Today, while preparing for a show, I was bringing some work over from the first few months, and I thought I wanted to hide it because I was worried about the impact and ignorant, immature fools not being able to deal with it.
An older friend of mine found out I was putting it away, evidently she had a good opinion of it, and eventually made me realise that all I was doing was hiding, when I should be expressing myself openly and honestly. I felt humiliated, the thought that I was hiding was an embarrassment to my personal virtues, for which I will ask my brother to strike me hard on the back for later as a kind of penance. After that, I decided to display the work.
It also made me think that I’m really not as good at dealing with people outside the internet as i sometimes like to believe, and I had (and perhaps still have) a great lack of faith in people in the real world at large (not everyone, just most people). Perhaps because then I’ve been dealing with them in too shadowy a manner, if at all. But if I really believed in arming myself and my will, why hide?
This is about religion in general, as you can guess. I am anti-religious, that much is already clear from previous posts (that doesn’t make me an atheist). Though I respect some religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, pagan religions, and even Satanism to a small extent, along with other religious ideas, I still very much hate religion as a concept. Why? I’ll tell you.
It turns virtues into moral obligations
Virtues, by definition, are characteristics that make one admirable in people’s eyes. They are characteristics of moral excellence, not necessarily laws of morality. What religion does is socialize, if you will, virtues and turn them into codified moral laws outline how you should behave or not behave.
It turns mythology into doctrine
Mythology and religion are not the same. Mythology is great. At it’s heart it’s about storytelling, an art form as old as mankind himself, right down to when we first started gathering around fires and telling each other stories, long before the English language had been invented. Religion, on the other hand, is designed around creating a moral doctrine or dogma for you to follow in hopes of acheiving salvation or so-called spirituality (religion doesn’t real spirituality, but rather uses spirituality as a hook to lure fools in). To do this, it transforms mythology from almost spiritual storytelling to a matter of faith.
It socializes tradition into law
Traditions are customs that different people have and that have been passed down by enough generations. Religion, however, turns that into a religious law for all people to follow. Even little beliefs among religious people become full on doctrine, such as when the belief in the Assumption of the Virgin Mary became dogma, and thus mandatory.
It furthers social control and the power of the state
It seems as though religion has always had a special relationshop with the state, the authorities, and the ruling classes. Those sorts of people have always use religion to falsely justify their authority, especially when their authority unjustified. Popes, Lamas, Ayatollahs, and other such religious leaders have attempted to impose their dogma on whoever they see for ages now, and they work within secular authoirty. Religion has been in bed with state for so long, that separation of religion and state is an important issue of modern times.
It ruins war
War is always spoilt and corrupted when you try to use religion to support it. I’m not saying that war is never right, but I’m saying wars can be unjust if religion is used to support it. Through religion, war is turned into a campaign of religious cleansing on the part of both sides (if both sides are religious), with only the religious viewing it as “fighting the good fight”.
But in the end…
All religion ever was is a mass cult
All religion has ever consisted of as a concept is the idea that if you worship our god, follow our dogma (moral or othwerwise), and believe what we tell you, you’ll get into heaven, achieve enlightenment, or some other form of salvation or spirituality. In fact, salvation has always been the hook to lure in those who aren’t strong or wise enough to save themselves or forge their own path. It’s nothing but a cult-like entity, with no worth other than to the desperate, the weak, and the gullible. The sad thing is, even if we get rid of religion, what’s stopping other dogmatisms from replacing it, as long as people are weak and in need of a voice telling them what to do so that they can save them, rather than take the initiative to save themselves. I wonder what the next religion will be?
Aleph's Heretical Domain 