Deon Barnard

Immediately upon reading the title of this post, numerous moderate Christians will respond with something similar to the following question I found on a friend’s Facebook profile: “so why take a dig at religious people? u have the rite not to believe so they have just as much of a rite to believe? and none of us should be arrogant enough to think that only what we believe is the rite thing”. All spelling aside, this is the kind of response I get on my blogs frequently. Of course, the reason anyone would make such a statement is that they truly believe that it doesn’t really matter what you believe, and that people should just get along. The problem with this view is that any religion, by definition, requires that its adherents reject all other religions and hold its own doctrines and myths up as the ‘only true path’.

No evangelical Christian believes that Muslims or Hindus are going to heaven. No Muslim believes that Christians or Buddhists are going to heaven. There is no tolerance in religious faith, and anyone who claims to be a Christian with the view “live and let live” is either not a Christian at all or has no serious understanding about what is being preached to them every Sunday. Religion, as it relates to believing in gods or ‘God’ is, in my view, the most dangerous and sinister activity of mankind, and I am firmly convinced that our hope of survival as a species is directly related to how soon we can throw off the shackles of superstition and religious ‘faith’.

One might say that religion is a type of spiritual discrimination, born out of exactly the same dull ignorance and supreme arrogance that births every other type of discrimination. As though our skin colour; gender; nationality; or what silly non-existent beings we subscribe to, could possibly make us “better” than anyone else, by some accident of birth that resulted in our being raised in a particular family, culture or nation. Moderate Christians everywhere would take offense to slavery or apartheid, but don’t seem to apply the same reasoning to their own bigoted religious beliefs.

So, why do people need to stop believing in God? I shall present here what I consider to be critical reasons. I will not focus on the overwhelming empirical evidence against the existence of God, or counter specific traditional arguments for the existence of God as I have done this in several previous posts and will do so again, no doubt, in the future. Instead, I want to look at some of the particular dangers and problems that religious faith imposes on individuals and nations alike.

Firstly, religious faith promotes fallacious reasoning and dullness of mind. By its very definition faith requires a suppression of logical thought. I often hear Christians saying things like, “your problem is you think too much… just believe!” These same people apply logic and sound reason to many daily activities like their monthly budgets, holiday planning, purchasing insurance or medical aid, passing exams, and so forth – but in the arena of God and church are quite happy to turn off their minds and believe absolutely ridiculous notions about unknowable beings they’ve never seen and ancient mythologies that have been proven inaccurate thousands of times over. This temporary insanity spills over into daily life where, “I’ll pray for you” becomes an honorable substitution for, “what can I do to help you?” and, “God will provide” becomes a praiseworthy excuse for not doing anything about it. The evil of this mindset becomes more apparent on a macro level when random natural events like the floods in Haiti are seen as God’s punishment on the sinful, and thousands of brainwashed people take to the streets after the event to ‘praise God’ for his mercy in saving them, despite the fact that God saw fit to exterminate thousands of innocent children. These same people will wait for God to show his great provision to rebuild their nation without as much of a consideration as to how radically different God’s actions are compared with his supposedly perfect and loving character.

The greatest thing that could happen to Haiti is for people to throw of the chains of religious indoctrination and see the world for what it really is; then, not wasting another minute in futile prayers and ceremonies, pick up the pieces of their lives and take full responsibility for their own future. This same religious blindness permeates even academic society where those free thinking individuals who tirelessly work at understanding the state of the universe for what it really is, are constantly opposed by well meaning religious buffoons who’s own interpretation of archaic biblical morality puts the brakes on progress in stem cell research or the teaching of the fact of evolution in schools around the world. Belief in God all too often turns otherwise intelligent people into arrogant and ignorant fools.

