Yeah if it was just question of logic almost all people would leave the religion, but the problem is that people around you, like you said, still believe in this nonsense and they target you, isolate you.
But forget for a moment that religion is a nonsense, don't those preachers make you miserable? When you go to the mass and listen to those words don't they evoke anger, aggression, disapproval, sarcasm and cynicism? They don't inspire love, compassion or tolerance. It is designed to elicit fear. The logic is non-existent. The priest is there to be perpetually angry week after week. Those sermons are designed to speak directly to the primitive limbic system in the brain where it tends to evoke responses of fear, anger, anxiety or other negative emotions.
As a result, people feel that they belong to a group under attack. If successful, the minister will accomplish two things: First, the listeners will feel threatened; and second, they will bond more closely to one another to feel safer and more protected. They feel miserable whole week until that short relief when they hear those angry words on the mass, or during the week if they listen to religious radios or TV where they can hear that message how they are in danger and better watch out.
Try this experiment: Watch any of the popular televangelists with the sound turned off. Pay particular attention to any close up-shots. Examine the preachers’ smile, their jaw tension, neck or forehead veins; watch their hand gestures – how many aggressive, forward-pushing, knife or hatchet-type gestures do you see? Now ask: If you saw this person in a coffee shop talking like this, how would you classify his or her behavior and emotions?
But forget for a moment that religion is a nonsense, don't those preachers make you miserable? When you go to the mass and listen to those words don't they evoke anger, aggression, disapproval, sarcasm and cynicism? They don't inspire love, compassion or tolerance. It is designed to elicit fear. The logic is non-existent. The priest is there to be perpetually angry week after week. Those sermons are designed to speak directly to the primitive limbic system in the brain where it tends to evoke responses of fear, anger, anxiety or other negative emotions.
As a result, people feel that they belong to a group under attack. If successful, the minister will accomplish two things: First, the listeners will feel threatened; and second, they will bond more closely to one another to feel safer and more protected. They feel miserable whole week until that short relief when they hear those angry words on the mass, or during the week if they listen to religious radios or TV where they can hear that message how they are in danger and better watch out.
Try this experiment: Watch any of the popular televangelists with the sound turned off. Pay particular attention to any close up-shots. Examine the preachers’ smile, their jaw tension, neck or forehead veins; watch their hand gestures – how many aggressive, forward-pushing, knife or hatchet-type gestures do you see? Now ask: If you saw this person in a coffee shop talking like this, how would you classify his or her behavior and emotions?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
