Or put another way: You should be good because you want to, not because of the fear of going to hell.
If you are only good because of fear of punishment or you are guilt-ridden when you do something you shouldn’t that maybe hurt somebody, knowing full well you were inflicting damage or pain on another human being…then you are the worst kind of person…and if there is a heaven you don’t deserve to go there when you pass on.
This Epicurean riddle comes in handy: "If God is willing to prevent evil but not able to, he's not omnipotent. If he's able but not willing, then he's malevolent. If he is both able and willing, whence cometh evil? If he is neither able nor willing, then why call him God?"
“Fancy advertising taking the moral high ground. Since when has the advertising industry worried about offending women by sexually objectifying them, Muslims by advertising alcohol, vegetarians by plugging meat and anyone even remotely interested in the environment by promoting petrol-guzzling four-wheel-drives as a fashion statement. This rejection of what is free speech and falls clearly inside the guidelines of taste seems odd. Perhaps, dare I say it, discriminatory?”
It never fails every time any kind of humanist, agnostic or atheist slogan or ad is placed in a billboard it comes under vicious attack and it is taken down. Never mind freedom of speech and the press…that only applies when Christianists are doing the talking and we are supposed to shut the fuck up and listen to them…they are entitled and have the right to Evangelize, proselytize, spew hatred, bigotry and division and nobody can object because they are a Christian majority and America is a Christian nation…not?
It never fails every time any kind of humanist, agnostic or atheist slogan or ad is placed in a billboard it comes under vicious attack and it is taken down. Never mind freedom of speech and the press…that only applies when Christianists are doing the talking and we are supposed to shut the fuck up and listen to them…they are entitled and have the right to Evangelize, proselytize, spew hatred, bigotry and division and nobody can object because they are a Christian majority and America is a Christian nation…not?
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| Says he communicates with God regularly. He doesn't say if it is by phone or e-mail…I wonder if God is on Facebook? |
In all the years I have lived in this planet…and that is a lot of years; I have never had anyone come to my door to give me any money or call right during supper time to tell me they are sending me some dough…just the opposite. When they look at the nice house they figure I can afford to buy the crap they are selling, assuming I don’t already go to the stores and refrain from buying it or, in the case of religion they are either looking for a source of validation or an affluent church member that can give tithing.
Why do I say they are looking for validation? Simply this: if they go back to their Kindom Hall or that monument to ignorance and superstition they call their temple or church, they can rightfully claim their 15 minutes of fame among their peers…because they “converted” some sucker. But do you think that some uneducated bloke, somebody who doesn’t know magnesia from amnesia could possibly have a conversation with a college graduate and be able to convince him/her that their religion is the right one, the one and only?
The INFORMATION AGE has brought about some significant and positive changes. Other than the obvious facilitation of instant communication and being able to mount a protest by just posting it on FACEBOOK, the unintended result is that people are compelled to see themselves as members of the human family, sharing a common homeland. We are in this together, seems to be the prevalent theme.
What we see is that mankind has made more progress into achieving cohesion of purpose and fairness in a very short period of time…and done so faster than at any time in the history of civilization…all thanks to the INFORMATION AGE. The worst enemy of religion is knowledge, superstition feeds on ignorance and religion feeds on those who are following religion without questioning or doing so blindly.
Why is this so true then? We can see how totalitarian regimes like North Korea and Cuba have prohibited ordinary citizens from accessing the internet. By the same token, religions have traditionally stood in opposition to science and knowledge hoping that their flock doesn’t wake up and start to think for themselves.
It is ironic to think that organized religion that exists mostly to promote the cause of peaceful coexistence, brotherhood, peace and loving one another regardless of ethnic, national origin or sexual orientation has been the most recalcitrant foe of reason and logic, oftentimes lending itself to fanaticism in order to maintain its relevance.
And please don’t tell me that those who are at the head of these religious organizations don’t realize they are doing this and in the process doing mankind a great disservice because they know full well the consequences of their incendiary and vitriolic rhetoric from the pulpit…it is what their ignorant “following sheep” want to hear, it is the red meat that is thrown to satiate the hunger for blood and hatred.
A lot of the barriers that divided mankind have been knocked down in the latter part of the last century. As the twentieth century opened, the prejudice that seemed more likely than any other to succumb to the forces of change was that of religion. In the West, scientific advances had already dealt rudely with some of the central pillars of sectarian exclusivity to the point that presently there are fewer of us who really believe in Creationism or even Intelligent Design. There is far too much evidence in the form of paleontology and geology to validate those two ideologies.
So that if you don’t want to be discriminated, you don’t like to be humiliated, you shouldn’t do it to others…it is that simple. A Santorum or Romney should know this but they are hell-bent on doing just the opposite.
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