See my reasons why all religion is false and harmful to individuals and society.
I was brought up as a Catholic, then became a "born-again" Christian at the age of 17.
I studied, I memorised scriptures, I meditated on it and I obeyed; I loved God - as I perceived Him then. I went on to lead Bible Studies, I led worship and even preached from the pulpit as a lay person. But I was wrong. After 43 years I knew it. There is no shame in admitting you're wrong. "Only a brave person is willing to honestly admit and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers."
But it was oh, so hard to stop being a Christian. My wife and other members of my family are Christians. Twenty centuries of myth, tradition and culture have built up together to make a tangled mess that is tough to unravel when you are inside it.
Believers have been given false information from birth, by parents, teachers, the entire culture. It was all given sincerely, of course. But it was sincerely wrong. There is no evidence whatsoever for a god - anymore than exists for leprechauns or goblins.
In Ezekiel 5:9-10 the Christian god supposedly says:
| 9. | And because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again. |
| 10. | Surely, parents shall eat their children in your midst, and children shall eat their parents; I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to every wind. |
Think about that. The horror of this threat now turns my stomach, makes me lose sleep, causes me to wince with disgust. What sick-minded scribe wrote that, in an effort to control the masses? There are several other identical threats in the Bible - yet here god says he has never done it before and never will again. The threat is ugly and evil - even if it was never carried out!
I could no more worship a person who uttered these words than I could bow my knee to Adolf Hitler. And Hitler never said anything as vile or horrific as this.
This then is the "Being" to whom parents encourage their children to bow the knee. It is belief in this Being which is drummed into your child at Sunday School. Parents still equate Christianity with "goodness" and "morality". But those things are not high on the church's agenda. No! The church's priority for your child is belief. Belief in an invisible being based on Bronze and Iron Age texts written by unnamed scribes in the Middle East. "Faith" is the all-important word. We are told that faith is a good thing. True, faith in your lover may be a good thing. But faith in an invisible being based on no evidence - nothing except tradition and Iron Age stories? That is a bad thing. Faith means Lack of Evidence. It means throwing out your reason.
The verses above should be enough to close the whole question of whether this god is real and loving, or merely the contrived imaginary authority which kings and priests once used to control the masses. In the face of that horrible, disgusting verse, there is only one answer: god is imaginary.
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See my reasons why all religion is false and harmful to individuals and society. Keep your kids safe from it !
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