I was recently talking to a catholic friend of mine about the recent news story where E-TV had an interview with a man claiming that he had plans to kill tourists coming to South Africa during the football world cup. We started talking about whether E-TV had the right to keep the man’s identity and location a secret knowing that public security was at risk. We agreed that confidentiality is important in journalism, but there must be a line where the security of the public is more important than the confidentiality of an individual. Then someone brought up the similarity with priests and how they also vow never to give up a secret that is confessed in the confession box. My catholic friend said, “Well of course that’s different.” I asked how it was different. He said, “Priests have made a vow before God.” I was amazed that an intelligent man could simply turn off his faculties of reason the second the conversation became an issue concerning God – and that’s exactly the problem with faith! Faith and religion lead people to believe that any doctrines of the church (their church) and any issue that relates to God is above question, critique or any application of science or reason.

History has proven, and public news continues to prove, that where millions of people are happy to believe whatever ludicrous thing they hear from their pulpits and religious leaderships, they will from time to time birth fanatical elements capable of justifying, for the sake of God, the murder of innocents, the destruction of buildings, suicide bombings, religious crusades and the killing of doctors, scientists and free thinkers. Moderate religion may deny responsibility for these heinous deeds, but it is the solid core of moderate religion that incubates and prepares the seed of fanaticism, hatred and apocalyptic visions.

There will always be madmen and criminals looking for the power to control people – some of these will use religion to net a large following, and others will use religious techniques, banishing all religions but requiring worship of the state, or even the person of the ruler, as God. The fact that religion still perseveres in the world just makes it easier for these people to accomplish their goals, knowing that they have at their disposal hundreds, thousands or even millions who are willing to set aside clear thinking and give themselves to blind faith and credulity – even calling such gullibility noble and honorable and commendable.

The second major problem I have with belief in God is that it devalues this, the only life we have any reason to believe we have. Almost every religion, and certainly all monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism in particular), have at their core the firm belief that this world of sin and depravity is but a temporary detour on the journey to an everlasting place of happiness (for the faithful), or eternal agony and torment in hell (for sinners, unbelievers, homosexuals, and in fact anyone who doesn’t agree with their particular point of view). That may seem like a reasonable enough lure, or threat to make sure the flock tows the line, but in practice it is a devastating position that results in immeasurable suffering, war and death in this life all over the world. I have seen evangelical Christians ‘helping the Jews’ with the notion that they’re somehow speeding up the coming of Jesus and the onset of a new heaven and earth. I have seen Muslims blow themselves up along with a few infidels in the sure knowledge that doing so will please Allah and result in their receiving their choice of virgins in heaven. Religious wars present no moral problem when you know God is on your side and that he’s coming soon to give you your due reward. Poverty and economic devastation don’t seem so bad when you consider that soon it’ll all be over and your heavenly reward will be in relation to the hardship you suffered in life.

Where once religious conflicts were resolved with spears and stones, we now have the capacity to destroy all life on earth and go out thinking we’re doing the right thing by God. Religion has never been so dangerous and belief in God has never been so stupid. We have all the facts at our disposal to eradicate mysticism and religion and yet we hold onto it more tightly than ever. We know the earth is round. We know what causes floods and volcanoes. We know how diseases spread and how to stop them spreading. We know how species are formed through evolution by natural selection. We know that there is nothing to be scared of in the dark. We have as much reason to believe in a personal, invisible, all knowing, all powerful, all good God as to believe in an underwater civilization called Atlantis, or a flat earth, or unicorns and magic – and yet we persist in nonsensical beliefs that threaten our very existence as a species on this planet.

Belief in God is not honourable or reasonable. Calling that belief ‘faith’ and claiming that faith is better than reason is less than honourable – it’s downright evil.

