Gods have always been angry, and today’s gods are no exception. And like all gods, today’s gods have magical forces. We all know, for instance, that the god of Abraham is planning to rip San Francisco from the West Coast, sinking it into the ocean in a fury of earthquakes, mostly because he hates gays. Just recently he allowed the massacre in Newtown, CT to unfold because we’re taking God out of the classroom. And who could forget Hurricane Sandy? More than a few of our religious leaders directly linked the disaster to gays. Luckily, most god followers don’t take their gods as seriously as all this.
However, there are some very real ideas cherished by the gods that are taken all too seriously by all too many of their followers. Today’s gods, for instance, show an open disdain for our gay youth. These gods encourage parents to throw their children out of the home when they come out, as seen in the disproportionate number of LGBT youth living homeless on our streets. The god of Abraham made sure to let it be known he’s disgusted by gay love: “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman: it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). How could a god fearing parent argue with that?
The gods of today are infatuated with sex and the proper techniques with which to execute it. So much so that they promote the propagation of HIV in Africa by condemning the use of condoms. They also promote the spread of HPV by fighting against HPV immunizations all in the name of reducing incidents of premarital sex among teenagers, which it has actually been shown not to do. The god of the Catholic Church’s puppet, Pope Francis I, is quite frightened by same-sex marriage describing it as “a scheme to destroy God’s plan.” And then of course you have the god of the Mormons who inspires his followers to outcast their fellow queers from their families and their communities.
Gods have traditionally been anti-science, and today’s gods are some of the worst in this regard. They’ve directed their sheep to wage false controversies surrounding evolution, the backbone of biology. They stymie stem cell research that promises to drastically improve the lives of millions in an attempt to save the precious souls contained in the 150 cells of a blastocyst. Following a god also tends to go hand-in-hand with climate change denial and faith healing.
In other parts of the world, there are different religious laws and systems of magic put into place. For instance, in India, you are born into castes by divine authority in which your place in society is determined by your actions in your previous lives. Then you have Islamic theocracies that promote honor killings for adultery or disobedience by a woman to her husband.
The gods of today are quite powerful and they have at their disposal entire armies spread across the world. They’ve built their armies out of what are known as sheep, many of whom are bigoted and uneducated, others who are otherwise intelligent but have been indoctrinated since birth, and still others who are simply frightened or looking for hope in all the wrong places. Many of these sheep wage war against anyone who is different than they are. Around the world we have present day wars between Jews and Muslims, Orthodox Serbians and Catholic Croatians, Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Hindus, Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus, and Christians and Muslims to name a few. Other religious groups wage war on groups unaffiliated with religion as seen in the wars waged by Christians, Catholics, and Mormons against the LGBT community.
So how do we fight back? Shouldn’t we work to defend the future of society from what appear to be destructive forces? We think we should, and we’ve selected our weapon of choice: knowledge and critical thinking. Religion is a belief in invisible beings and intangible, supernatural, and undetectable forces that have an effect on the natural world. In this way, religion is uniquely capable of causing harm because it has no reality check.
We’re giving religion a reality check. If you haven’t already, join us.
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