God, the Bad and the Ugly.

This follows up to my blog yesterday about religion and behavior. Inconceivable to most who exercise critical thought, many who defend faith-based philosophies don’t want to acknowledge the obvious link between religion and action, unless of course it’s positive actions.

When religions do “wonderful” things (I parenthesize that because they are really just things that are generally considered humane, like opening a soup kitchen or consoling a victim of tragedy), it is always because of the love that is exhibited by that particular religion.

Christians are a group quick to pat their religion on the back for opening a shelter for battered women, while at the same time they lobby their representatives to vote against things like equal pay for women or a women’s equivocal right to confidential and noninvasive medical practices of their personal choice.

The faithful like to feel good about the passages of their books that promote love, but tell us that we cannot dare reference the ones that promote hate, murder, oppression and a myriad of other fantastically horrible things. (Because, by some inexplicable means, they were errantly placed in these texts and not truly representative or applicable.)

When science discovers a new way to heal a human’s cardiovascular disease, or it discovers that the physics of the sun’s gamma rays is different than we had thought, or it discovers that the biology of a frog is more complex than it had first hypothesized, textbooks are amended with this new and more accurately-stated information.

If the horrible parts of the Bible are in fact not applicable, why do they remain in the Bible century after century? If the horrible parts of the Quran are not an accurate representation of Islam, why are those parts not amended? Why do they remain in the Quran, century after century?

I digressed a bit from the intent of this blog, but that question is one that bewilders me most, and no follower of any faith has ever been able to explain it to me. So, until they do, or until their philosophy changes and the texts and teachings associated with it change also, I’ll continue to hold them accountable for all of it.

Returning to my original point, most religions will proudly display the humane things they do, and how those actions are the actions of “God’s” people.

However, when people behave according to the negative principles of their professed religion, the righteous followers of that religion refuse any connection between religion and action.

In this recent story by the New York Times, a statement is made that the suspects in Boston were radicalized by Islamic fundamentalists and used internet sources to gain the philosophical (philosophical is interchangeable with ideological, which is interchangeable with religious) beliefs that radicalized them. The surviving suspect admitted that they were motivated by their religious beliefs.

Still, the dogmatically-spoiled claim that religion is not to blame for their actions.

I'm profoundly baffled. How is it that everything is a part of some divine plan, but at the same time not a part of it? How is it not duplicitous to assert that good actions attributed to a religion are actions motivated by that religion, but bad actions attributed to a religion are not motivated by that religion?

There is a very dangerous disconnect with fundamental human logic among those who make these assertions.

Human beings are responsible for their actions, of course, but there are many factors that motivate those actions, which very much includes religious persuasion.

I posted on my blog’s Facebook page today the following thought:

“Circumstances are a product of conscious decisions (human action, however influenced), mathematical probabilities (chance), and timing (physics). Forfeiting this simple and logical formula to believe that everything exists in prayer and in god's plan is like grabbing the same empty water bottle every day and trying to take a drink from it, convinced that even though you can't see it, there must be water there. How dehydrated are you?”

Religion feels comfortable following something for which there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate. They believe that every circumstance of human action is faith, while at the same time absolving faith from human action. It’s a conundrum of hypocrisy that can really be summed up in one simple thought:

Faith is not a reason, it is believing without evidence which suggests it is believing for no reason, which is an agreement that one has no reason at all. This leads to people adopting more false beliefs than true ones, which makes one more likely to harm others through false beliefs.

(Harming can be understood as setting off bombs in a crowd of people, or legislating against the absolute, innate equality of every human being; or, washing the beautiful free mind of a child full of insane fairy tales with threats of eternal damnation).

The faithful want to adopt a measure of personal accountability (mental illness) for the perverse actions of their flock, but they don’t want it explained in any way. Like most things in their belief system, “they just are that way.”

Mental illness is not independent to itself, with absolutely no explanation for the variables that influence it. Repugnant behavior does not just magically occur on its own, for no reason at all.

Mental illness is much the same.

If this were the case, we could assert the following:

Drug addiction is all mental illness, with no contributing factors. The drugs, the pushers, the peer influence, the temporary emotional euphoria from the chemicals – none of those are responsible for the illness. It’s just independent mental illness motivated or caused by nothing at all. Much like “God’s” will.

PTSD is all mental illness, with no contributing factors. The physical or emotional trauma of war, rape, famine, assault, disaster, or loss - none of those are responsible for the illness. It’s just independent mental illness motivated or caused by nothing at all. Much like “God’s” will.

I could do this all day, but most of you reading this already understand both the point I’m making and the irrational system of varying accountability religion uses to self-justify or find not-guilty everything it does.

Conversely, the dogmatically-ill will read this, with veins popping out of their forfeited free minds and assert nothing more than, “It’s different. You’re twisting things around. You just can’t understand, because you don’t believe.” Or, they spend hours in redundant circles trying to explain the unexplainable to us.

The faithful forget that a significant percentage of us non-believers came from religion. Trying to explain it back to us is akin to trying to explain to a chemist how to work a Bunsen burner. This is precisely the reason we grew up (and away) from religion. Contrary to your argument, we understand it, and its dangers better than you do. We’ve evolved, dare I use that word.