Religion and Mythology

3/16/23 Ok riddle me this. Say a powerful alien descended on the planet with superintelligence, extreme amounts of power, and the ability to grant human wishes. Would you worship them if they demanded that you bow down and serve them as a Deity? Is there any real difference between that and the way you, or the people you know, practice religion? Historically speaking, human beings did this to other humans and claimed to be god emperors, and the ones giving them the power were other people. Anyone with enough dedication and sociopathy can learn enough math, astronomy, and sociology to manipulate their way into power via "miracles" and then stay there, hence the existence of god-kings and dictators in history, and now, and history just repeats itself over and over and overandover. 5/1/23 Here's another strange thought. The dominant religions on this planet for most of the past 2,000 years now have been Islam and Christianity. How is that going? Has there been an end to wars, hatred, bigotry, judgmental stupidity, and poverty, as the sacred texts of both of these seem to ask for? How's the environment doing? How are the women and children? How's that working for you, for us? I have no experience reading the Qur'an - though I have (as mentioned in the rest of this) never (not once) in my life been mistreated by a Muslim so I would assume the text has some good stuff in it. I do have experience reading the Bible and Jesus said "Judge a tree by its fruits" (to paraphrase). 3/9/23 Just thinking about the LGBTQ+ furor and the book banning crap and all the other stuff lately has me reminded of that old saying "you can't serve both God and Mammon." Cause really, you can't serve both love and hate. Eventually one or the other is going to win out. And with people playing telephone with the Bible and other holy texts all the way from their inception til now you really gonna claim that a Deity said EXACTLY what is written in there? Who are you? Are YOU a Deity?

My attitude towards religion is an exact match for Religious Bumfucks by Dayglo Abortions. here it is Yep, that includes my own religion. If you are easily offended about your Perfect Fucking Religion, you're really better just fucking off. As you can see, modern-day religions are used and abused by the powerful in order to make people more pliant and willing to blindly obey. Just as converting to 100% renewable energy and off-grid lifestyles is a way to cut off support and funding for dictators and autocrats, giving people worldwide adequate physical pain control for acute and chronic pain and also adequate mental health care esp. as it relates to mental anguish, trauma, PTSD and so on, will cut off support for autocratic or evil religion. Pain changes people; if it breaks them they're easier to enslave, esp. by getting them hooked on a drug be it actual drugs, social media, religion, or some cult. That's its fuel. End the pain, and you solve some of the problem. Call out drug addicts, aka people addicted to their religion, for what they are and you solve more of it. Just because it feels gooooood to commune with the Divine or practice your religion doesn't mean it's not functioning as your drug of choice. 6/22/22 Upon some consideration I want to make it clear I think everyone has the right to practice whatever the hell religion they want. I just don't think it's right to force anyone else to join you. 2/16/23 It's one of the worst truths in life that you can't save everyone, especially from themselves. No matter how much you try to explain that religion is for uplifting people, not pushing down the innocent, improving people, not making them worse; no matter how much you preach love, compassion, mercy, and all that is good to someone, it's going to mostly fall on deaf ears. I hope this section reaches even one person and convinces them to maybe not be so diehard about a religion that realistically speaking, there's no way they can possibly completely understand. If it reaches one then that's worth it. And if you're having to be in the same boat to try to get someone off their high horse also, maybe a lot of someones, then try to remember the "if it only reaches one person it's still worth it" idea. Lest it drive you crazy.

