Why I Hate Religion

Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash

Writer’s Note: I know this is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, but at this point, that’s not my problem. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but I am entitled to make fun of them and say that they are problems. If you don’t want your beliefs to be seen as problematic, KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF, OR CHANGE THEM. Don’t try to affect other people’s lives with your dipshittery. Your religious beliefs are yours alone, and they should never dictate anyone’s actions or decisions but your own.

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past 250 years, you’d know that the United States has been the country that has bred the most evangelical Christians who seem to be bent on making everyone else’s lives horrible. They constantly try to restrict people’s rights, judge others with vitriol and discrimination, and generally try to force anyone who doesn’t believe what they do out of the country. It truly is the worst scourge of all humankind.

But it’s not just Christianity that’s the problem. It’s all religions. From Christianity to Wicca and everything in between, religious beliefs are preventing humans from evolving, and creating unimaginable suffering for no reason. Everything that we do as humans has some sort of religious influence on it. Religion is the cancer that has metastasized in the brains of people all over the planet.

I used to be religious, but it always felt like something that I performed rather than believed. It wasn’t until 9/11 that I realized that religious beliefs can be dangerous. Once I started my deconstruction, I realized that people actually take religion seriously even though to me, it all seemed so silly.

With that said, I have a list of problems (a Martin Luther-like list, if you will) that I have with religion. And all of these apply to ALL religions. So, without further ado…

Religion promotes delusion

One of the biggest issues I have with religion is that it requires believers to be delusional. They have to buy into the idea that an invisible father figure lives in the sky and judges you every time you touch your dick or think about the pool guy. This delusion promotes fear which is used to control people (which is the main goal of all religions).

Religions such as withcraft and Wicca make their practitioners think that if they throw a bunch of dirt and plants and weird shit into a jar and say some magic words, they can curse people. Their beliefs are “proven” when the person they curse has something bad happen to them. That’s called “confirmation bias,” and if it were actually true, we could arrest witches for cursing people.

Religion teaches people that they aren’t responsible for their words and actions

Any time a religious person causes harm to someone else, they often pray for forgiveness. They do so because they believe that if they ask for forgiveness, God will forgive them and their soul is clean, as if nothing actually happened. It doesn’t ease the suffering or pain they caused the other person. It just makes the religious person not feel guilty for hurting someone. This is why they throw temper tantrums when the cops arrest them for being pests. They don’t think they did anything wrong because “God forgave me.” Get in the back of the cruiser, Karen.

This is also why religious people, especially evangelicals, don’t care about things like climate change or pollution. They think that God is going to make sure Earth stays habitable for them while they drive massive, lifted pickup trucks that get 4 miles per gallon and run businesses that dump industrial waste into water sources. Also, evangelicals think the End Times are near, so it doesn’t matter what they do to Earth, they won’t be around to deal with the consequences.

Religion devalues personal growth and accomplishment

Any time an athlete or actor wins a championship or an award, they always thank God for their help. Do they not realize that God did nothing, and it’s their dedication to their sport or craft, along with the support they received from people around them, that helped them win? Why would you give God all the credit for your hard work and the hard work of others? He doesn’t deserve it. You do.

Religion can’t handle critical thinking

If one were to apply critical thinking to religion, religion wouldn’t exist. There’s nothing clergy and religious people hate more than curiosity and questions. This is the main reason why I could never buy the story I was told by my pastor. Once I was told Adam and Eve were the first humans, they had two sons, one son killed the other, and then he was exiled to another city and found a wife, they lost me. Did they think I couldn’t do basic fucking math?

Even religions that revere nature and natural processes aren’t safe from suspending critical thinking. They apply the actions of a spirit or deity or fantastical creature to something that can easily be explained with the scientific method.

And don’t get me started on astrology. How can celestial bodies that are millions or billions of miles away affect someone’s personality simply by being born when those bodies are in certain positions? Some of those stars may not even exist anymore, but we’re seeing their light after it has traveled across the universe. Do they not realize that someone’s personality is developed over time after they’re born and are influenced by their genetics, their parents’ actions, where they were born, and how much money their parents had?

Religion makes their believers do stupid shit

Catholics can’t eat meat on Fridays. Muslims and Jewish people can’t eat pork. Hindus can’t eat beef.

Muslim and Jewish men are made to wear silly hats. Muslim women are made to cover themselves head to toe. Amish people can’t use modern technology. Mormons can’t drink caffeine and have to wear magical underwear. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate any holidays.

It’s all silly and stupid. Any practical reasons that these rules were enacted for have been eradicated, or we have socially progressed away from such restrictive rules. Personally, I think these rules were enacted to see just how far believers would go to show dedication to their deity. I can imagine some priest or Imam or rabbi giggling as they wrote down the rules, unable to control themselves thinking about what the silly sheep that listened to them will do once they read it.

Religion makes people less empathetic

Religions have always told their believers that if there’s a group of people who don’t believe the same things as you, they are evil and should be converted or killed. Don’t think so? Go read books on the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the current genocide of Palestinians by Israel.

Religious people hate when their beliefs are challenged, especially when the person challenging them believes in a different religion. Christ preached about helping the poor, but he never said, “make sure they’re Christians first. If not, fuck ‘em.”

Religion is used as an excuse to kill people

Going along with the lack of empathy thing, religion has been the reason for almost every war since people could wage war and believe in deities. And if it isn’t the direct reason for war, people sure like to think that God approves of the war and is on their side. “God’s word” is always a convenient reason to kill a bunch of brown people who have a different set of beliefs, even though those brown people literally believe in the same God the Christians believe in.

Religious people can’t be fully trusted

If you put me in a room with a white, evangelical Christian dressed to the nines and an atheist bum armed with a knife, I’m trusting the guy with the knife. Christians can’t be trusted to be moral because you don’t know if they’re being a good person because they have been promised heaven and threatened with hell, or they’re being a good person because they truly think being a good person is the right choice, regardless of reward or retribution.

If you’re religious and you subscribe to the former, you’re a horrible person who shouldn’t be trusted with a house plant.

And the idea of trusting a religious person goes hand in hand with their blind trust in their invisible Sky Daddy. If they acquiesce solving a real world problem to God, they’re useless. Solving real world problems requires real world solutions. We can’t wait for your chosen deity to do something.

And let’s not leave out the Wiccans and witches, who seem to think that every solution to a problem is a potion, or a spell, or a weird concoction that stays in a jar in their freezer for 10 years. Try thinking, or talking it out, or therapy.

Some of you who read this will probably whine about how “you don’t what you’re talking about because you don’t have beliefs” or “my religion is much more than that.” Deep down, it’s not. They’re all the same, just with different outfits. At least Wiccans and witches and astrologers aren’t constantly calling for the murder of infidels, or telling women they can’t get abortions or birth control, or telling queer people they’re evil and shouldn’t have rights or the right to be alive.

But if I have to hear another person say, “Oh, he was a Gemini and I’m a Pisces, so we weren’t compatible,” or “that guy is such a Capricorn, he’s an asshole,” I’m going to scream.