Comments on: Religion is a Lie!

By: Zachary McGuire

Zachary McGuire — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:40:11 +0000

I think that the concept of religion is completely laughable. If there were so many spiritual or great things going on back in the day, why don’t we see them anymore. What about dinosaurs! Christianity is funny as hell. The Bible is a good story, kind of reminds me of J.R.R Tolkein. I don’t hate religion I think it’s kind of cute that people believe in Jesus, like my little sister believing in the tooth fairy. When you die, you die…deal with it.

By: Wolfy

Wolfy — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:20:17 +0000

Damn, I was hoping it would say “Religion is a lie” as the title then for the article it would just read “That is all. Thank you.”

By: heather

heather — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:36:25 +0000

One of those attention-grabbing ads that sucker you in, before the hard sell.

You made some really good points on the definition of religion.

If believing that you have a relationship with an imaginary friend, on the basis of a fiftieth-hand translation of a book written thousands of years ago doesn’t count as “religion”, it’s hard to see what could.

By: the chaplain

the chaplain — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:22:58 +0000

The “relationship vs. religion” bit bugs the heck out of me. It’s what I heard all of my life. James is right, it’s really just a semantic game, changing the name of something without changing its substance.

By: Andy Kimber

Andy Kimber — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:34:34 +0000

I don’t think “Religion is a lie” is quite accurate. It’s a great tagline, but I believe “Religion is a mistake” would be nearer the truth - or even “Religion is a discredited hypothesis”. As conscious beings, our problem is that we’re clever enough to be aware of cause and effect, but not patient enough to allow things to be “not yet known.” That’s why we short circuit the slow, rational, scientific discovery of the universe by filling in all the not-yet-understood bits with “God did it”. As for a relationship with the Almighty - well, it does help to postulate a benevolent third-party intelligence sometimes, to give us some objectivity with our relentlessly subjective and ultimately selfish outlook on life. But God is a construction of man, not the other way around. He is the X we use in equations - an artificial unknown we use to help us make sense of a frankly bewilderingly arbitrary universe.

By: fluorophore

fluorophore — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:02:14 +0000

Wow - really an interesting encounter! Those T-shirts are pretty disingenuous, I’d say, as well as their card, “Don’t trust religions because they all claim to be the one way? Try our way, it *really* works!”

What makes me sad a bit, as a religious person, is that they seem to dismiss the possibility that religion might actually, for many, be about building relationships with the Divine - making their way perhaps less novel than they imagine.

I’m ok with having James think me insane for saying that I think his comment is great because it touches on really interesting points - one being that when we have a “state” religion (which, let’s face it, we do - it’s “normal” in the US to be Christian - it’s a plus for presidential candidates, while professing to being Wiccan or Buddhist would be considered iffy at best by the masses) the weirdness of what it is that religion is, is lost (on most).

Religion IS subversive, is insane - the way an artist or poet or someone in love is insane. Religion when accepted, when “normal,” or especially when used as a tool of power is potentially a very ugly thing. At the very least, when it becomes a convention, a boring routine, it ceases to live. Perhaps that’s what those Tshirt folks mean when they confess to not having found a relationship with the Divine through religion. Which is ok, but it doesn’t mean that this is true for everyone.

By: James

James — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:56:57 +0000

This seems to be a variation of the No True Scotsman fallacy. If you don’t like “religion,” then just define it in such a way that it no longer applies to you! Well, the extent to which this can work depends on whether or not others are willing to accept the new definition. I don’t.

I was asked several times by Christians on my college campus this past year about having a “relationship” with either God or Jesus. I simply don’t understand this. Unless you believe that God/Jesus secretly speaks to you, then it seems to me like a very one-sided relationship. If I told people that I have (present tense) a relationship with a deceased relative, or that I have a relationship with a colony of invisible fairies, I would probably be considered insane. Yet, if I say that it is God, then that is considered perfectly normal.