Religion is a Mental Illness

By: Armin Navabi

Published: Jan 11, 2014

1. "Science can't explain the complexity and order of life; God must have designed it to be this way."

First, when considering this position, it's important to recognize the difference between complexity and design. Complexity itself does not require an intelligent creator. It's easy to impose a design upon things that exist by chance or developed through a natural process like evolution.

To an extent, this argument gains traction because of wide misunderstanding of science and especially evolution. Everything in the universe conforms to certain simple scientific rules that have been repeated over billions of years. While this can be awe-inspiring, it by no means suggests a creator.

Failure to understand the scientific principles guiding the creation and development of the universe does not mean that a deity must exist to explain the natural world.

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2. "God's existence is proven by scripture."

This argument presupposes its premise. People believe in scripture and place value in the words because they already believe in the religious principles the text describes. There is no inherent value to the Bible, Quran or any other religious text; these documents are not self-authenticating in any way.

In fact, many factual inaccuracies and inconsistencies can be found within religious texts themselves. For example, the Bible contains two separate creation stories, each of which provides a very different explanation. Similarly, there is no historical, archaeological or scientific evidence to support many of the stories in the Bible and the Quran.

Ultimately, religious texts are infinitely fallible because they are man-made products of whimsy, poetry, mythology and some history woven together into a new whole. The texts in the Bible have been gathered from many oral sources over thousands of years and compiled arbitrarily into a single document; it's hardly surprising that the narrative would be so inconsistent. Other religious texts have similarly convoluted histories.

Aside from the problems with individual texts, there's also the obvious issue that the very presence of multiple scriptures negates the authenticity of any single religious document. It's impossible for every religious book to be true; it's highly presumptuous to assume that one's own preferred scripture is the single "true" scripture while all the others are false accounts. It's far more likely that every religious book is equally fictitious and unreliable.

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3. "Some unexplained events are miraculous, and these miracles prove the existence of God."

A miracle is typically understood as an extraordinary event or happening that is explained as being the work of a divine agency and having a supernatural origin. However, before miracles can be used as irrefutable proof of God's existence, the cause or origin of so-called miracles must be proven. There is currently no evidence to suggest that miracles truly exist. In reality, there are several underlying explanations behind most miracles, for example:

It's curious to note that the miracles performed by an "all-loving" and benevolent God so often involve sparing a handful of people from a tragic accident, devastating disaster or deadly disease. God is rarely held accountable by believers for all of the deaths that occur when people are not saved by a "miracle." On the whole, the tiny percentage of "miraculous" recoveries would be greater evidence of a deity's arbitrary cruelty than his benevolence, but this is never something believers seem comfortable discussing.

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4. "Morality stems from God, and without God, we could not be good people."

So-called "moral" behaviors, such as altruism and reciprocity, are not inherently human. In the natural world, they can be observed in a variety of animal species, especially social animals. Science shows that such behavior has an evolutionary benefit: creatures who learn to interact well with their kin will have a stronger likelihood of survival and passing on their genes.

All of this means that, from a scientific viewpoint, morality does not stem from God. Instead, it has its roots in brain chemicals and is supported by strong cultural conditioning. Parents pass their morals along to their children, and individuals take social cues regarding "right" and "wrong" behaviors from friends, family, media influence and more. Religious texts are just an attempt to codify acceptable behaviors into a set of laws. Unfortunately, these rules can quickly become outdated, irrelevant and even painfully arbitrary.

It's fashionable for religious people to claim that atheists are immoral hedonists, but a quick survey of real people shows that to be false. By and large, atheists are no less moral than any other group of people.

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5. "Belief in God would not be so widespread if God didn’t exist."

This type of claim is called an "argumentum ad populum" or “appeal to the majority,” and it's simply not true. Many beliefs are popular or widely held without being true, and things that are true exist whether anyone believes in them or not.

Alchemy, at one time, was extremely popular and widespread, but few people today would seriously claim that lead could be transmuted into gold. There are similarly few people who still believe that the earth is flat or the center of the universe despite those also being very popular beliefs at one time.

