Becoming an Anarchist ?

Religious suffering is, at the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

-Karl Marx

Faith is a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea.

A religion is a set of tenets and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, or religious law.

In my opinion, religion is bad. Like, really bad.

When I say that, please do not mix religion and faith. Faith can be a good thing since it can give people hope, make them better person and so on. I guess that some people just need faith to keep on going. So why not! They can put their faith in God or in a magical cheesecake, I couldn’t care less. I also don’t like to mix religion and buddhism which I consider to be more a phylosophy than an actual religion.

But religion is different, it is the organization and exploitation of faith. It is a set of rules and laws that you must - or at least should - follow in order to be a good person. If you don’t, you will end up in trouble. Of course all these laws are set by men that decided they were so amazing they could dictate the ways of an entire population. “Don’t use condoms”, “Women should stay hidden”, “Homosexuality is bad” and so on. If I’m a woman and I want to walk around like I want, let me be ! If I’m gay, give me a rest !

All this leads to fucked up ideas justified by texts written thousands of years ago. It might have made sense then, but not anymore. Do not eat pork ? Yeah, back then this meat carried disseases, but now? Kosher was a good way to control how meat was prepared in order to avoid people to eat tainted meat, but now it is not necessary anymore. Waste of time, waste of money.

Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

-Voltaire

It also give people a legitimity they don’t deserve. How many time have you heard “in the name of God” to justify stupid actions ? Crusades ? Jihad ? Wars ? Genocides ? Persecutions ? Anyone?

On the other hand, when did a religion solved a crisis instead of starting one ? Yeah I know it’s easy to ask this question, you could answer me “alright, maybe religion didn’t solve a crisis, but a lot of good religious people actually helped!“. Ok, but to me this is faith. This is altruism. It’s not religion.

Religion is a hierarchy where a minority of people impose their views on a majority based on interpretations of old books. By keeping people in this logic they get power and money.

Alright, not all of them get that. Let’s take the priest of a small village… he will most likely be far from being rich. It is just because he is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Just like some low paid employee. He might do good things, but why should he give up on so many things in order to achieve that ? It’s just another stupid rule to go against human nature. Maybe the priest could make a better use of his time to help people than just reading scriptures on his own for a few years and then reading them to a bunch of people on Sundays.

No ?

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

-Leviticus

Religion is a way to hold back evolutions of society. Just look at who oppose social progress. Abortion, gay rights. Look at who oppose scientific progress. Look at creationism.

It’s often religious lobbyist that feel in charge of a divine mission to save other people. They base their logic on some old texts that are often irrational.

If you want to eat pork while having protected gay sex with multiple partners… It’s your choice, why should I care ?!