Religion is a Mental Illness

"No one ever proved the non-existence of Zeus. People simply tired of worshiping him after 3000 years. Time kills all gods."

"If you make the assumption that religion is man-made, then very few things are mysterious to you. You know why there are so many religions. You know why it resolves nothing. You know why we're faced with the preposterous proposition that either all of them are true, or none of them true, or only one exclusive preachment is true. And none of these seem, to me, coherent, and all of these seem to be the outcome of a man-made cult."

Question: This is probably gonna be the most simplest one for you to answer but, what if you're wrong?

Dawkins: Well, what if I'm wrong? I mean, anybody could be wrong, we could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Pink Unicorn and the Flying Teapot.

You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in the Christian faith. You know what it's like not to believe in a particular faith, because you're not a Muslim, you're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India.

If you'd been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you were brought up in Denmark in the time of the vikings, you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you'd be believing in the great ju-ju up the mountain.

There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which, by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up, and ask me the question "what if I'm wrong?"

What if you're wrong about the great ju-ju at the bottom of the sea?

"It is safer to believe in God even if there is no proof that one exists."

-- Blaise Pascal

"Suppose we've chosen the wrong god…Every time we go to church we're just making him madder…"

-- Homer Simpson

"Billions of people through the whole history of mankind thought that their religion was the correct one. What makes you different from them?"

An easy way to distinguish real gods from fake ones.

Across the globe and across time, humans have loved and worshipped thousands of gods. But, if one god was real and all the rest fake, we wou

Atheist Alliance International

Across the globe and across time, humans have loved and worshipped thousands of gods. But, if one god was real and all the rest fake, we would know. Consider three possible benefits of believing in a god:

1) PRAYER Believers in fake gods would be constantly complaining their prayers are never answered whilst believers in a real god would be jubilant over their amazing success rate.

2) COMMUNION Believers in a fake god would bemoan the fact that they never feel the presence of their god whilst believers in a real god would talk to their god daily and be certain of it.

3) GUIDANCE Believers in a fake god would ask their god for advice yet still make many bad decisions whilst believers in a real god would find their god deftly guiding them through life’s obstacles.

It would be obvious which gods were real, and obvious that the others were not. But, here is the interesting thing, it is NOT obvious. Religious people all report these benefits whichever god they worship. It seems that all gods work equally well!

We have to conclude that, either there are thousands of real gods, or there are none. But since gods are so different, and are contradictory in many ways, it is impossible that all gods could be real. So we can rule out the option that all gods are real, and we are left with only one option–none are real.

The fact that all gods work equally well is clear evidence that they are all  equally imaginary. The reported benefits of answered prayers, communion and guidance could be nothing more than imagination with a large dose of confirmation bias.

Is there any other reasonable conclusion?

“You must test your own religious claims and texts by the same standards you apply to other religions.

If your religion's claims and texts fair no better, then your religion is just as false as theirs is.”

-- Richard Carrier

“All religion is manmade. If one God made it up all by himself, then there would be no diversity in religion because all religious texts would have come from the same source.”

-- Reagan Y

“Saying you should worship God just in case you die and he does exist...

... is like saying you shouldn’t go to sleep just in case Freddy exists.”

“Religion

The belief that an unseen, all-powerful entity made everything in the universe just for you and that your special, ancient, and often rewritten texts are the right ones and all those other religions are completely wrong.

Makes perfect sense.”

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

-- Stephen Roberts

“If you don't think you're close-minded for not believing in Zeus, then please don't accuse atheists of being close-minded for not believing in your god.”

-- Greta Christina