important part of their DNA, they would neither propagate or persist without them.

Hey! Are you one of my alternate personalities posting on here?? You seem to be echoing a lot of my own long held beliefs. One of my big heartaches is the indoctrinating of children into the faith of their parents. Sure, they believe it. You brainwashed them from birth! I also feel that is child abuse. It is mental manipulation and it is absolutely despicable. It is also propagation of a historically hateful way of life. This refers to every organized religion I know of. They all teach hatred for people of other faiths, sometimes it is veiled and sometimes it is out in the open and obvious. And this you teach your children? Funny thing is, they will argue until they are blue in the face that THEIR religion is one of love and tolerance, etc. They must not read their holy book or do so with a blind eye.

Another thing I find funny. It seems that every christian I call brainwashed somehow never heard of it until they were “old enough to make their own choice”. Given the overwelming numbers of christians in the US, at least some of them are lying, if not most. Isn’t lying a sin?

I happen to think that Christianity has been hijacked by conservatives who now claim a monopoly on interpretation. Most believers are only guilty of not thinking critically about those interpretations and trusting the hijackers’ authority. Reversing that is an obtainable goal. Eradication of religion is not.

Liberal religion can contain tolerance for disagreement, conservative religion cannot. Christianity used to value the liberal ideas of equality, tolerance, inclusiveness, and fairness. These have been largely abandoned in favor of respect for authority and in-group loyalty (and out-group animosity) with the rise of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity. Here is an interesting commentary on the subject.

“If those fools weren’t the ones in power, I’d laugh.
I hate religious people so very much.”

Its the former bit that concerns me. I don’t hate religious people at all, what I hate is religious people that want to force their ideals on me. Unfortunately, when those religious nutjobs get in power they do it all the time. Look at Shrub and his stance against stem cell research, faith based initiatives, etc. Another one would be the bans on assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. There is NO reason for that to be in place, other than the bible saying suicide is a sin. That is it.