Your religion is harmful if it teaches you that other people are inferior or hellbound.
You don't have to look very far for proof of this. Just look at the way so many Evangelical Christians
have treated gays and lesbians, you know. They say they wanna love the sinner, hate the sin. But,
forget this idea of sin. I mean, that's a fictional idea anyway. If you're in a loving monogamous
gay relationship,
Evangelical Christians look down on you. They think you're inferior. They don't think your marriage
is as good as their straight marriage.
And that's a bad thing that only happens because of these crazy religious beliefs.
Look how some religions treat women.
They treat them as inferior. If you look to Islam, in the way they make women cover up themselves because,
you know, otherwise men are gonna get
excited or aroused. If you look at the way some Christians
use Bible passages to support this idea that women ought to be silence. They ought to be obedient to men.
That's an idea that only comes from,
you know, this dogmatic sort of thinking.
As an atheist, I believe a lot of people are wrong,
but I don't think they are lesser than me. I just think we have a disagreement
on this higher, you know, theological sort of questions. We all deserve respect, we all have to give respect.
But you don't get the same feeling
from other religious people. You don't get the same...
I don't get the same feeling that religious people feel the same way about me.
I think they see me as an atheist
and they think, "Oh, there's something wrong with that person. That's..."
"That's a bad influence. Satan's gotta hold of him".
It's like, "No, no. There's nothing wrong with me".
"And there's nothing wrong with people who
are outside of your club".
And if your religion is saying that there's something wrong with other people, then
there's something wrong with the religion.
Your religion is harmful if it comes between you and your loved ones.
There are some religions where, you know, if you marry someone who is not in your family's faith,
they are gonna reject your spouse.
There are people who say, you know,
"My parents, you know, they're Christian,
but their child has decided they're an atheist. Their children have decided they're atheists".
So, what do those parents do? They don't say, "Oh well, I still love you, I still want the best for you". No, they say,
"Don't come back into this house because
if you're not a Christian, we want nothing to do with you because we believe you're,
you know, your soul is in jeopardy".
In some Jehovah's Witness' families they believe you should not get blood transfusions,
but what happens if you get in an accident and you need a blood transfusion to save your life?
Some kids will say, "Okay, I want to get that, I want to save my life". And they will get that blood transfusion.
But if they do,
they're gonna be shunned by their families.
They will be, you know, not welcome in their church.
Their parents may abandon them as well.
And that's one of the reasons they're so scared of getting that procedure done.
You know, forget the old saying that blood is thicker than water. You know,
Jesus is thicker than blood, which is thicker than water. That to them
religion means more to them than anything else.
And I think when you have any sort of dogma,
that supersedes being a kind decent human being and loving other people,
you gotta get rid of that dogma. It's just harmful.
Your religion is harmful if it tells you to live for the next life
instead of this one.
And this is the sort of logic that we've seen used by terrorists, you know.
They're willing to murder themselves and kill innocent people in the process
because they have this vision of heaven that is wonderful and,
you know, all these virgins are there. Apparently,
it's hell for them, but it's heaven for the terrorists.
But this idea that, you know, you ought to do something in this life
because you're gonna get rewarded in the afterlife, that is crazy.
And that's an extreme example of coarse terrorism,
but we've seen it on lower levels as well. How many Christian churches preach this idea that
you have to be abstinent until you get married?
It doesn't matter when you get married or if you get married.
Or if you're a Catholic priest, for example, you're never allowed to
have sex because... "No, God doesn't want it that way".
It depresses me as an atheist to know that there are people out there
who, even by their own will,
are not doing things that could make them happy in this life,
because they think there's something better for them waiting on the other side.
Any religion that says, "You have to live a certain way", "You have to miss out on the pleasures of life",
because God will reward you in the afterlife for believing or acting a certain way,
that to me is a harmful religion.
Your religion is harmful if you're giving an extraordinary amount of your time and money
to your church. If you support an organization,
you are welcome to support it however you want to. That's your right.
What I have a problem with is when people give money to the church, but they don't have it.
And I've heard people like Dave Ramsey who
talk about how to get out of debt, how to budget your money properly.
They say, you know, even if you don't have money,
even if you can't really pay for things like insurance or food properly,
you should still save 10% of your money and tithe the church.
But that's the worst possible advice you can give to somebody. Scientology
also does this sort of thing where they say, "We're not even gonna teach you
all the beliefs of our religion, unless you pay us money.
And then you might get up to the next level, and then you'll learn something else", like
that's a money-making scheme. Any religion that says, "You have to pay us
to", you know, "get out of purgatory",
"Pay us an indulgence" or "You gotta pay us to learn more".
That's a religion you don't wanna be a part of.
