KalutaWings
Member
- Jul 9, 2023
- 12
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Why I Believe in God but Not in Religions
The current Israel-Iran war demonstrates how religious faith can fuel inhumanity.
Many of the comments shared by people around the world reflect loyalty to their religion rather than to humanity.
God has inherently endowed all living beings with empathy.
Religion, however, was invented as a tool to strip away that humanity, often serving the selfish economic interests of certain individuals.
More than 90% of the problems the world faces today originate from religious scriptures.
Ironically, many of these scriptures become increasingly irrelevant over time, as they were written in contexts that are incompatible with our current knowledge and experience. God's word cannot become outdated, yet some scriptures are written metaphorically to allow flexible interpretation—often as a way to avoid accountability when their meanings no longer fit modern realities. Associating God with such scriptures is a mockery and disrespectful to Him.
For example, some scriptures once legalized slavery, because at the time they were written, machines had not yet been invented. Super profits could only be made by forcing people to work for free. After the Industrial Revolution, the same religions that once condoned slavery began to denounce it. How can divine scripts conveniently change meaning to suit contemporary needs?
Other examples of scriptural beliefs that have changed over time include:
No single sect accounts for more than 10% of the world’s believers. If only one sect truly follows the path God requires for proper worship, then more than 90% of the people who have ever lived would be condemned for not following the true faith. How could a just and loving God create most of humanity only for them to end up in hell?
God has given us brains so that we can solve our problems—not to beg Him to solve them for us. Prayer is a deception. We should thank God for giving us the capacity to understand and master our environment—not rely on Him to fix problems. The idea that suffering must be endured as divine will is a manipulative scam meant to pacify victims, keeping them from using their intellect to liberate themselves from their oppressors.
The current Israel-Iran war demonstrates how religious faith can fuel inhumanity.
Many of the comments shared by people around the world reflect loyalty to their religion rather than to humanity.
God has inherently endowed all living beings with empathy.
Religion, however, was invented as a tool to strip away that humanity, often serving the selfish economic interests of certain individuals.
More than 90% of the problems the world faces today originate from religious scriptures.
Ironically, many of these scriptures become increasingly irrelevant over time, as they were written in contexts that are incompatible with our current knowledge and experience. God's word cannot become outdated, yet some scriptures are written metaphorically to allow flexible interpretation—often as a way to avoid accountability when their meanings no longer fit modern realities. Associating God with such scriptures is a mockery and disrespectful to Him.
For example, some scriptures once legalized slavery, because at the time they were written, machines had not yet been invented. Super profits could only be made by forcing people to work for free. After the Industrial Revolution, the same religions that once condoned slavery began to denounce it. How can divine scripts conveniently change meaning to suit contemporary needs?
Other examples of scriptural beliefs that have changed over time include:
- The belief by the Catholic Church that the Earth was the center of the universe (geocentrism), which was later abandoned in favor of the heliocentric model (sun-centered), and the Church now supports the scientific understanding of the universe.
- The belief among Muslims that a thief's hand must be cut off. Today, most Muslim-majority countries no longer enforce this punishment literally.
- The belief that sacred texts (such as the Bible and the Quran) were untranslatable. Today, these scriptures have been translated into numerous languages.
Yet believers continue to follow these doctrines unquestioningly, leading to self-destruction and atrocities committed in the name of faith.
God has inherently shaped our behavior using natural mechanisms of motivation and deterrence—what could be called the "carrot and stick" approach.
You don't need scripture to know you must eat; hunger (the stick) drives you to find food. You don't need scripture to know reproduction is necessary; sexual pleasure (the carrot) motivates that behavior.
No single sect accounts for more than 10% of the world’s believers. If only one sect truly follows the path God requires for proper worship, then more than 90% of the people who have ever lived would be condemned for not following the true faith. How could a just and loving God create most of humanity only for them to end up in hell?
God has given us brains so that we can solve our problems—not to beg Him to solve them for us. Prayer is a deception. We should thank God for giving us the capacity to understand and master our environment—not rely on Him to fix problems. The idea that suffering must be endured as divine will is a manipulative scam meant to pacify victims, keeping them from using their intellect to liberate themselves from their oppressors.