So controversial, but it’s tumblr so who gives…
How has it come to be that having faith in God is a virtue? I cannot blame those who have been raised in a religious environment for having faith that there is a higher being, whether it is omniscient and dictates everyday occurrences, or is complacent with its creation and merely “jumpstarted” the universe. I have never been a religious man myself, so I suppose it is not my place to judge the faith of others (in fact, it probably should not be anyone’s place to judge the faith of other persons). At the same time, though, I thoroughly resent religion. The belief in God has brought many things into this world: hope, violence, kindness, hatred, and above all, ignorance.
In times predating the Common Era, supernatural beings existed in the minds of humans around the world as an explanation for incomprehensible phenomena: the mechanism of plant growth, the reason behind lightning strikes. These seemingly innocuous beliefs turned into something much more monstrous as people began to accredit natural disasters to heavenly anger and coincidence to supernatural goodwill (After all, it is much easier to attribute an event to an all-powerful God rather than logically think about it). Monotheism would later begin to spread like the plague, as it gave people—especially peasants and slaves—something to live for. Slowly but surely, religion was infecting every village and town by taking advantage of the most basic human fear: the fear of that which we cannot see, hear, or otherwise directly sense.
Controlling the masses was as simple as pretending that one could interpret God’s will, or could speak to him (it) directly. As science rose up to discredit what many thought to be God’s work, religious institutions began to kill off the infidel scholars that were poisoning the “purity” of their precious religion. To deny or even question the existence of God was heresy, deemed a crime for which you could pay with your head. Of course, thousands of bright, young minds would be shut down when asking questions regarding the truth of religion. To not have faith in God would, according to religious doctrine, mean one would be going straight to hell in the afterlife.
And here we have modern religion.
Not wanting to take the chance that God might punish the nonbelievers for all eternity, many simply submit to this cycle of senseless acceptance. But does the possibility that this God exists make it reasonable to give up coherent logic in its entirety? Has the human race dulled its ability to use rational thought to arrive at truthful conclusions so much that we readily accept the illusive existence of an omniscient and omnipotent being? To not question the veracity of religion is the true crime here! I applaud religion when it teaches compassion and peacefulness, but I fear for the future of the human species if we are to walk down a path of continuous, mindless acceptance of the supernatural. It is truly a shame that society has come to see faith as a righteous characteristic when it really only shows ignorance, a forfeiting of man’s greatest asset: logic and reason.