Furthermore, the widespread nature of religion says little about the veracity of any given religious belief. While it's true that many cultures around the world all hold religious beliefs, those beliefs themselves are widely variable and often at odds with each other. When every religion states that it is the one true path to salvation, it by necessity claims that all others are false. If religion were true by virtue of widespread belief, it would certainly make more sense for all people to at least believe the same thing.

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6. "God answers prayers; therefore, he must be real."

Just as miracles are impossible to prove without resorting to unreliable anecdotes, the power of prayer is certainly not supported by science. Belief in prayer relies on confirmation bias. Essentially, people remember the times that prayer seemed to "work" but conveniently forget the many occasions that they prayed and saw no response or received the opposite result of what they'd wanted. These unwanted results are often ignored completely or rationalized away.

Prayer is a type of magical thinking. Its appeal is undeniable; it feels empowering and makes individuals feel as though they have a measure of control over the world around them. But there is simply no evidence that prayers are anything more than a placebo. And unlike many placebos, prayer can actually be harmful.

The "power of prayer" is one of the most insidious and even harmful beliefs proffered by religion. When faced with any sort of tragedy or misfortune, prayer is one of the least helpful responses imaginable. When tragedy strikes, prayer may make people feel better, but it doesn't actually help the victims.

Donating blood, giving money to the Red Cross or volunteering with a relief organization would all be far more beneficial than praying to the same hypothetical deity who ostensibly caused the disaster in the first place.

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7. "I feel a personal relationship to God, so I know that he is real."

Such personal testimonies are difficult to refute because they are completely subjective. They're also impossible to prove for the same reason. When individuals report a private revelation or communication with God, it's never about factual information that could be confirmed or denied. These religious experiences are always personal and emotional, which makes them count as nothing more than anecdotal “evidence”.

The human brain has evolved to be particularly sensitive to patterns and causality. It's so effective at this, in fact, that people often see a pattern or purpose in things that are actually random. This is why it's easy to identify objects or faces in the clouds, for example, or why white noise can be interpreted to resemble human speech. This same sensitivity can make random or unrelated events seem like the presence of God, especially if the person experiencing them has a predisposition toward wanting those beliefs to be true.

In other cases, a religious experience can be triggered by any number of outside forces, including drug use or mental illness. Indeed, many people in multiple cultures have experienced similar symptoms but variously attributed them to a variety of different sources, both religious and secular.

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8. "It's safer to believe in God than be wrong and go to Hell."

This concept, called Pascal's Wager, does not actually support religious beliefs. Instead, it acts as a way to coerce belief out of unwilling participants. The logic goes something like this: if I believe in God and am wrong, then nothing bad will happen. But if I renounce God and am wrong, I will be punished in Hell. There are several problems with this line of reasoning:

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9. "I have faith; I don't need facts. I just want to believe."

This argument would be perfectly valid if the believer was willing to concede that their God is a social construction or metaphorical concept. Most believers aren't comfortable with that, though, and faith simply does not stand up in the face of scientific scrutiny. Believing in something does not make it true.

Truth is not subjective or democratic. It does not need belief to make it work. Gravity, for example, works the same whether you have faith in it or not. You do not need to choose to believe in gravity because it's an immutable fact of the universe.

Faith is often lauded as a positive quality, but it is, in fact, very intellectually lazy. Faith precludes scientific thinking and the natural wonder of discovery; it stops people from searching for answers to questions about the real world. Faith is little more than the glorification of willful ignorance.

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10. "There's no evidence that God doesn't exist."

This argument is often offered as a last line of defense in religious debates, and the person posing it might feel very clever coming up with it. However, the premise of the argument is both flawed and ridiculous. The failure to disprove something does not constitute proof of its existence.

The burden of proof is always on the person making a claim, especially in cases where the claims are unsupported or unfalsifiable. With no enduring evidence that a God exists, there is simply no reason to believe in a deity, even if it's not possible to irrefutably disprove his existence.

Many thought experiments have been created to show the absurdity of these claims, such as the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Carl Sagan's "The Dragon in My Garage," Russell's Teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All of which are absurd claims without evidence and yet impossible to disprove. Familiarizing yourself with these thought experiments can give you a clear picture of exactly why the burden of proof should always be on the person making a claim.