Generally speaking, humans tend to join a religion for several secondary reasons: fear, compassion, a need for mental health care, following the herd, curiosity, insanity or a combination of these. The primary reason is that you are born into a religion, and most religions mandate brainwashing your kids to become part of that religion before they have the ability to consent using their own free will, and this is extremely difficult to break free from in later years. In fact, it's an addiction in many if not most followers. Despite most religions having absolutely no verifiable evidence behind them or a good reason for existing, they perpetuate themselves and either incredible brutality and human rights violations, or loving and compassionate behavior, or insanity, or all three. The single greatest reason why religions can be harmful is probably that people who need mental health assistance may wind up never getting help because the culture of their religion views their particular mental problems as acceptable - schizophrenia, delusions, paranoia, and more can all be covered up too easily as 'passionate faith', and things like depression and anxiety are too often "treated" with religion as a crutch, although most if not all religions do promote mental well-being and have no prohibitions against getting therapy. In the scriptures, that is. It's the culture that is often toxic, claiming things like "faith over fear" and "faith healing will fix everything." In fact, some religious denominations actually encourage mental illness and maladaptive coping mechanisms, fostering the crazy in order to keep people hooked; in other words they encourage addiction. Having spent a lot of time around drug addicts, some around cultists, and too much around fundamentalists from various religions, I can tell you for certain the behavioral patterns between religious nuts, cultists, and drug addicts (let's see here, I've known heroin users, meth addicts, nymphomaniacs, crackheads, alcoholics, weed heads... one LSD overuser, and a buncha shroom lovers) are exactly the same. It is no wonder that so many drug recovery programs revolve around religion; it replaces one addiction with another. I don't even think it's supposed to be that way as originally it looks like a lot of religions were intended to make life better for humans, but it seems that because thinking is hard because it means you have to face the truth, most people just go like "insert religion, delete brain." Instead of actually critically thinking about anything themselves they just give up and let their religion do the thinking for them, which works out about as well as you'd expect. The older I get the more convinced I am that a certain amount of laughing at your own religion, whatever it is, is necessary in order to live a sane and happy life. * 5/11/2021 I added some experiences of mine with the cultures related to their religions. I'm just some random idiot who likes to travel so don't pay too much attention.

GENERAL INFO

Monotheistic religions and polytheistic religions both have their weaknesses and flaws. Monotheism, currently the predominant way of thinking on much of the planet, declares that "this god is the best god and all the others are demons" or something like that. Polytheism has a tendency of declaring that the gods exist to serve the people who worship them, and can be anywhere on the morality map from highly virtuous and ethical to completely nuts. Both have the unfortunate tendency of declaring that "this way is best and all others must be killed." Both also have the tendency of stating that having lots and lots of children is excellent, which explains why the warmongering didn't leave our population at dangerously low levels. Other religions that are neither polytheistic nor monotheistic tend to be the most rare and frankly, the most interesting, because they haven't become memes like the others. Some say that religions and cults are different. The defining features of a cult say otherwise. 10 Signs You Are In A Cult 16 Signs You Are In A Cult - please ignore the bad/tonedeaf looping images; the content is correct Article of someone who grew up in a cult If you are questioning whether your religious or spiritual path is the right one for you, then chances are if you are part of a cult (and most religions are definitely cults) you should probably leave, get your head screwed on straight, and only then decide which one you should pursue, especially if you were too young to properly think it through when you first joined up. Otherwise, you could potentially really hurt someone, including yourself. Even if you decide to rejoin the religion or cult you left, it will be for the right reasons, and not out of blind dogma, fear, or habit - and if indeed the Deity of that religion is infinitely loving, then said Deity would want you to make the decision out of free will, not terror. Generally speaking if your religion discourages critical thinking aka thinking for yourself in order to get as close as possible to the truth, or if it encourages loyalty to any idea or deity which by human standards is evil, it is a cult. Especially - and this is a weird analogy but bear with me - if the religion doesn't follow the rules of sexual consent for conversion attempts, which must be freely given and enthusiastic instead of "no, no, well fine I guess" or worse, converting someone before they are old enough to reason things out for themselves. This is because allowing a religion to affect your mind, soul, and life is just as invasive as sex. Logically speaking a religion that would be moral would encourage humans to strive to be better and do better - if the deity or idea is actually worse, then we got a problem. If you terrorize or seriously harm innocent people or living creatures because your religion sanctions it, and if you are against terrorizing or harming innocent people or living creatures as a matter of principle, then by your own logic you are going against your own ethics. The end-all be-all argument here is that if the only real reason you're in your religion is out of terror, then your religion's foundation is terror. You could even say that your religion itself is terror. Is that desirable? Of course, there is the inevitable question: just how much better off are we with religion instead of without it? Questioning your own religion or spirituality is always, always, always a good idea. Critical examination of it either strengthens your faith with the ironclad strength of truth or helps you find one that is worthy of your efforts.

It has been my experience that the one parable Jesus said about how a good tree does not bear bad fruits and vice versa and to "judge them by their fruits" is incredibly useful and accurate. I've tried using this yardstick to judge religions, organizations, cults, faiths, philosophies, and people, and I've tried going without or using other methods, and this method of Jesus's seems to work quite well. It also is a scientific method, that borne from experience as opposed to lofty reasoning concocted in the Brilliant Human Mind (bah!), wishful thinking, prejudice, or blind belief. I recommend it.

