Tannhauser

This is most interesting. Some valid points you raise here, thanks for sharing! I’m on the fence when it comes to the concept of god. I don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian god, I don’t have all the answers to everything but sometimes I’m still open to the possibility of there being some kind of higher power just as much as I’m open to the possibility of there being no higher power. Some things I do believe in, some things I don’t believe in. I wanted to believe when I was younger and I would be hit with cognitive dissonance whenever I came across arguments against things like god, spirituality and the afterlife. I used to think that being open-minded meant fully believing and rejecting all other possibilities just because I didn’t “want there to be nothing” but that was just being close-minded instead. It took a while for me to admit that I didn’t have all the answers, I didn’t really know anything and that it was okay to not know everything.

Sometimes I see people who use their faith and the concept of god and the devil in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. When people do bad things, abuse other people and/or animals and commit horrible crimes, it’s because “the devil made them do it”. That person doesn’t have to take responsibility, they can just wave the famous yet convenient “the devil made me do it” excuse as a get out of jail card.

For some people, when things have gone their way, it’s because “god made it happen.” People believe that because they are obedient to whatever religion they follow, they are going to have good things happen to them and things are always going to go their way. I think this kind of attitude does nothing but breed self-entitlement. Sometimes I just get really irritated when I hear people say “God gave me that job” or “God gave me the new car” or “God made sure everything was okay during the operation”. So what about all of the other nice people who are genuinely doing everything they possibly can but don’t have jobs or nice things or they never get a break? So God decides to give you what you want and need but not anybody else? This whole idea of “God blessed me with such-and-such” just disgusts me sometimes, it just seems like such an insult to people who don’t have those things at all.

People believe in things like the end of times and armageddon, that god will destroy all the evil away. Human beings are responsible for war, poverty, crime, murder, abuse, overpopulation, screwing up the environment, slaughtering innocent animals, theft, discrimination, you name it – and yet some people are so entitled that they think we as humans don’t have to address those things ourselves and act towards overcoming them – “it’s okay, we don’t have to do anything because god will take care of it. We can just sit back, blame it all on the devil and absolve ourselves because God will always be there to clean up our mess.”

I mean no disrespect towards anybody who is a believer of any religion; I have met plenty of kind people who are religious and they are some of the nicest humble people a person could hope to meet, and they have never once tried to turn everything into a theological debate or patronise me with outlandish claims. I’m just speaking from personal experience of dealing with the kind of religious people who act outwardly self-righteous and self-entitled.

Although I consider myself agnostic, lately I do find myself fascinated with paganism again.

Please keep posting, this is a fascinating subject.

Joe