Any church where they-- You're giving them money,
and it doesn't look like it's going back into the world. It doesn't look like they're paying it forward
or supporting, you know, mission trips, which
I disagree with but at least in theory they're helping other people. That's one thing.
But if you're giving money to your church, and the only person that's getting richer because of it is the pastor,
that's a problem. There's a show coming on TV, like the preachers of L.A., which is all about
this prosperity gospel preachers, you know. If you're rich, that's what God wants. God wants us all to be rich.
God especially wants the pastor to be rich.
Oh my God, how do you not see past that? How do you not see through that and walk out of that church immediately?
Your religion is harmful if it tells you you should do nothing
when you could be doing something.
So, for example, if you have to study for a test,
don't pray.
Prayer isn't gonna help you get a better grade. Go sit down with the book
and turn off the distractions and study. That might actually help you.
Or if you're sick,
don't pray to God to make you better. Go get some cough medicine. Go see a doctor. Go see a therapist.
That will actually help you.
I hate this idea that, you know, you should just
put all of your faith in God. I think those may be the three most dangerous words in English language,
"Just have faith". This idea that,
you know, don't count on yourself, don't rely on yourself to make things better. Just put your faith above,
you now, in a higher power. If you have the power to control your destiny,
then go do something about it.
And I've unfortunately seen too many stories of parents
whose kids are sick
and the kids die because the parents just prayed that they would get better.
Or people who thought that, you know, that... They're single.
And they wanna meet somebody. And so they pray to God that they will meet somebody else.
When a better answer might be go out and do something where you meet other people? Or go put yourself on some dating website or something. That's a practical,
you know, solution for fixing your problem.
And by the way, I have heard some Christians say, "Oh, that's a strawman. I would never do that. I would never just pray".
"I would pray, and then go to the doctor".
Which is almost laughable because is like,
"Then just skip the prayer part! Go do something since that's what's really gonna help you".
Your religion is harmful if it encourages you to distrust reality.
Yeah, you have to be religious to think that-- Like giving away condoms in Africa
is a bad idea because it doesn't really prevent AIDS; it doesn't really stop the spread of diseases.
No, that is factually untrue.
Like you have to be religious to accept this idea that God just puffed us into existence
a few thousand years ago because all the evidence suggests otherwise; all of it.
Like not a single bit supports creationism.
I've heard Christians distrusting reality when it comes to
stem cell research.
For all the potential that stem cells could have,
we can't really do a lot of research on them because, for religious reasons, some people think is a bad idea.
It's not even just science; it's history too.
There is this propaganda that is always in this
conservative-fundamentalist Christian community.
For example, you know, our Founding Fathers were all Christian. Or our nation was founded as a Christian nation.
No, it wasn't. And all the documents
say otherwise. Anytime there is
all this evidence to the contrary,
and you know it's there,
but your religion is telling you not to accept that because a holy book, or a holy person, said otherwise,
you gotta let go of the religion.
Your religion is harmful if it teaches you that you are a sinner
or that you are broken.
Like no one has to repent for just being human.
You know, good and bad things happen to all of us.
If something bad happens to you, or someone you love, it's not because you or they deserved it.
It's because that's just the way things happen sometimes. Sometimes accidents happen; sometimes
disease hits all of us.
It's not because you did something wrong, or because you weren't pious enough.
So, this idea that Jesus died for
your sins because, I don't know, you went to a bad website,
or you had a bad thought in your mind;
like that's ridiculous. No, you are not a sinner. There's nothing wrong with you.
Even at some of these better churches, the ones where they don't say you're a sinner, or you're hellbound, they're not pointing the finger at you.
Even at some of the better churches, they will say
that, "Oh, that person you love is sick?" or, you know, "Someone close to you died?".
"That's because it's part of God's master plan".
That doesn't make you feel better, like
"Why was grandma's death part of God's, like, to do list?" That's a horrible thing to think.
Rather than saying, you know, "She's old", "Her body wasn't functioning the same way as it used to" and,
you know, "Those things happen".
That's why I don't understand-- If your religion is saying you are broken or that,
you know, something happened to you because God
planned it out that way,
that religion is harmful. Don't be a part of it.
Your religion is harmful if it discourages critical thinking.
This is one of those things you see at churches all the time where
you hear a biblical story, or you're reading the Bible, and you realize
there's something about this story that doesn't make sense.
"I don't think it's true".
And what do you do if you go to your pastor, or you go to your priest? They might say something like,
"Well..." They might try to give you an explanation and it doesn't satisfy you.
And eventually they always say the same thing,
"You just gotta have faith".
But, you know, your religion is harmful if it just tells you,
"Don't think about those questions. Leave them to the theologians, leave them to
the big boys", or something.
"Just believe in God".
That's the worst answer you can give to anybody. And that's harmful. Don't buy into a religion
that tells you not to use your mind.
My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
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