The worst part of any religion ever, take your pick, is those parts of it which rely entirely on lying to yourself, doublethink, or spinning facts to make yourself more comfortable. In other words, allergy to the truth. If you really think the Creator or whatever Divine/s prefer that you avoid thinking for yourself and avoid seeking out the truth, then logically speaking, that Creator is a liar and wants you to believe in lies, and is that really something worth worshipping? Is that really something omnipotent, all-powerful; something perfectly good and just, if it can't stand people knowing the truth? THIS is why people become atheist. THIS is why people don't trust religion. And why I personally decided to worship the essence of Infinite Goodness, Perfection, and Love, even if it doesn't have a name and even if it doesn't exist - it is something worth trying to understand as a virtue alone even if you don't believe in a Deity. If this notion of "who needs truth when you have belief (unproven assertions or outright lies)?" ever bit the dust, it would probably save the planet. The only people who can really combat this problem are already in religions; I really hope they try to fix this because it's gone way too far. Yeah, it feels real nice to believe you're going to be rewarded generously or whatever for your beliefs and it would hurt oh so bad to face facts, but grow the fuck up. I have had it with enabling this. And while you're at it, stop fetishizing suffering and evil. No one knows if it's inherently some necessary part of existence, and regardless, there's no real excuse for feeding into it. No evil done in the name of any supposed omnipotent being (or anything), even to avoid supposed eternal or temporary punishment, is ever morally justifiable. Evil never is. Even allowing evil to exist is in itself evil too. I'm throwing down the gauntlet: if it can't be thoroughly proven through experience (empirical evidence for YOU, not some guy hundreds of years ago) at the absolute minimum and hopefully also rigorous scientific proofs, it is not worthy of being followed as a religion. If it causes needless suffering, it is not worth following as a religion. If it harms the innocent, it is not worth following as a religion. And here's why: firstly, because we are all connected via chains of circumstance and fuck with one and you fuck with us all (including you), and two: I've seen miracles happen, really stack up eyeballs deep, til I had to admit there really was a Deity because this much evidence was statistically significant - this after I demanded out loud "Hey God, prove to me You exist." If you haven't seen it happen for yourself but you're persuading yourself you did, you're only screwing yourself cause nothing I say could possibly prove to you anything about religion, or even matter to you. You have to try this shit for yourself. This doesn't just apply to determining if there is a Deity either. You want the answers to life's persistent questions? Seek them out, but not through blind belief. Through experiment and experience. Try it... you never know.

11/5/23 Redpill on all religions: have you considered the possibility that all evil demigods, evil or bad forces, and gods in many religions are one and the same? If it lies, can't withstand truth, is cruel, harms the innocent, and acts through terror; if it is malicious, hurts and harms and causes grief, WHY WOULD YOU WORSHIP IT

1/13/23 You should know that I am coming at this from an Israeli family that has studied the Torah, the original Bible, on both sides of it for probably a total of about 100 years combined. I believe in what I am saying about the translation issues for holy scriptures because I have faith in my family's ability to study things accurately, comprehensively and well - after all, they are my family. You should also know that on one side, the study was in the original Aramaic and Akkadian, and on the other, there was some issue with misunderstanding the original Biblical injunction to "spare the rod and spoil the child" so this person then spent decades trying to atone for taking it too literally. The knowledge that has filtered down to me as a result is as follows: scriptures are not easy to understand, and by taking them literally as if they made complete sense, you can cause serious damage to yourself and to the practice of your faith, so cultivate humility. (As an example, I was actually taught that the Holy Name in the Bible that you're not supposed to say isn't even possible to say with a human mouth! It reads "yhvh," and if I'm remembering correctly sometimes "yhyh," that's right no vowels* you'll trip over your own tongue if you even try it; it's impossible.) Also, the King James Bible is absolute trash as a translation and so completely, utterly different from the original to the point of actually being a completely different religion; no one took as many liberties translating the original meaning into something completely different as good ol' King James. I don't like saying this but I feel it has to be said.

