My original article/post:
Quote:In American culture, we do not see the religious war that many other parts of the world sees, but in it’s place we have what is called “tolerance”. While definitely better than religious war, it doesn’t come without it’s issues. Religious tolerance has removed the ability to criticize and discuss religion openly within our culture. The problem with letting everyone keep to their own beliefs (which is perfectly fine with me), is that religion can never keep to itself. Evangelism is ALWAYS a part of religion. It seeks to convert those that do not believe. I believe we have an obligation to criticize ideas that are being spread and adopted, not in a totalitarian sense, but in the sense that we personally criticize and work through facts and beliefs, for the betterment of our society and global culture.
Most major religions claim allegiance to a certain ancient text, usually described in the majority as the “Word of God” and that it is infallible. A rather bold claim. In these ancient texts we read stories that are taken to be historically and scientifically accurate. However, we find that most of these stories are highly improbable, and at worst a lie. For example, take the history of the early Jews. We all know the highly inspiring (and at times gruesome and evil) story of Moses, who liberated the Jews from slavery with supernatural plagues, and moved them (with the help of Yahweh) into a land “God gave them” and proceeded to commit genocide on entire populations of peoples, such as the Canaanites. God told them not to leave anyone alive; man, woman, or child, as not to pollute their culture with false gods. What we see in history and archaeology is in fact the opposite. The Jews were probably Canaanites themselves, breaking away from their people because of a disagreement. This probably explains why the Canaanites were so poorly regarded in the Old Testament. Other studies of Egypt show that the Jews were never slaves, thus eliminating the story of Moses in it’s entirety. Egypt was also the large power of the day, and protected it’s region very well. If the Jews did attempt to wipe out the Canaanites or any other group, it is very likely that Egypt would have stepped in and dealt with it. We have yet to find any sort of credibility in this story.
In the world of science, progress has commonly come at the expense of religious dogma. In a more modern example, I know of many people who wholly deny evolution because of the Genesis creation story. They believe there is no way the bible could be wrong about such things. It’s easy enough to believe in evolution as a Christian: just call the story “metaphorical”, a common Christian synonym for false, and spiritualize it. If the story was a fabrication, then why keep it? I know so many who twist words and push it even further in madness to justify their belief. The word for “day” doesn’t mean “day”, it means “age”. Oh, and here’s a fossil with a human footprint beside it. It puts it in the place of any other religious story we don’t believe. This doesn’t mean that we can’t learn something from these stories, like any other fairy tale, but it removes any credibility to the dogma it holds to push forward. If this story was metaphorical, then it destroys the doctrine of us inheriting original sin from Adam, because there never was an Adam. There are many foundational, historical stories to the Jewish and Christian faiths in question, and almost all of these have yet to put forward any amount of evidence besides from religious fabrication and “personal experience with Jesus” to convince us otherwise.
There are many other examples that led to my disbelief. The liberating point for me was when I finally figured out to ask, “What if the Bible was wrong?” instead of asking, “What did God mean to say instead?”. I stopped making excuses for it’s inaccuracy, read the Bible objectively, and in the end relieved myself of a lot of work and headache trying to justify my faith. Christianity is false and irrational.
"The consolations of philosophy and the beauties of science; these things are infinitely more awe-inspiring and regenerating and majestic than any invocation of the burning bush or doctrine." - Christopher Hitchens
