The absurdity of religion

AJ's picture

Having lived in the US for over five years now, I am struck by the number of people who beleive in the inerrancy of the Bible. True, this is a predominantly Christian country, but one of the aspects that I have always admired is the secular nature of this nation (which, of late has seemed to be pretty shaky). When faced with a crisis, do people always need to turn to religion to get past it? (This brings to mind the "there are no atheists in foxholes" reasoning). Of late, religious commentators seem to have a stronger grip on the minds of people. So when someone beleives in whatever your religion states, take a step back, and look at the various faiths around the world. Yes, these are many other millions of people, who beleive, as fervently as you do (if not more) in their religion, and what they are told is the absolute truth. They follow a set of practices which may be radically different than yours. They are told certain aspects about God or higher powers, that run contrary to whatever you have been taught. Yet, they live their lives well. They may be good citizens, good people. So, who's belief is the correct belief? Surely "both of them" cannot be the correct answer, from either of their perspectives. "A" being correct and not "B", well, that depends on which side you come from. (Hardcore Christians would gladly denounce Islam, and vice versa). "None of them" is the answer that neither one of them would like to hear, but it is the real truth. Religion is a social construction, and you only need to look at history to find that out. It is fact that if a person is constantly told "There exist pink unicorns on the top of fire mountain across the sea" since childhood, they are extremely prone to considering that as the truth as they are older, and may even refuse to indulge in any sort of critical reasoning of this statement. Every religious text was written by people at a certain time in history, and taking into view certain events of that time. Some of them have proved to be more resilient than the others. (The Greek and the Norse Gods have all but dies out, but the Christian God is thriving). The next time someone says "Judgement day is next week" realize that there are millions of people who will say "What is Judgement day?" not because they do not beleive in a higher power, but that there is no such concept anywhere in their tenets.