*nikud is the Hebrew term, they usually look like little dots or tiny lines and T's, so it's actually written "yhvh" not "Jehovah"

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all state that the Supreme Deity commands you to bear children. Childbirth is one of the most painful things a human being can endure. Therefore, the Supreme Being of Christianity and Judaism either wants women to suffer, however momentarily, or the Holy Books are mistranslated. In the Bible, the Supreme Being actually curses all women to suffer pain while they give birth, so it is definitely intentional (or again, a mistranslation). I am not sure if Islam contains the same curse in the Quran; it actually has an herbal remedy for birth pains (eat dates). Overpopulation also creates difficulty in finding resources and resultant competition, possibly war, as well as diseases caused by living in a crowded environment. There are so many similarities between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and yet they continually fight one another and sometimes kill each other and people in other religions, usually because something in their Holy Books told them it was right. This Supreme Being is also said to be infinitely merciful and loving. There is a contradiction here. This contradiction is neatly done away with by words to the effect of "don't think about this yourself but allow this Supreme Being to think for you, OR ELSE YOU'RE FOREVER DOOMED, but if you accept this Supreme Being and literally everything else written in this Holy Book, not only are you doing the right thing but you'll live forever in a good place and it is heavily implied you are a fantastically good person." Which is weird. Even weirder? If someone actually existed on Earth and behaved like the Deity of any of these religions, or (to be fair) any of the Greek Deities in modern mythology, they would go to jail for war crimes. And... we're supposed to idolize that kind of behavior? Could explain a lot about why the world is in the shit. Here's George Carlin's version of the condensed 10 Commandments.

Here's something really bizarre to consider. If you research old Pagan religions, such as the screwed-up ones from Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Sumeria, and to some extent the Maya and Aztec religions, even possibly old European Pagan religion of some sort (if the stories are to be believed), you come across an assortment of barbarities. Number one, ritual human sacrifice. However, how exactly is a holy war, or making a point of killing someone not of your religion, any different from a ritual human sacrifice? Second thing, ritual promiscuous sex. How exactly is this any different in terms of violating human consent boundaries than being forced into marriage? Third thing, enslavement of one's enemies. Look around at the amount of indentured servitude - have we really stopped doing this in general, as a species, no matter how religious or areligious we are? Fourth thing, making suffering into some kind of sacrament, usually through bloodletting of some sort. The Masochism Tango by Tom Lehrer covers this perfectly and the big three Monotheist religions seem to still have issues with this. Fifth thing, war crimes such as torture, genocide, cannibalism, and other unspeakable things not really fit to print. If modern religion was really so great it would have done away with all of these or at least not encouraged the creeps perpetuating it to become religious leaders or worse, religious political leaders. Sixth thing, hatred and threat narratives. That's been more or less a constant in all religions and major philosophies of large groups of people for millenia and I think it might have more to do with our psychology as a tribal species than with religion or philosophy itself no matter what it is. The only real difference between the Paganism of times past and the modern-day stuff is all of that isn't happening out in plain view in front of us anymore; it happens far away and the privileged few (such as you, and me, if we're reading this) benefit. I don't think we've ever actually progressed beyond barbarism as a species no matter what sort of excuses we provide for our unforgivable actions through religion. How to change this? Probably at an individual level. Then, via brainstorming with good friends.

Proof of the Truthful An argument presented by Avicenna in order to prove that a benevolent God has to exist, which opens up a whole can of worms (see sidebar on the right) of arguments for and against various things in religion, and everything in between. Guaranteed to make your head hurt.

There are dangers to every religion, specifically the ways that you can mess them up instead of use them for good. I've listed a few.

EVIL

OVER-REPRODUCTION

NOTE: 9/9/23 My personal feelings on the Lakota Sioux Sun Dance are as follows. I apologize for not articulating them earlier but haven't been sure how to say it. Anyway, they're as follows, my personal feelings: 1. They don't matter. Beyond getting a message across I think needs to be said, my "importance" in this issue doesn't go farther than that. 2. I don't know enough about it to judge, and anyone who hasn't been to one doesn't know about it to judge either. 3. What little I have heard about it has been breathtakingly beautiful and pure. I would hate for something like that to be outlawed just on the basis of stigma and prejudice and blind bigotry. I picked this specific religious ceremony as an example because apparently in a lot of places it actually has been outlawed. It makes me wonder how many other Native American religions and religious practices are just plain not allowed to be practiced in the United States. How many other things went wrong. I honestly want a comprehensive list even if it means a series of thousand-page books to read. Constitutional violations over here, and over there, and everywhere... treaties broken... ugh. Christian? Religious? All I see is greed. (inb4 the idiots telling me that Israel colonized the Middle East, learn some history... situation over there is somehow even more complicated and always has been.)

