I don’t want to bash on religion, but I do want to talk about some certain aspects of it that has irritated me. I should start with what I like about organized religion first, because I’d rather not start with upsetting people. Firstly, religion is generally a good thing. It brings hope, happiness, and takes away that number one fear away (sometimes), in such a depressing and cruel world, it’s good that us humans figured out a way to be optimistic and a way to be happy. Before organized religions, most people lived very sad lives. People were just attacked by everything in the world and had very short life spans. There wasn’t really anything too special about life, but then someone had the idea, “Hey. You don’t die when you die, instead you live forever.” This made people happy and with a certain set of rules, a bit more civilized and nicer. I’m not going to say it created morals, because that would support my government teacher’s idea that a deity is necessary to be moral, which is complete and utter bull crap. It may have set a specific list of what’s moral and what’s not, but I think everyone still has their own idea of what’s good and what’s bad regardless. Churches donate often to many organizations that help people who are homeless, who have cancer, orphans, etc. Religion has sort of brought people together and helped people share an interest and find similarities in others when before we were separate, although with different religions we now have the problem of being spread and categorized by what we believe. People are too busy arguing who’s wrong and who’s right. I’m pretty sure we are all wrong, but I may be wrong about that. The number one thing that I appreciate most about religion is that it sort of gives people comfort with the idea of death. Our time here is limited, and we are all afraid of oblivion, but religion, when truly believed, can help calm that fear. My grandmother was very religious and when she got sick, I could tell she was waiting to see Jesus. She died thinking that I’d start going to church and letting “God” into my heart. She always told me these things and I simply told her I would, because there was no point in telling her I didn’t believe. I feel the same way about telling other people why I’m Atheist, because if you believe what you believe then that’s great. I don’t want to say anything that might make you doubt that faith, because that comfort is nice and the one thing I miss.

Now, as for organized religion, it’s been pretty destructive and counter-productive. The bible supposedly promotes peace and love for everyone, but many wars have been started because of it. You don’t believe in what I believe? Then you should die or be tortured. Then, we have slavery.  We had a huge debate in this country over whether slavery should be allowed and whether it was right or wrong. Well, according to the bible, it’s a privilege. “Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.” – Leviticus 25:45. Yet, we were all created equal, so why should we have the right to consider another human being as property? I don’t understand how anyone could ever see this as right. I don’t even like the fact that people whip animals, but humans? How could people consciously do that and sleep well at night. Then, we have extremist religion freak groups like the KKK and Westboro Baptist Church. I don’t know what to say. These two groups are really just… I try and believe there’s good somewhere in everyone, but when you have people killing people of a certain race or protesting at a soldier’s funeral with signs saying, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and other despicable things… I just don’t know what to think. As for more recent topics, we have the debate of gay marriage and people who still just hate gay people or say “I don’t hate gay people, but I think what they do is wrong and unnatural.” I have no tolerance for homophobia, mainly because I’ve had friends who’ve been treated like shit because of their sexual preference. Homosexuality is actually a very common practice among many species. 1500 species that we know of practice homosexuality, and only one that practices homophobia. I didn’t understand the whole  Chik-Fil-A celebration day… Some people said they were celebrating the CEO’s courage to say what he believed despite it being a taboo subject. Not only did he say homosexuality is wrong, but he pays tons of money to activist organizations that are attempting to make gay marriage illegal everywhere in the U.S. I don’t see why people would celebrate that. People believe homosexuality is wrong because in one line, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 18.People say that means God doesn’t believe that gay sex is right. Well, not only can that line be interpreted many ways, but guess what other quote I also quoted before from Leviticus… You can’t just pick and choose what you want to believe from this book. Otherwise, it’s not an organized religion. I could also go on about the Christian Dark Ages and how we could possibly be using jetpacks now if it weren’t for Christianity, or the fact that some religious people feel the need to shove their beliefs down our throat and yell “You’re going to go to hell!” when we don’t want to hear them. Why would I care that you’re telling me I’m going to hell? I don’t even believe in hell. That’s like telling an adult, “Santa’s not going to give you any presents this year!” Then there are elitist snob churches that certain people I know attend whom believe that they are righteous church and are better then others for whatever reason. They come off as snobs when talking  about religion, and when joining their church it feels like a cult that tries to brainwash you into not only hating people who aren’t also of the same religion, but people who aren’t of the same church.

As you can tell, I’m not very fond of organized religion. I was going to tell you why I decided to become Atheist in it’s own topic, but I’d rather not talk about religion in to many topics, so I’ll tell you in a paragraph. My church seemed very cult-like and brainwash-ish as well. I was a mere child when attending it, and the only way you could be rewarded or play with others is by reciting verses. I have a horrible memory, so I ended up re-reading verse so much that I can still remember them to this day… and I’ve blocked out most of my childhood. That’s scary. Anyway, we were ranked on how many verses we memorized and it was just a repetitive pattern of trying to say these verses by memory, and if one part of your speech was said incorrectly then you had to go back and read it again. We played dodgeball after everyone was done, so that was pretty cool. This church made knowing the Bible seem like a game that you had to know more verses to be a higher level. Then, the main pastor got caught cheating on his wife or something like that… stealing money from the church… it was something really bad, that my mom felt the need to take me out. Thus, began my age of enlightenment. I no longer had to read a bible, instead I could actually read a good book that wasn’t about the murders of billions of people, the story of how a boy murdered his brother, or two daughters raped their father. I was 10 I wanted to read Harry Potter… So, I read. Then, I was introduced to the internet and I studied. Then, I went back to the Bible and read. Eventually, I just said.. this doesn’t make any sense. How could any logical person not see the errors in this book? I’m just speaking about the book itself with it’s many contradictions and not just the ridiculousness of the idea of an invisible man in the sky telling us what to do. Plus, I like doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because I want to be rewarded after I die. I hate how people live good and morally right lives, merely for their belief that they will gain everlasting life in heaven. They are doing it for benefits and that isn’t right. I’m done now. I think I’ve offended more people with this article then I ever have my entire lifetime. Well, I guess I can’t please everyone. Sorry to all my family members who Christian/Catholic. (All of them)

God Bless,

Tristan