Hi everyone, this is my first post here. (I'm not English, sorry for any mistakes)
I've been reading your blog for some time, Steve, and after reading this post, I must say it is quite bad compared to the quality of other posts (sorry).
You advertise being objective, looking at things from many directions, and choosing the best by free will, thus living a "conscious" life. That is cool, but in this article you end up generalizing Christianity, humiliating believers and being narrow-minded and subjective. This is just the style of the article, it has nothing to do with my or anyone's opinion.
I was raised by atheist parents, been an atheist, and became a believer for a few years. Then suddenly this spring, I lost my faith, all of it. I became conscious of my free will, I thought I can do anything but last week I collapsed a bit. Of course, there is nothing special in this, as I'm only 18 and in this age everyone experiences quickly changing feelings, even some sort of depression as their personality changes.
But I still have questions: why did I believe? Because it was good.
Yes, you can take all of the mind-control ♥♥♥♥♥ from many religions. Faith
can be based on fear, so people
can be controlled by their fears, so money and power
can be made from this.
But hey, what
isn't about mind control? Just turn on the TV, go to a shopping mall and see the zombies walking around there.
Take a look at
Anxiety Culture: Intro, it has many good articles explaining how non-religious mind-control works in our everyday society, based on people's fears.
Look at the average IQ. It's 100, of course, but I'm sure you have more, even about 140. IQ and intelligence in general is about how your brain can process information: how well you can think.
You say you are a free thinker, but most of the people (even me, but I'm still young) don't, and even
can't have any more complex thoughts than say what to eat for dinner.
Yesterday I had a date with a girl. Maybe she's going to fail physics, but she showed me poems she wrote earlier. They were awesome. That was when I realized how dull I am compared to her - in one way, at least. I
thought that I could have complex thoughts, but just in one dimension (- she lives in another one; maybe that's why i feel there is a communication gap between us).
The average people are also very sensitive to religious control, but so am I, so you are.
StublingUpon a page I saw a book about religion - a way for people's self-conscious brains to cope with the inevitability of death more easily. A part of our brain is responsible for believing in some type of bigger power.
It's easy to say that our brains do that. It's easy to say that religion is rape, incest, submission, robbery, control, sillyness, fear, guilt and evil itself. It's always easier to generalise and talk only about the extremes.
What I realized today, after watching The Matrix and Donnie Darko (which is about God, at least in one interpretation) and reading your article
is that what matters is not the existence of God.
Sure, I read several cosmological, evolutionary and physical theories about how our world works. Read about external five-dimensional universes, wormholes, singularity, physical constants and the factor of gravitational attraction, and you might say "♥♥♥♥♥, this can't just be by chance". But you will NEVER prove it in any way. It's easier to say there is god than to have endless external universes out there (see ~dark matter).
After tons of junk talk, finally I arrived at what I relly wanted to say
What really matters, and what you really misinterpret is the faith.
Faith can give you so much power - or give someone so much power. It has to be taught, it has to be kept up, fought with everyday, but it is one way to happiness.
One way. Your faith says: "I am in control of my life". Self-awareness etc.
Another way. Faith in God says "I am in control of my life, but it can't go bad because it is part of a bigger plan".
This has nothing to do with religion, because in its original form, religion is the way of experiencing faith within a community. It should be for the people, but it "evolved" to a form of power.
So why I became a believer? I
saw it was good. I saw the people, they were happy and content with their lives, knowing they were on the right path. And they were. They were more intelligent than many-many other people, they achieved what they wanted, and they were conscious about their lives.
Just look at scouting. A worldwide movement made by ONE man, completely nonprofit and it gives real value to the young people. And what "makes it tick"? The faith in God, nothing else.
And I still haven't said a word about jews, catholics etc. There ARE Indian scouts.
That's why I miss my faith and that's why I'm a bit collapsed. I just know what I miss. Something much deeper and of much greater value than what you wrote about in your article.
It's not God's existence that makes people better, but the faith in Him.
If you are still reading this, thank you
I didn't want to write a reply which could even be a separate blog entry.
Maybe it's simply coincidence that the film I watched today (Donnie Darko) and this article were just about the same topic I was thinking about all the day. This inspired me to write more.