This article has been a long time in coming and is the result of many hours of internal struggle, research, comparison and discussion. Four years ago I physically left the church – about four years before that I was already putting aside faith for reason. During these last four years I have tried not to categorize my religious views with any labels, partly because I needed to assimilate the full depth of understanding what terms like ‘Atheist’ actually meant and partly because I still carried an aversion, implanted by the system, to many of these labels – after all, I had always thought that being an Atheist was synonymous with being allied with Satan (as do most religious folk) – and when you’ve been led to believe your whole life that something is “bad” it’s pretty hard to throw off that conviction. Until now I’ve stuck with the safe categorization of “Agnostic” (someone who doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to prove the existence of God), and I took the safe and simple approach of, “you worry about your life and I’ll worry about mine”, i.e.: Let’s agree to disagree – or – You go ahead and do your religious thing and leave me in peace. I no longer hold this view. I will now actively oppose religion and am relieved to be able to call myself an Atheist, or Anti-Theist. I will discuss why this approach is necessary after I give a better understanding of a few terms and concepts that will help readers digest what I am saying.

Let’s start with defining the terms Theist, Atheist, Agnostic and Faith.

• A Theist is someone who believes in a god or gods, i.e. God exists in reality.
• An Atheist is someone who does not believe that a god or gods exists, i.e. God is not real and does not exist.
• An Agnostic is someone who thinks that God cannot be proven or that we cannot know God, i.e. there is no evidence for God.
• Faith is the act of believing without any requirement for evidence or proof. With evidence or proof there is no need for Faith because we have Knowledge – so Faith can be substituted for Knowledge in the absence of evidence.

It is not uncommon for people to be Agnostic-Theists, i.e. someone who doesn’t really claim to be able to prove God but believes in God anyway for reasons other than evidence and faith. It also makes sense that you could be an Agnostic-Atheist, i.e. someone who does not believe in God because of the lack of evidence. In all my travels and dealings with Christians and other religious people around the world I have noticed two main distinctions; I will call them True-Theists (Believers) and Agnostic-Theists (Religious by convenience). My opinion is that the majority (more than half) of all Christians are Agnostic-Theists rather than True-Theists. These are people who attend church and adhere to all the trappings of their religion because of the personal benefits like: a sense of belonging; acceptance; acceptability; community support, comfort, friendship, financial aid, status, opportunities etc. – all good attributes of the church, but none of which make it true, or right. These people don’t really believe that all Earthly languages originated from the tower of Babel; or that every species of animal lived in walking distance from Noah’s house; or that Daniel really stayed overnight in a pit of wild, untamed and hungry Lions and survived – in fact they don’t really think much about God at all; they simply choose to adopt the mantle of Christian because it’s working for them, and being anything else would damage their reputations, relationships and other aspects of their lives. If you’re one of these people, this article is for you! On the upside you already think rationally and suspect that everything you stand for is based on mythology and superstition – on the downside you think that all the good stuff about church adds enormous value to your life and is irreplaceable – hopefully I can convince you otherwise.

To the other group, the True-Theists, there is little I can do to change your minds, mainly because you’re not using your minds. No amount of evidence or science or history will convince you that your belief is misplaced. You believe through sheer blind faith, (faith is blind by definition), that: there is an invisible being in a place called Heaven; which we can’t see or find until we die; who has declared you sinful from birth; and will throw you into hell if you don’t acknowledge him unquestioningly; and yet who loves you “unconditionally”; and who is somehow influenced by your particular choice of words in prayer; who allows confusion and faithlessness and hunger and disaster on the Earth for reasons you don’t fully understand; and who cares who you have sex with and how; and who judges your sin even in your mind and while you sleep; and “came to earth” on an arbitrary day in history to a dry Roman province via a virgin, so that in dying, somehow getting to heaven would be easier than it was before… hmmm.

I was a believer for many years – passionate about my Faith, as I am passionate about everything I do. I remember ridiculing Jehovah’s Witnesses for being closed minded and not open to rational conversation – armed with their nonsensical “proofs” from their nonsensical “Bible”. I now understand that I was exactly the same! Think about it; if I were to ask the average believer what would convince them that God does not exist, they would say, “Nothing! I’ll never stop believing.” and yet they have the cheek to call Atheists stubborn and closed-minded, when in fact most Atheists could easily give a list of things that would make them convert on the spot if they were to occur. I’ll write another article on this point. I can only hope you come to your senses before you’ve wasted your whole life avoiding the freedom of truth and causing further carnage in the world… which brings me to the crux of this article – why religion should be opposed.

