Not terribly long ago, Bill Mahr made a documentary called “Religulous” in which one may find many quotable quotes.  My personal favorites are “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking…” and “If the world does come to an end…or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of a religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let’s remember what the real problem was: that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it.  That’s it.  Grow up, or die.”  This is the very essence of the extremist mentality on Armageddon or any other euphemism for the end of mankind you wish to use. 

Why do we hate?  Where does it come from?  What contribution does religion make to the problem?  These are questions I have attempted to answer in my YouTube series “The Psychology of Creationism and Faith”, but I never seem to have enough time.  We look at the final pages of the Qu’ran and see virtually the same message contained in the final book of the Bible.  We are to face massive war and inhumanity followed by the end of the world itself.  None of us have any evidence to support these claims, yet we seem bound and determined to fulfill them ourselves!  Christians tell us that they are spreading the good news along with God’s love; Muslims tell us that theirs is the religion of peace; all the while, and at any given time, these two groups are in conflict with eachother.  It isn’t a new problem either, and I think that’s a big part of the reason it isn’t taken seriously by more people.  What we fail to take into account is that since these story books were written centuries ago, we have developed and manufactured nuclear weapons and their requisite delivery systems en masse. 

On the other side of the fence, the religious extremists of all stripes are acutely aware of these weapons, many of them hoping to get their hands on true weapons of mass destruction.  I hate using that phrase as it has lost most of its meaning and all of its respect as a result of George W. Bush, but there is no more appropriate way to describe them.  The end of the world as described in the holy books of the major religions is not necessarily the destruction of the Earth itself so much as it is the end of humanity.  Those of us who think rationally want to do everything we can to prevent these mentally unstable folk from obtaining these weapons, but they are not so easily deterred.  Another problem I have with the situation is that religious fundamentalists are impossible to engage in logical discussion.  If they truly believe, as many of them do, that they will be with their chosen deity post-apocalypse, why wouldn’t they wish for our collective destruction.  Take a moment to look at the world through their eyes, and it makes perfect sense.

I have discussed indoctrination with you before, and I don’t want to waste too much time on it here, although it certainly applies.  When I was growing up, I received several conflicting messages from various members of the family.  My father, who I contend is still the family’s most rational member, was the first to introduce me to the concept of allegory.  I guess I must have been in grade two or three when we began discussing it.  I had been to see my maternal grandparents and attended church with them.  When I asked, they told me that the Bible was the complete and infallible truth given directly from God.  They were and are fundamentalists to the core, and believe that the bible is to be taken literally.  They consider allegory to be a form of blasphemy.  Dad on the other hand attended the Episcopal church in his youth, and had a very different take on things.  I guess I was lucky in that respect.

Dad tolerated the fundamentalism when he and my mother were still married, but he never said or implied that he agreed with it.  Once he became divorced, the bible rarely came into the picture.  I may have told you before that Dad and I would, every other Sunday or so, go for a long walk with the dog.  We lived near some farmland surrounded by woods which were full of trails, so we took a portable radio with us and listened to a Christian radio station sometimes.  This was much better because, although he would occasionally quiz me on the message, it gave both of us an opportunity to commune with nature and was a more positive way in which to “worship” than was going to the church.  Dad was always well thought out when he answered my questions, and when he didn’t know something he was honest about it.  He is now a practicing Buddhist and his connection to Christianity is limited to his marriage to my step-mom.

I have already touched on them a little bit, but I would like to discuss my grandparents a little further.  When I was a child, my grandmother was the first to tell me a lot about religion.  At every turn, she sought my approval and wanted to bring me into her level of fundamentalism.  For a time, she nearly succeeded, but the end result was an intensified curiosity.  She introduced me to the major players in the arena such as Charles Stanley, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham and others; playing their tapes when we went on vacation and donating large sums of money to each of them every year.  Our relationship eventually became strained when I began really questioning because the timing didn’t make sense to her.  I was very into Christianity when I was fourteen, the closest I ever came to being a fundie.  My curiosity got the better of me however, and I started to read the bible.

I eventually made it through the whole thing and by the time I finished, I was thoroughly disgusted with my own religion.  I was fifteen at the time, and rarely saw my grandparents.  I had seen them the previous Christmas and my ideas were very different when I returned sometime the following April.  I had questions and, when I failed to get answers, it upset me.  Within a couple visits, my grandmother and I got to a point where we could no longer discuss religion.  Her fundamentalism combined with my skepticism created a tense environment of angry argument.  I did my part though, eventually convincing her that it was a bad idea to continue donating to Pat Robertson.  With a few bumps along the way, I considered myself an agnostic from then on, until accepting the fact that I am an atheist not even two years ago.

Even today, I cannot go near my grandparents without one of them saying “I sure wish you loved Jesus the way you used to.  You were such a good boy.”  The last time that happened, I got into a heated argument with my grandmother as I tried one final time to explain why I cannot agree with her absurd religion.  It is as forbidden a topic at their house as politics is in polite company.

I will continue on this topic later, as I did not have a chance to expand on it as much as I would have liked.  This blog will be the first entry for InModiasWeTrust in the HubPages “30 Hubs in 30 Days” contest.  Thank you for reading, and please comment!

-Modias