The Curse of Religion...an ongoing saga

Coming home today from a terse hiking adventure in the mountains of BC, muscles and lungs tried to their extreme extents, nerves tested (again...this is becoming a lurid continuing saga itself) and mind clear from time and an expanse of mountainous landscapes, I turned on the radio.

And what the FUCK?!?

One weekend, two days, 48 hours...all that has happened, or was chosen to report on, was lucid accounts of religious based bigotry and inanity.

1) Anglicans, not known for their foresight or clarity of though, astound the world - it is their moral compass that holds them true to their goal of protecting the populous from the scourge of male-male or female-female love. Can religions force people towards atheism any more pronouncedly?

2) "Militant Islam" has tied up a man, in the name of Allah, with explosives. Their religion has forced them to attempt to blow an innocent (although, I am sure he has sinned at some point in his life...there is no way to avoid sin as accusingly set up by religious myths) man up. To kill someone, because his book s different than their book. Because his myth, or the myth from the country that he hails from, is different. His tooth fairy is tall and wears green, their tooth fairy is shorter, a little more rotund, and wears blue stripes. And for this, death.

3) Lebanon vs. Israel - more sectarian christian violence and people twice subtracted from the abstract violence were killed. Maqny families now are missing a father - in their prime when they should be looking at the stars, playing with their children, telling stories, cooking with their spouses, visiting family, going on hiking trips, helping their neighbour fix a tractor, tucking in their children at night with a bedtime story and a kiss on the cheek....but now they are both in the ground, rotting. Back to the bacteria and nematodes, never again to see or be involved with their families. A religious war took them away.

4) What will come next....

Can we subtract religion as reality from our social plate? Ever? Finally?

But then, the worst of it was to come. I have no clue as to the date of this atrocity (thanks PZ) , but I hope that you are finished eating and are well digested - food may exit orifices uncontrollably if it is not well within the intestines and thus two sphincters safe from resurfacing. I wonder how many of these are teachers or community leaders - I would like to assume they are alone in their delusional understanding, but of course they are not. What kind of thinking can we suppose fed the list of three above?

In conclusion:

Lay religion to rest with volcanic gods, santa clause, the boogie man, and let these stories never be heard again. It does nothing - absolutely nothing - to better our society.

We have moved past the need for fake idols to worship - we now have meta-cognitive salience and knowledge. Revel in the truth and reality of the world and nature, leave hatred and misogynistic, genocidal, ignorant, sexist and dictatorial religion behind. It is a relic.