By: Armin Navabi

[ One of the many memes that the original “Queers for Palestine” image spawned. ]

[ Source: The Algemeiner ]

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Intersectionality is an institutionally acquired neurological disorder.

Did you know that "hijab" (literally, "cover") rules also apply to men?

They also apply to your house.

All I can think of is that this woman would be amazing in a sack race.

Pay close attention to what's going on. Almost nobody cares about hijab or not-hijab. Men and women everywhere, nobody leering at anyone. Hijab is not "culture," it's religion.

Iran isn't an Islamic country, it's a country-wide hostage situation.

Reminder: Dancing is haram.

Reminder that the Iranian regime is committing acts of terrorism against its own people.

By: Faith Quintero

Published: Nov 19, 2020 

A little more than ten years ago, American cartoonist Molly Norris drew a spool of thread, a domino, a teacup, and a few other inanimate objects and gave them names. After Norris’s drawings became public, Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki ordered a fatwa—an order for Muslims to kill her. Norris offended Muslims by her whimsical drawings with the headline, “Will the Real Likeness of the Prophet Mohammed Please Stand Up?” Her goal was to jump-start an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” event, encouraging participants to draw the founder of the religion. This is forbidden under Islamic law, but not in the United States. Norris knew that jihadists wouldn’t be able to kill everyone who participated, and so she thought there was little threat. However, al-Awlaki singled out Norris. The FBI then suggested she go into hiding.

And so she did. Norris was forced to shed her identity and walk away from the life she had built for herself. She has yet to resurface.

Before Samuel Paty was murdered in France by a jihadist on October 16, 2020, the ten-year anniversary of Norris’s pro-free speech cartoons had passed unnoticed. When Norris shed her identity, Americans did not take to the streets in protest. In the wake of Paty’s murder, however, French citizens gathered in major cities to honor the slain teacher and the virtue of free speech he died defending.

The contrast between the reactions of citizens from each country is stark. Before the fatwa drove Norris into hiding, U.S. President Barack Obama had already ordered the drone strike that eventually killed al-Awlaki, but he failed to support Norris in any way, shape, or form. Meanwhile, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, resolved to clamp down on Islamic terrorism, and he awarded the late Paty France’s highest civilian honor, the Légion d’Honneur. Buildings in France were bedecked with projected images from Charlie Hebdo, a magazine whose staff was massacred by Islamic terrorists and whose pictures Paty showed to his students. Such a bold display of solidarity was missing when CNN gave an update on Norris, four years after al-Awlaki issued the fatwa on her life. CNN’s video blotted out her drawings.

Years before Norris took action, a jihadist murdered Theo van Gogh and threatened his creative partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The pair had worked on a film that illustrated the myriad ways in which Muslim women are subjected to abuse, not despite but because of the religious laws they follow. Kurt Westergaard, Geert Wilders, and Salman Rushdie—men who expressed unpopular views about Islam through drawings, a film, and a book, respectively—were also threatened.

In 2010, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the American cartoonists who created South Park, were threatened after they cleverly implied that the founder of Islam was in their fictional town. Muhammad was represented as a man who wasn’t visible—first, because he remained in a truck; and then, because he was hidden in a bear costume. After the episode aired, members of Revolution Muslim, a since-disbanded organization that advocated rule by a single, global Islamic caliphate, sent the pair a veiled threat, warning that they might face reprisals from Muslims. In searching for a middle ground between safety and defiance, Parker and Stone edited the episode. They drew a censor box in place of the would-be bear-suited Muhammad and bleeped out his name. The network that airs the show, Comedy Central, went further, bleeping out more audio, including a speech about intimidation and fear at the end of the episode and didn’t even include Muhammad’s name. Comedy Central also barred the creators from streaming the episode on its website and from airing again at midnight.

In his article, “Drawings of Mohammed, in Defense of Human Life,” Craig Biddle writes, “Freedom of speech is also the last leg of civilized society. If we lose it, our only means of returning to a state in which we can live as human beings is to take up arms against those who have forbidden us to speak.” We need only to look at countries that do limit speech to see how accurate those words are.

