Religion: you're doing it wrong!

No, it's not another rant of a raging atheist with too much time on his hands. It's something more interesting. Well, at least i hope so.

For now, a little disclaimer. I was raised in a western world, so obviously the only religion i am at least partially familiar with is christianity. Well, at least my level of familiarity with it allows me to quote Bible. In no way i am an expert on religions (or even christianity), so don't take my disregard for not-so-notorious Bible quotes or other religions as ignorance or deliberate fact hiding. It's not like i care about your opinion in the first place, but if someone ever comments on this blog - it better be a constructive argument, not religious flamefest.

OK, a couple of words on atheism. Some people all but jump out of their shoes to tell everyone that god doesn't exist. Another bunch of people bring lamest excuses such as "if there is a god, may he strike me dead" and expecting us to believe that if god doesn't do magic at their will - he doesn't exist. Yet another bunch of people are reasonable enough not to shout it out loud that there is no god.

However, the lamest atheists are the ones who aren't really atheists, but pride themselves on thinking and believing they are. These are the guys that talk about a universal information field, or some sort of supreme overmind, or some other bullshit. These people are the believers that are afraid of the word "god" because everyone told them that god is a guy that sits in the sky and does stuff, so they believe in something they prefer not to call "god", despite the fact that it is essentially the same thing. Terminology matters, you know, a psychologic moment.

Hello christfags. Hello muslims. Hello every other freak of nature out there. Some of these dudes all but jump out of their shoes to tell everyone that god does exist. Another bunch of people bring lamest excuses such as "if there wasn't god, my wife/son/granddad/dog/dick wouldn't be here today because <insert a horrible accident> and god saved him" and expecting us to believe that if something random happens that turns out to be good - it must be god's will, therefore he exists. Yet another bunch of people are reasonable enough not to shout it out loud that there is a god.

However, the lamest believers are the ones who fight because of religion. My god has bigger dick that your god. You have to eat this on wednesday and go to church on sunday. You have to pray every saturday noon facing north. You have to wear this and say that. Otherwise you will burn in hell. Load of crap this is, Master Yoda say.

The great thing about religion is that everyone thinks of it as a separate thing of itself, whereas in fact it's tightly connected to our own psychological matters. A religion is blind devotion to something. You don't have to believe in god to be religious - you can believe in science, or in glamour, or in money, or in music, or in white power, or in whatever makes you feel comfortable to believe in. Religion is no different from fanatism. In fact, it is fanatism.

Fanatism is not productive. The whole hoopla about things being black and white is getting too old. Life isn't that simple. This is what religious people have yet to learn. Mind you, christfags are much more relaxed now, since the whole science revolution started there aren't many active christfags left. However, this doesn't seem to be the case with muslims.

Don't get me wrong though, i don't hate muslims. It's just that i live in a multinational country, i see many religions and muslims are the only ones i have big problems with. In general, they are too fundamentalistic. They are too fanatical about this whole Islam thing, their Qur'an, their prayers, their clothing, their women - everything they touch carries a scent of absurdity. Moreover, they try to make us account for their stupid ninja religion. No, i am not being ignorant. It's just that if they are coming to Europe to live in here - better respect local laws and local culture. Eat our food, drive our cars, fuck our women - no problem, be my guest. Trying to change our laws to account for a foreign culture - no fucking way. They don't account for ours - why should we do so?

To be fair, christfags when faggy enough aren't a lot better. They try to dictate us which movies we should watch, which books we should read, which music we should listen to. Oh no, these rock bands, they like totally worship satan! Oh no, these violent video games got blood in them! Oh no, these movies got tits in them! Yep, better ask catholic priests about adultery.

However, the most funny thing about christianity (and probably other religions too) is that they totally got it all wrong. People are being told the same thing for thousands and thousands of years (at least by christianity, probably by the majority of religions), and they still don't get it. Let's go straight to the Bible and the famous ten commandments. Two of them are of particular interest - "I am your god and you shall have no gods before me", and "You shall not make for yourself an idol".

What does this mean? Well, if we remember the whole story with these commandments, it goes something like this: a guy walks to a mountain, there he recieves these ten commandments, writes them on a stone and gets back to people to tell them about these commandments. Pretty straightforward i would say. Now, presumably, that "I" in first commandement, is the very god that gave Moses these commandments. So, we as humans should not make gods other than him, and should not make idols.

Now let's go a little further in time and remember Jesus. He told us that "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in god". He also said that "Kingdom of god is within you". What does this mean? Well, apparently, that god is love and his kingdom is within us. Pretty unclear and metaphoric, i would say.

