Are you implying that all pursuits of religious and spiritual enlightenment are a form of brainwashing?
Am I implying it ?.... Of course not, I am SAYING it, I thought that would have been very clear by now.
To further explain:
As organized religion, OR ANY FORM OF ORGANIZED "SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT", I continue to say it is brainwash to various degrees.
If you or anybody that shares your views want to gather in group WILLINGLY, and do whatever is it that you do, talk about it, pray to whomever you want, worship etc. etc. etc... Then I will respect such as it is your individual right to believe and do as you wish, and the same applies to those members of your group.
So long so, you or the individual involved, have/has had the opportunity to be informed, of all relevant facts, and after such, the informed decision is made, then it is an informed individual decision, you have the right to that and it should be respected, is it rational....? that becomes a matter of opinion, but again, you have the right to that.
However, the minute that you begin your preaching, and "missions to convert", to others, then I see such as an infringement on the rights of privacy of those upon whom the preaching, or "missioning" is performed. Particularly when others are either unwilling, or too young to make an informed decision on these issues.
Religion/spiritual matters are personal and individual matters, and so should be treated.
Moreover, when I read the "core" beliefs and the fact that they "pray" upon children, (I do not mind if they do it to their own), and in fact "brainwashing" them, my problem with the entire idea increases.
I only have to cite many, many historical references, and current events in which such preaching and missions are perfect examples that the influence of religion and "spiritual" missions are hurtful, aggressive, and downright criminal because their influence impairs rational and free independent thinking.
How many times in history entire armies of men and women went on to kill so called "infidels" simply because they happened to believe in different things. ? is that a rational act, NO I DO NOT THINK SO.
What is the problem with the idea that if you believe in "x" god, and you pray to it, (or whatever other "spiritual" belief you may hold), so long you keep it to yourself, pray to your heart's content, even share your belief with those with whom WILLINGLY believe in the same things that you do, discuss them etc. etc.... What is wrong with that ??
Why must you go on "missions of enlightenment" to those who simply do not have the inclination to follow your beliefs ?
What is the idea behind the fact that you judge, and condemn those who simply do not share your views ?? "they will go to HELL !!
Do you know that for a fact ?? nobody can prove it, besides it seems pretty stupid that perfectly sane people with good morals, and ethics, should "burn in hell" simply because you do not happen to share specific beliefs, yet criminals that in their "last hour" they "repent" and "embrace" specific beliefs will be "saved".
There is no LOGIC, NOR REASON to such line of thought.
I am an atheist, if I am wrong, well hell, here I come !! my loss, big deal.... imagine that, I will be joining all the women of ill repute... he, he, he, he. And this time around as a condemned spirit, I will not have the limitation of the human body has as one ages, Hey I am all for that, imagine all the lustful women I will meet !!!
I am willing to bet that I am right, therefore, I will live my life without the guilt and demeaning philosophy of feeling sorry all the time, hoping for a mystic "life after death". At least I am honest about it and I do not kid others and myself, I live for now, I do my best and when I die, it is game over, end of story.
Frankly, I equate such stories to the sorry "stories of hype" of the average Penny Stock. Exact same technique.... get that carrot away from the donkey, so the donkey follows it, while the promoters (of faith), keep on ridding the stupid arse, until..... well, the already brain dead, physically dies.
Another point I have a great problem with is the rampant hypocrisy amongst 99% of the "congregations".
Why ?
Well simple, stop doing so much "praying and wishing" and in stead DO, DO, DO..... By "DO" I do not mean more "spiritual enlightenment" I mean roll up your sleeves and do as you preach, I mean go teach family planning to those families in the US City ghettos, go out to the Latin American countryside and teach the peasants what their governments have failed to do, go to the African Jungle and do the same..... etc. etc....
I bet you, that if you truly do so, in stead of wasting so much resources building your Temples of the Absurd (i.e. churches), praying senselessly etc. etc... these people in all probabilities will believe in your deeds, not on your "preaching and enlightenment".
I do not do the above, because I am selfish, (which by the way, I do not see this as negative), I am interested in helping those who are immediately close to me, I will determine that, I own my life and my mind. By the same token, I do not participate in falsehoods, nor in institutionalized preaching or praying, I simply do as I think, and I am HONEST about it.
I can go on but I do not want to bore you.
Besides, if you have your beliefs well cemented and rationalized, why should, the fact that I, merely question the blind faith preaching and brainwashes, by expressing my opinion of such acts, bother you?
Surely, such expressions, could not influence your faith.... or do they ?
In closing, I will give you the following thoughts, you may have already read them, but I do not know.... think about them:
At the same time, think in terms that so long you do as you preach, and do not impose your preachings on unwilling individuals or on innocent children, who do not have the capacity to decide in these matters at their early age, then you have my respect.
Also do not assume, that because I am an atheist, by default, I lack morals, I have no ethics, and I promote the use of drugs, etc. etc.
I make the above comment, because all too often I get attacked by religious fanatics that simply due to the fact that I express my disbelief in their particular religion, then by "definition" I am all those other things......
Z.
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# 1
"So long as theologians keep within their proper bounds, science has no quarrel with them, for it is no more able to prove that they are wrong then they themselves are able to prove that they are right. But human experience shows that they never keep within their proper bounds voluntarily; they are always bulging over the line, and making a great uproar over things that they know nothing about."
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# 2
"I believe there is a limit beyond which free speech cannot go, but it's a limit that's very seldom mentioned. It's the point where free speech begins to collide with the right to privacy. I don't think there are any other conditions to free speech. I've got a right to say and believe anything I please, but I haven't got a right to press
it on anybody else. .... Nobody's got a right to be a nuisance to his neighbors."
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# 3
Consider the six days of Genesis as a figure of speech for what has in fact been 4 billion years. On this scale, one day equals something like six hundred and sixty-six million years, and thus, all day Monday and until Tuesday noon, creation was busy getting the world going. Life began Tuesday noon, and the beautiful organic wholeness of it developed over the next four days. At 4 pm Saturday, the big reptiles came on. Five hours later, when the redwoods appeared, there were no more big reptiles. At three minutes before midnight on the last day, man appeared. At one-fourth of a second before midnight, Christ arrived. At one-fortieth of a second before midnight, the Industrial Revolution began. We are surrounded with people who think that what we have been doing for that one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely. They are considered normal, but they are stark raving mad.
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# 4
The fact, however, that threats of Hell have their social uses is not an argument in favor of the truth of religion; it is simply an argument against the human race. More, it is probably libellous, for the overwhelming majority of men and women are not nearly so vicious as the fancy of theologians makes them out [to be]. Very few men, if Hell were proved to be a fiction tomorrow, would take to the highroad and cut throats, and very few women would turn drabs.
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# 5
The god of love that they preach invariably turns out, on examination, to be a god of harsh and arbitrary penalties and brutalities, just as the brotherhood of man that they preach, brought to the test, turns out to be only a kind of hatred. Hell is still their headquarters...
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# 6
It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous imbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed theology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting them upon alchemy, heretic-burning, witchcraft and sacerdotalism.
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# 7
"It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or of the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely."
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