Religion is a Mental Illness

You can’t seriously be this foolish or ignorant.

Are you completely unaware that even though your god of slavery, genocide, torture, jealousy and narcissism doesn’t exist (indeed, cannot exist), people who believe in such gods do exist? Like, there are actually real people in the world who think they’re real, just like there are people who think the world is flat, even though it’s not?

I don’t care what silly superstitions you believe in your private head. I can, and have, defended people’s right to think what ever stupid notions they want. Even that’s not the problem, though.

These beliefs don’t remain in people’s heads. They start wars, they influence laws, they deny science, they affect the world around them, they assume themselves to be the default, and declare themselves to be the gold standard, to the detriment of everybody else. The god is harmless and ultimately irrelevant. What belief in the god authorizes the humans to do is not harmless or irrelevant. Nor the moral certainty of the divine creature they themselves author. And promoting it as a reasonable way to behave in society, particularly to impressionable children subject to their indoctrination, manipulation and terror, is not harmless or irrelevant either.

Would it bother you to have laws passed that correspond to the beliefs of the Jedi in Star Wars? How could it bother you to know that children died because their parents believed in Force Healing instead of doctors? The Force doesn’t exist, so how could you be offended by it? You don’t believe in it, so why fight against having the world shaped by people who think it does? How could you object to Jediism being taught in schools?

Would it bother you to have Flat Earth taught in schools? Are you willing to fly on a plane constructed with Flat Earth principles? You don’t believe the Earth is flat, so how could you be offended or bothered by it, or fight against something you don’t believe in?

What about Sharia? You don’t believe Muhammad is the prophet of Allah and that the quran is his revealed word, so why not just wear the hijab and pray five times a day to Mecca? Why not let the hospitals administer camel urine in place of medicine. How could you be offended, why would you fight against something that you don’t believe in? (You’re not an Islamophobe, are you?)

I lose no sleep over your stupid, imaginary blood-god, trapped within the pages of your multiply translated, stolen, forged, anonymously authored superstitions written by people who weren’t there. (Seriously. Go read the bible all the way through, then go read how it was made; it’s not how you think.)

I lose sleep over the fact the people from your religion declare themselves immune to COVID and then go infect others. I lose sleep over the fact Xians kill their children with faith healing, and then get immunity from prosecution. I lose sleep over ex-Muslims being arrested and executed for blasphemy, and women being arrested for indecency for not wearing hijab. I lose sleep over the fact that more Americans believe in angels than accept (and understand) evolution or anthropogenic climate change. I lose sleep over children growing up with horror stories of a judgmental sky monster who they can never escape, who will punish them for thoughtcrime and normal biological impulses. I lose sleep over the fact believers like you think your beliefs are unassailable, and we’re not allowed to describe them in an uncomplimentary (i.e. accurate) way.

You shape your world around these silly myths. To the extent that you are completely baffled by people from outside your little bubble who don’t share them, that they could have any objection whatsoever to beliefs, held with nothing more than mere “faith”, intruding beyond the brain of the individual believer. Your failure to understand the problem, that some people don’t want to participate in the world of your religion, nor be obliged to collaborate with your delusion, is itself part of the problem.

You’ll stand one day, face to face with Odin, as he judges your fitness to enter Valhalla or send you to Hel to be ruled over by Hel. Odin has the last word.

You’ll stand one day, face to face with Anubis, as the Weighing of the Heart is performed, to send you to Aaru or be devoured by Ammit. The balance of Ma’at has the last word.

You’ll stand one day, face to face with Kahless as he welcomes you to Sto-vo-kor or dispatches you to Gre’thor on the Barge of the Dead. Kahless has the last word.

I’m as worried about your quaint little “god” myth, whichever one it is, as you are of these ones. For the same reason.

If sending strangers vague threats is what your religion teaches you about “love” and “peace,” then that’s a hard pass from me. Find a better moral guide, one that actually values real humans.

If it turns out your god of baby cancer, drought, famine and coronaviruses actually exists, it can have as many last words as it wishes. But I’m not particularly interested in its lame excuses or shitty apologies.

Because I like humans.

Tell me, why do you dislike humanity so much that you’re willing to put their value beneath that of a magical sky monster who you can’t demonstrate even exists? Given that is what “worship” is about - a hierarchy of value. Why do you feel it’s necessary to attribute everything good that humanity does on its own, due to its own merits, its own resourcefulness, its own creativity, to a genocidal, angry wizard which has no evidence whatsoever supporting its very existence? (Of course, all the bad stuff is humanity’s own fault, somehow.) Why do you insist that humanity does not have the empathy or the capability to solve its own problems without violent, inconsistent fairytales of an imaginary murderous Sky Santa - who is the subject of most of humanity’s violence and suffering in the first place, which would vanish if the superstitions about it vanished.

I’m “passionate” about this because I like humans. I’m pro-humanity, instead of pro-gods, and despite your bemusement about such an attitude - one theists often regard as “arrogant” - I’m not going to apologise for it. If you want to put your imaginary sky demon ahead of humanity, sacrificing a piece of your own in the process, that’s your business. I don’t know how you’re able to do that, though; it just seems like an act of such self-hatred and degradation to think it’s the “right” thing, and makes me feel really sad for you, that humanity’s not enough for you and you have to imagine a magical monster in the clouds to fill that hole. But I do know we’re better and more moral than all the stupid, imaginary, immoral gods in every one of the various god superstitions humanity has ever invented. Put together. Mostly because, unlike those god creatures, we exist. And, unlike you, I can prove it.

(I trust that answer gave you some more giggles.)