I’m speaking again to those that feel, “Why do Atheists get so hung up about people’s religious choices? Just live and let live. Some well meaning person who attends church every Sunday and gives to the poor isn’t hurting anyone, so let them follow their religion of choice!” This is a view I have shared for some time but I have come to realize that it is naïve and irresponsible to think this way. Religious belief on a micro scale (if it were confined to a handful of people on a deserted Island) may not have any great negative impact on the world other than the personal self deception involved, but we don’t all live on our own island – each individual believer supports a system of control and manipulation which, on a macro scale, becomes an extremely negative force in the World. Let’s look at a few simple examples:

A kind-hearted and conscientious Muslim man goes to Mosque and says his prayers as required. He never hurts anyone and always gives to the poor and supports his local Islamic initiatives, believing that he is pleasing God in doing so. Him and millions of others feed energy and finances into a system which advocates violence and the killing of infidels in its core scriptures; and although they are not personally involved in such matters and prefer to interpret their scriptures more figuratively; their church is involved in a holy war against Christians which results in flying jet planes into civilian buildings in New York killing thousands. Is our man innocent in this? Can he claim that he had nothing to do with it? All this for a myth of a myth that doesn’t exist.

A devout German Christian believes in a loving god in heaven and wants to please him. He has come to understand that to please god you have to please your leaders in Christ. He loves his God and his country and is willing to defend both from any unbeliever that would dare challenge the status quo. The new leader of his country, Adolf Hitler, a man of passion and faith has inspired him to join the army to do just that. He comes to realize that Germany is a holy nation surrounded by unclean nations that must be brought into the fold and tamed. He says goodbye to his wife and kids who he loves dearly to go and do his duty for God and country in the concentration camps where they are making sure that the evil influence of Jews and other unclean races is controlled and quelled. He knows that he will be rewarded for his loyalty in the afterlife if not in this life. He is a “good” man. The kind of “good” man you see in churches everywhere.

Religions on a macro scale (which are the accumulation of millions of individuals believing), have been responsible for:

• Countless wars, including the Muslim/Christian Crusades; the Catholic/Protestant wars of Ireland, the U.K., France, Sweden and Poland; the Taiping rebellion in China; Islamic violence in the name of Jihad; the Muslim/Hindu wars of India; the Buddhist/Tamil war in Sri Lanka; the countless wars between the Jews and everyone else; and the list goes on ad nauseum.
• Religious genocide in Europe (Jews), Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, U.S.S.R and many other places.
• The repression of women everywhere.
• Resisting (often violently) scientific progress, as well as the persecution of great thinkers for thousands of years.
• Witch hunts and inquisitions resulting in the torture and deaths of thousands of innocent people in Europe.
• The dilution of quality education in schools everywhere to make space for meaningless religious activities that promote mysticism and superstition instead of enlightenment and human solidarity.
• Human sacrifice, slavery and mutilation such as female circumcisions in initiation ceremonies.
• The distortion of historical facts and our place in the universe.

… to name a few!

So you still think religions are good for the world? Or maybe you think that your happy clappy Christian church feeds the poor and teaches people how to be good citizens, so you have nothing to do with the above list? Well here’s a news break – if all that carnage above didn’t exist, neither would your church; and if all your churches didn’t exist, neither would the carnage on the list. Christopher Hitchens is right when he says, “Religion poisons everything”. It’s time for humanity to wake up, throw off the ancient myths of our infancy and grow into the evolved, awake and conscious species that we can be. If we direct the energy and resources that we currently use to maintain our meaningless religious structures and use them for science and progress we could be travelling to the stars in our lifetime. Every good thing you’re doing in your churches in the name of “God” can be done without needing to believe in nonsense at the same time. “But what about fellowship and belonging” you ask? Well join a gym; a golf club; a neighborhood board game group… whatever – there are a million ways to make friends with people who share interests in the real world instead of a shared belief in an invisible friend in the sky.

I look forward to your comments and abuse.