That's fucking stupid

Posts Tagged ‘hate’

What does it mean to be British? Not a lot really. I’m not British, I’m English and I don’t know many people who would describe themselves as British. In the United Kingdom we have got Scots, Irish, Welsh, English, Cornish, Indian, Pakistani, Jamaicans, Jews, Ethiopians, Bangladeshi, Polish and a whole heap of other cultures.

In the US you will find African Americans, Irish Americans, Jewish Americans and many others but they are all Americans. Their relative racial harmony may stem from the fact that they all pledge allegiance to their country; meanwhile in the UK the different groups fight each other to retain their identity. The BNP is gaining ground in the UK at the moment because they are appealing to the whites who are fed a stream of fear inducing ‘news’ about immigration, young black men stabbing each other and benefit frauds. They wish to promote ‘British’ to mean white nationals and this will further cement the divides. If we want to live in a country that accepts different cultures then we must start to identify British as a diverse and ethnically varied single culture.

Heroin-addict single mum, on the decision to place her children in the care of a gay couple in a stable home:

“I did not under any circumstances want my children to be placed with gay men. I wanted them to have a mum and a dad.”

And in the same breath:

“I have nothing against gay people. I’ve got gay friends…”

Save it, sister. You damn near destroyed the lives of those children. You can’t even take care of your own body. YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS.

PS: there are some more cracking quotes in the article!

I have been wanting for a while to write an article that suitably articulates my theory on a link between evolution, selective breeding and the bible thumpers of America. This is just a thought piece at the moment and has no substantiation whatsoever.

A lot of the early settlers that moved to the US and occupy the mid west were the oppressed puritanical whackos, they left europe and became the dominant group in an otherwise uninhabited (from the european perspective) area. As the dominant group, not only did they ensure that their offspring were of a similar mindset but they can also ensure that outsiders or those that do not think the way they do are not as successful as those who conform. As the area was rich in resources the population has been able to explode almost unhindered in this new territory in the same way as the rabbits that were introduced to Australia.

As a Humanist with Darwinian pretensions, I find that Religion as a topic for discussion gets pretty easy laughs among my peers – who unsurprisingly tend towards the same beliefs.
Not all of them however. I was raised a Catholic and my parents are still devout Christians. One of my closest friends is as well, along with a myriad of other people I interact with on a regular basis. My point is that I’m by no means isolated from people of faith. Faith and religion form a part of my everyday existence.

So to clarify my personal beliefs, let’s all do something that I have been doing for years: let’s separate the concept of Faith and Religion.  See these concepts as two distinct entities. I’m going to take Christianity as an example because I’m most familiar with it.

Faith may be described as the belief in a higher intelligence which, in whatever form it takes, created the universe and is deserving of worship. You don’t need to belong to a particular type of group or body in order to believe this. You simply have to have faith.
Religion, then, can be described as the organised gathering of people who share a particular faith. Again the most obvious in the Western world is the Roman Catholic Church. The main objective of the Church as a Religion is to promulgate, preach and otherwise propagate the word of God as the One Truth.

So far, so harmless. Until we look back at the Church’s history and see just how it went about spreading the Word.
It has done so through murder, rape and pillage. It has done so through war, blood and torture. Christianity has become the West’s dominant religion not through mass voluntary conversion, or even through its message of God Almighty. It has quite frankly butchered its way to the top of the religious food chain and remained in power long enough for most people to have forgotten (or conveniently ignored) the fact that it murdered its way there. The Inquisitions. The Crusades. The destruction of the Pagan faith in the UK. Allying Paganism with Devil worship (which is just daft – Pagans don’t even believe in the Devil).

This, then, is what the Church’s power is built on today. And that is my issue with Organised Religion. I’m going to borrow a little from Marx  now, and say that Religion (not Faith – keep the concepts separate) is a very good way of stopping people from thinking for themselves – not only not thinking for themselves, but believing that blind devotion is the right way to go through life. It keeps millions of people pacified – the opiate of the masses, indeed; keeping its followers tractable, impressionable and docile and, most importantly, unquestioning.
Because that’s what Religion fears: it fears the free-thinking mind, the inquisitive nature of the curious and the intellectual.
Why? Because free-thinking minds cannot be controlled. As Richard Dawkins has commented – “…thinking is anathema to religion.”

But not to Faith.

Let’s look at Faith now. Taking the description above – albeit a simple one, but I want to keep things to their lowest common denominator – being a member of a Religion requires faith as a prerequisite. However, it is not necessary to belong to a Religion in order to have Faith. There are countless people around the world who have used Faith as motivation to do good. I can’t and won’t “conveniently” ignore or deny that. The Faith of individuals and small groups has caused the most incredible acts of charity.

But when a body gets too big to govern itself, it begins to create a hierarchy in order to govern it. And that is the beginning of Religion, and the loss of an individual’s control over what they believe and determining for themselves how they ought to live their lives.
The perceived need to be told what to do, how to think – “am I doing this right?” “Will my peers think I’m wrong?” “What if I’ve being worshipping/praying/living differently to others like me?”. This seems to be a fundamental aspect of human nature – the desire to belong and to be accepted. Conformity.  Again, not a bad thing – this isn’t a black and white issue.
However, as soon as we begin striving for not just conformity, but hegemony of thought and belief, we open the door for a hierarchy more concerned with retaining power than guiding its flock.
And that’s not what people need. Nobody needs Organised Religion. Some people need Faith to sustain them. And that’s fine by me. Religion has tried to teach us that we need it. In point of fact it’s the opposite: Religion needs us to survive.

But we don’t need it. You don’t need it. Your faith (if you have one) is all you need to sustain you.

The Pope’s comments in his end of year address only prove (to me at least) that the Church is hanging on to the social taboos of over 2000 years ago and preaching it as the Truth. The Church may well promulgate, preach and otherwise propagate the word of God – but in doing so it preaches hate, intolerance and injustice.
That’s not what Faith is. That’s not how we become better people, more enlightened or more tolerant of others. What Religion does now is preach fear and hate.
Don’t betray your Faith any longer. Break free, and live life the way you know, in your heart, your God wants you to live.