Why I Dislike Religion

If you've read some of my other content, you'll know that I'm an atheist, and one who takes objection to organized religion. I'm often asked why. The question goes: "Ok, you're an atheist. Fine. Why do you dislike religion, though? Why can't you be an atheist and let everyone else believe what they want?"

If the world of religion were actually so "live and let live," I would take no objection. But the Christian right in America has for years attempted to turn their beliefs into my laws. Christian fundamentalists have attempted to push their anti-scientific creationist nonsense into public schools. They have attempted to ban abortion, not because it is an accepted legal concept that a woman should not have a right to her body, but because of their religion. They attempt to ban stem cell research, which may some day save the life of myself or my loved ones. They have put "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Schoolchildren, who are highly impressionable, hear this and think it's a bad thing to question the existence of this "God" figure or be an atheist. (By the way, the words "under God" were not originally in the pledge, but were added decades later after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus.) "God" is on the money as well, and every time I see it, my government is telling me that they endorse a religious belief in spite of the Constitution, and that I, as an atheist, a not part of America. George Bush, Sr., once said: "I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic."

I'm often told I take too much objection to such things. I ask you, as a person of religion, how you would feel if schools taught in science classes that there is not and cannot be a God. Or if atheists tried to ban certain religious practices. Or if the Pledge said, "one nation, Godless." Or if the money said, "We do not trust in God." Or if your own president once said: "I don't know that Christians or religious people should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic." Such things might irritate you a little bit. And when somebody asked you why you care so much about atheists and atheism, you might be shocked that they couldn't figure it out themselves.

Moreover, I see religion as a potentially dangerous force in society. Religion is a process of judging the merit of an idea or concept not based on the internal value of that idea, but on the authority of the figure or scripture from which it comes. Many Christians (not all, I acknowledge) read the Bible as literal truth. They accept every word of the Bible as true, not because the ideas written in the Bible makes sense, but simply because they're from the Bible. As an atheist, I judge every idea based on its own merit. I have a great admiration, for example, for Gandhi, but if you can demonstrate to me that Gandhi was a racist, I would simply reject Gandhi. If you believe Jesus is God and is inerrant, and I can prove to you that Jesus taught a racist doctrine, you'd have to become a racist. An atheist respects the person because of the idea. A religious person respects the idea because of the person, and that's dangerous.

Every great atrocity in history has been committed on these grounds - not necessarily religious, but on a single personal authority. Hitler, for example, created a cult around himself, where what Hitler said was true not because it made sense, but because he said it. How is "What Hitler says goes because Hitler said it," any different from, "What the Bible says goes because the Bible says it"? So you see why I, as an atheist, fear the attitude of religion.

The next time you ask an atheist why he cares so much about religion, stop and look at what religion has done and can do.