Religiously Inspired Terror...

...these are the powerful words used in the recent TV documentary “The God Delusion” by Prof. Richard Dawkins that have prompted me to put pen to paper, once again, on this most destructive and enduring human disease we call religion.

Those of you who watched this program will no doubt be more enlightened by the awe-inspiring view on this very human 'cancer' we call Faith. I certainly am, both enlightened and more determined than ever to expose the fallacy and superstitious dogma of religion.

Faith is belief without reason; belief in Bronze Age myths and superstitions created by man’s need for meaning and used to control others through conformity. Religion has survived by keeping its followers in a state of permanent infancy while destroying its opponents in the process. Faith is, not questioning the Devine. Faith is acceptance of the myth as fact when scientific evidence exists to the contrary. That is so anti-learning and anti-knowledge that it defies reason!

The three ‘great’ religions of Islam Christianity and Judaism continue to dismiss the theory of evolution, even though there is evidence that evolution is a fact and indeed still taking place! They also continue to believe that the world is 5000 years old, when science has proved, by carbon-dating technology, that the earth is 4.5 billion years old! Religion continues to believe that high intelligence and empathy are strictly human characteristics! But most dangerous of all, extremist religion continues to victimise and vilify other religions, homosexuality, and all women, with a blind fervour and hatred that knows no bounds! Religion is the ultimate control-freak.

What good has come from religion, I ask? Morals, you may say? I say no. Definitely not. What is moral about encouraging the murder of non-believers such as the ‘fatwa’s’ of Islam or the Christian Crusades? Morals are not religious edicts but simply evolutionary processes to strengthen social groups. Moral codes exist in animal groups such as chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, meerkats and many others. Different to our morals may be, but morals nonetheless.

Would there have been a 9/11 without religion? Or even the Holocaust? Or the Spanish Inquisition? How about the other countless atrocities and genocides - too many to mention - that stain human history with the blood of innocents? I very much doubt it. Scientific studies by the World Health Organisation state that the humble mosquito is responsible for more human deaths, through malaria, than any other illness or war, but I dispute that. I say religion is the biggest killer and anyone who wants to argue that fact, please forward me your statistics and I will reply with mine.

As the American physicist and Nobel Prize Winner Steven Weinberg once said, and I quote;

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion”

Accurate and simple, and yet describes the illogical motives for the atrocities committed under the guise of religion. It is disturbing to think that murderous actions are still taking place under the false guise of holy war.

“March on secular soldiers” - humanity needs you more than ever.