The people best-positioned to challenge the tenets of Islam, and to help adherents crack the restrictive mold that contains them, are those whose families originated from traditionally Islamic countries and who have since renounced Islam after some intellectual heavy lifting. Ex-Muslims who speak out against their former faith are often subjected to death threats. Many respond by attempting to reason with believers—and with nonbelievers who do not fully understand the consequences of taking Islam seriously.

For example, Sarah Haider, cofounder of Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), explains:

Haider explains why debunking the tenets of the faith is more effective than trying to soften its message or reform it:

Haider is joined by colleagues who challenge Islam with different techniques. For example, Ridvan Aydemir, known online as “Apostate Prophet,” created videos that debunk claims made in Islamic texts and by Islamic scholars. By instilling doubt about the supposedly divine origin of such doctrines, Aydemir aims to challenge those who might bring harm or be harmed as a result of obeying Quranic orders.

For example, in “The Most Ignorant Quran Verse,” Aydemir poses a question: “If you are a Muslim, what would you do if you found out that the Quran has very obvious mistakes . . . would you look for new and incomplete explanations to defend your belief, or would you have the courage to doubt?” He then reads a Quran verse: “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the son of Allah’; and the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the son of Allah.’ . . . May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded?” Aydemir points out the oddity of Allah referring to himself in third person. He further debunks that verse by explaining that Jews have never believed that any man is the son of God. Not surprising, a Turkish court recently issued a warrant for Aydemir’s arrest for insulting the religion.

Yasmine Mohammed founded Free Hearts, Free Minds, “an organization committed to helping ex-Muslims successfully transition out of Islam and into a happy, healthy life.” She recognized that ex-Muslims can be at risk of severe harm. So she set up her organization to help “ex-Muslims living in Muslim-majority countries handle the trauma and stress related to leaving Islam in countries where apostasy is punishable by death.”

Yasmine also campaigns with other women to “use social media to show westerners that the hijab being displayed in popular culture undermines the efforts of women in certain countries who are arrested or killed because they refuse to wear this cloth on their head.” To mark a day of support for women trying to liberate themselves from such absurd strictures, she launched “No Hijab Day,” countering “Hijab Day,” launched five years before. Recently, she has received death threats for supporting Samuel Paty and his mourners in France.

Armin Navabi hosts a podcast and maintains the website Atheist Republic, which “advocates against religious and dogmatic teachings that promote violence and oppression.” He discusses his liberation from Islam in “The Poison Pill of Islam.” He explains why pushing for Islamic reform is a flawed goal and that “the only way to reform Islam, is to get rid of Islam,” because anything else “involves believing in things without evidence.” He has stated that efforts to reform Islam are dangerous because they suggest to the West that a version of Islam exists that is not harmful. He argues that “the reform movement is a sugar coating for the poison pill of Islam” and that “the only solution to fighting any form of delusion, is to provide people with critical thinking skills.” Navabi underlines the importance of debunking Islamic law rather than trying to argue against particular interpretations or implementations:

Many more ex-Muslims do the critical and challenging work of speaking against this evil belief system. They maintain websites and Twitter accounts, write books, and speak on panels about their former faith—to offer support for others who have rejected it, to instill confidence in those who intend to leave, and to plant seeds in the minds of those who haven’t yet considered doing so. Support their work in whatever way you can to help them in the fight to protect free speech and civil society.

Remembering the time Hindu hypocrites who cheered on Armin destroying a quran called the police and sent death threats over a drawing of Kali.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Navabi#Conflict_with_the_Universal_Hindu_Council

You know the meme of three men taking a test, where Judaism is copying from Paganism, Xianity is copying from Judaism, and Islam is copying from Xianity? Sexy Kali is where I realized that just out of frame is Hinduism copying from Islam. Not in mythology but in tactics.

Hindutvavadi are the very definition of hypocrites.

Muslims know the quran isn’t perfect, since they can’t agree what it even means.

Ah, that lovely, beautiful Hinduism. So completely not at all exactly like all the other religions.

When you become what you oppose.