Another rant on religion.

Occasionally I will hear of something done by so called "Men of God" that just sticks in my craw and sets me to thinking on religion.  I've come to feel that religion, by which I mean a belief system involving some apparently supernatural component, is not, of itself, an evil thing.  In fact, religion has been an important component of the creation of culture, civilization, art, even science.

Yes even science, if you are one of those people who think that the religious types are invariably about repressing scientific inquiry, stop and read up on the pioneers of math and science.  Yes, there have been cases of it, but it isn't a constant.  In fact I would say religion opposes scientific inquiry and education more now than most periods in history.  Which in reality is probably more about maintaining the authority of those in power among organized religion, than anything else.

Religion gave us art that lifts the spirit and enlightens the mind.  Gothic Cathedrals, Hagia Sophia, The Alhambra, Di Vinci's Last Supper, votive music, I could go on and on and on.  The basic piece of instruction in most great world religions can be boiled down to what is essentially, be nice to each other.  Not a bad idea.

Where things go wrong is when people create an organized religion.  That's when you get rules on how this be must done, and how that must never be done.  That is the evil entity that requires a Hell to punish the sinners, or rewards those that kill the heretic with a do not pass go, move straight to heaven card. Organized religion can be turned into a tool of government.  And when that happens, evil always follows.

I would even go so far as to say that even organizing atheists is a chancy thing.  I'm an agnostic.  Why?  Because I am moderately well educated not only in history, but in science and math.  And there are enough strange bizarre coincidences that we have discovered, via rigorous scientific inquiry, that I can't help but go, "Wow, that almost seems like someone designed things that way."  And I don't mean Eve from Adam's rib, or that dinosaur fossils were buried by Satan to mislead man.  I mean things like, to pick just one:

• Water floats when it freezes, which is really weird.  Every other common terrestrial substance, does the opposite.  If it sank like everything else, life could not exist on Earth.

So, if atheists could make a law saying that there is no god and those that pretend there is, are outlaws, I might find myself an outlaw someday.   I think freedom of belief is a wonderful thing.  And frankly, for an enlightened society, a necessary one.  And for that to be possible, religion, especially organized religion, must be separate from government.

A small number of ignorant people in the US point to the fact that we are "one nation under god" to mean that the founding fathers meant for the US to only extend freedom of belief to Christians.  Given that I'd wager half of them were closet, or not so closet, Deists, I don't think so.  Even so, that's not how it's worded in the constitution.  And while they were all of Christian cultures, they were educated men of the world.  And thus were quite aware of Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, as well as the beliefs of the Native Americans.  So, if they meant Christianity, I'm sure writers of the quality of Thomas Jefferson would have used that word, not religion.

So, why blurt all this out into my blog?  Well, it's my own tiny way to try and say to all those who use religion as a tool for hate, oppression and power, we know what you are doing.  You aren't fooling anyone.  You are the worst kind of hypocrite.  So, frankly, we'd like you stop.