Heyaa!! Just discovered your blog few days ago and I have to say..............👏👏👏many of the things you have talked about requires a lot of courage and you clearly show that you have it.
I hope my question doesn't rubs you the wrong way I definately won't mind if this goes unanswered : Do you criticize all religions or you are against the extremist and illogical parts of it?
Hope you have a great day!
*jumps back into my blankets and restart my studies *
Thank you very much, I appreciate it, and thank you for your question.
I criticize all religions, not just the extremist parts. I find even the "moderate" aspects of religion to be just as illogical, and even in some cases more so, than the extremist parts.
One of the most frustrating, yet simultaneously pleasing aspects of modern moderate religiosity may be best described by the following quote:
"Most humans are more moral than the scriptures they hold sacred."
-- Alishba Zarmeen
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There's something I can respect about a fundamentalist or an extremist. They're all-in. They know what they believe, they know why they believe it, and they'll tell you to your face. They're honest about the fact that I, as a non-believer, deserve to burn in hell. I can actually work with this, because I know where I stand.
Modern moderate believers are frustrating because they're trying to straddle the divide between their primitive superstitious beliefs and a modern, secular, diverse society. They'll vacillate, equivocate, try to make it my fault their religion says I should burn in hell, and so on.
They're better than their belief system, but they won't recognize or acknowledge it. We know they're better because they keep recognizing the problems and then rationalizing them away. We know they're better because they feel the need to justify and explain it, where the fundamentalist will simply say "this is what it says, so it's right and true." We know they're better than their scriptures because they don't do what it says.
God didn't really endorse and prescribe slavery - it was a different kind of owning human people as property that you can pass down to your descendants, and anyway isn't it good that god only lets you beat slaves as long as they don't die within two days. See, isn't that better?
No, "jihad" doesn't mean fighting - it means a personal, metaphorical struggle in which you metaphorically charge in with a "clatter of arms" seeking martyrdom, your blood and the blood of your horse should be shed and, unless injured, those who do not are not the equals of those who do. Isn't that much nicer?
Where the fundamentalist or the extremist are honest, brutally so, the moderate is liar. They're lying to me about what their religion is, says and does, and more importantly, they're lying to themselves about the same, and more devastatingly, their own morality and worth. They believe themselves to be "nothing without god." They believe that an infinitely loving, eternal god is justified in torturing those who don't believe in it; it's even the non-believer's own fault, and what other choice did an infinite, cosmic creator god have? They accept terrible, immoral, monstrous ideas are true and good in pursuit of an afterlife that, not just does not, but cannot, exist.
It's like watching a bird on the verge of flying, who's too afraid to. The fundamentalists and the extremists have already cut off their own wings; they'll never fly, they're completely incapable of it. That's a given, and we need not spend any time on them. But moderates can, they just won't, because the nest provides comfort, and anyway, what else could there be to see in the world that they can't see from their own nest?
My argument with moderates is that if they can decide what their god means, if their book is full of metaphors and allegory, then why not take the last step and put the book away? If they can take command of an eternal, cosmic god, they can take command of themselves.
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Where it's pleasing is how this unfolds long-term. The more they do this, the more they turn sacred scripture into metaphor, the more they reinterpret , the more irreligious subsequent generations are becoming. Well, in secular, liberal societies at least. The shitshows in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are another matter.
So, while I find the moderates frustrating, they are also the ones conducting the war on their religions, not the non-believers. They're changing, eroding, removing meaning, and turning them into mere fables. They give me hope for the future.
Humanity doesn't need these vestigial superstitions. Every step in progress we've ever made has been in spite of them, not because of them. They no longer lead the way, if they ever did. Indeed, the call to not progress is more often than not justified on religious grounds.
If only believers could see it.