Now let's try and combine those two commandments and sayings of Jesus. I shall have no gods before love, and i should not make an idol for myself. Now, as a sane and critical thinking person i always knew that Bible is not a history book and therefore the stories inside it should not be understood literally, but rather metaphorically. In other words, don't try to follow the book, follow the ideas behind it. 

At first, when i was trying to understand those ten commandments, i didn't understand what the hell are these first two commandments about. I always thought they were extra and just were there for the officiality and psychological importance, and i always considered that the "main" commandment is the one that is about loving your neighbour, other ones were just derived from it (how can you love your neighbour if you steal from him?). However, later i realized what exactly the Bible was talking about.

And this very thing, this saying of Jesus answers all the questions at once. God is love. God is our concience. God is our mind, our soul, the spark of our creativity - all the things that are constructive. And we should abide only in our love. We should not follow our hatred, our anger, our aggression, you know, all the fun stuff that is usually attributed to devil. This is what the first commandment is all about. And this is where almost all the other commandments derive from - you shall not kill, because it is against love. You shall love your neighbour, because that way you abide in your god, which is love. This is the first, and only commandment one can ever need. 

All these stories about dudes making sacrifices - they are not there to teach to kill your children if god asks so, you dumb fucks. They are there to tell you that there can be time when something you love should be sacrificed for greater good. And they are there to tell you that god is forgiving, for he is love, and if you can't sacrifice something - that's OK too, because love will forgive. Our love forgives us, and we shall forgive other people, for we shall abide in love. Wasn't that obvious? A lot of people seem to have a real problem in getting through all these prayers, legends of ressurection and loads of other bullshit to see the real picture - it's not the story that matters, it's the morals behind it. 

Now, the second commandment is a little tricky at first. It says that i shouldn't make an idol for myself. Well, surely i can't imagine someone literally cutting out a figure from the wood and praying to it. However, again, this is not what the commandment is about. Since the whole Bible is full of metaphors, we must treat this commandment as a metaphor also. One shall not make an idol for himself - wait, i got it! One cannot treat anything as an absolute truth, or absolute lie, or anything absolute, for that matter, apart from your god - that is love.

You cannot have a book that tells you what to do (and by what to do i don't mean dishwashing, i mean more profound things like killing people), because that makes it your idol. You cannot have a man that tells you what to do, because that makes him your idol. You cannot have anything that tells you what to do, because that makes it your idol. You should only do whatever is abiding love, and always trust yourself and your love, not your idol. The funniest part about this is that christfags treat the Bible as their idol, and make an idol from something they understand as god - thus violating the second commandment. The whole fucking christian world violates the second commandmend. Now that's doing it wrong on an epic scale. 

Now, since the Bible is really a bunch of fucking stories that have a general idea behind them, why do they exist in the first place? Because people need something more than a simple idea. They will keep asking why they can't kill, why they can't steal, why they should love everyone - it never passes their mind that being egoistic and selfish is counterproductive, and you need something official, like a higher power, to tell them why they can't do all these things. And even this is not enough as there will be other people who don't get it and don't like the idea of some supreme dude telling them what they should or shouldn't do, questioning religious texts because apparently what's written there is bullshit. And it is fucking bullshit, just like any other fairy tale, but that doesn't make ideas behind it wrong.

The problem is that you just can't tell people the idea that they are their own gods and expect them to behave themselves, because they will erroneously think that if they are god - they are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want; and you can't tell people the idea of god watching them because some of them will rightly think that all that god thing is bullshit, erroneously thinking that the morals of the god story are also wrong. 

You need to be smart in order to exercise your freedom of choice for the greater good. General public is not smart. Hence the ten commandments (instead of two), hence the whole fucking book of stories that everyone treats as if they were historical documents, hence the whole religious mess we have today (because whichever way you put it, people still don't get it). People are unbelievably dumb, and no matter how many times you explain them not to kill each other and treat each other with love, they still kill each other and think of how to steal something from one another. And that's kinda sad. 

Now, just a couple of notes on heaven and hell. Since god is love, and god is you and your own concience, what does it make of these notions of heaven and hell? The way i see it - if you do bad stuff, your concience will eat you, and eat you, and eat you. You will have regrets about things you've done, you will think them over and over again, wishing to correct the wrongs. This is hell. This is god punishing you - you didn't abide in love, and that's what you get. No one can save you from yourself. This is what heaven and hell are all about - god is inside all of us, and it's us who will punish ourselves, not some great supreme being that needs your prayers every fucking morning. And if you can forgive yourself - your sins will no longer haunt you, and you will again be in peace with god - which is your love and your conscience.

A rather unorthodox look on religion, don't you think? Also, it's kinda universal and happily explains why you don't have to believe in god to be a good man - because there is no god to believe in, aside from love inside you. Praise the lord with your good deeds - it's all he really needs.