CHILD AND RELATIONSHIP ABUSE

SLAVERY

WAR

FUCKING WITH POLITICS

CONVERSION ATTEMPTS

ALLERGY TO THE TRUTH / LYING TO YOURSELF

HATRED

DELUSION AND INSANITY

BULLYING AND POWER TRIPPING AND GENERAL TOXICITY

1/16/23 ABSURD PRIORITIES

6/7/23 TRIBALISM

THE RELIGION OF COFFEE / CAFFEINE

PAGANISM (GENERAL) / WHATEVER IS NOT YOUR EXACT RELIGION AND IS THEREFORE SEEN AS "EVIL"

PASTAFARIANISM

DUDEISM

HINDUISM

ASATRU

ZOROASTRIANISM

ISLAM

CHRISTIANITY

JUDAISM

SANTERIA

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM

ECSTATIC SPIRITUALITY - FORMERLY CALLED SHAMANISM, BUT THAT IS A SIBERIAN TRADITION

WITCHCRAFT

WICCA

SHINTO

DRUIDRY

VOODOO

NATIVE AMERICAN RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

HELLENIC WORSHIP

BUDDHISM

SCIENTOLOGY

SPACE MARINES CHAPTERS

SOME OTHER CULTS

* Guys, I hate to break it to you, but faith healing is magic and culturally appropriated from real folk magical practice, but without any of the religion any of that came from and completely devoid of the traditions created to make said healing ethical and spiritual (unless you're doing Hoodoo or maybe one of the flavors of Southern Baptist, in which case you already know what I mean about ethics). True faith healing takes years of work and humble devotion to the Powers That Be to get it right and to demand that God fix your problem because you have great enough "faith" and not enough willpower to take yourself to the doctor or learn the ropes of how to become a competent healer (anyone can be a crappy healer) - is that not extremely disrespectful to God when you were given the tools, the gifts, the ability to get it done? Believe it or not miracles do not come cheap and if they are too easy, we screw everything up because we ask for too much all at once or the wrong things; there's a reason we have to learn the ropes when asking for miracles/working magic/faith healing - it's to learn wisdom so we don't hurt ourselves and sometimes the wisdom gained is that we cannot ask for or work miracles; the gift/responsibility/duty/job is not for us to have because it's too much of a burden or would cause serious problems. Worse, sometimes untrained people, often so-called Christians, manage to work magic because they're naturally gifted but it is actually black magic, things like psychic attacks towards their enemies and malocchio (envy causing extreme physical symptoms in the target) for someone who has a job they want because they "prayed enough for it," or they healed from coronavirus because they "prayed and were granted a miracle" and then infected and killed dozens of other people, etc. "Willing yourself healthy" is one way of doing this. Wishing someone dead really really hard is another. The placebo effect is another. Uncontrolled emotions and madness add fuel to this fire, creating a monstrous energy that is sent to someone as bad vibes - otherwise known as black magic. This isn't just about passing thoughts or even full-on obsession with a person, place or thing, so this isn't about having nasty thoughts. That doesn't do much, if anything; doesn't actually affect anything. No, you have to have a full-on obsession, PLUS a ton of negativity and personal energy being added to the obsession, PLUS consciously willing the thing to happen; you have to intentionally will it to happen of your own free will, and under duress such as if you're insane or having intrusive thoughts or something won't do shit. Usually you have to convince yourself that you're the victim and therefore the intended target "deserves" whatever you're sending their way. Karma will return to you threefold at least for all of these if you target the innocent, whether you realize you're doing it or not; note that you're only doing this if you intentionally, consciously, of your own free will are sending this kind of crap to people in something like Prayer Warrior prayer sessions or whatever. This is the reason I stuck Hoodoo in my nondemoninational spirituality section; for the self-defense stuff. These are the reasons that magic working is forbidden in most religions besides serious incompatibility with their practices and belief systems; if that is your path, you really shouldn't be doing magic and you'll be far happier without the extreme responsibility and high workload - so drop the faith healing and drop the 'If I pray hard enough for anything it will happen' bravado. If you pray for something and working magic is not your path, ask, do not demand, or will it to happen, or it may cost you dearly. The Divine knows better than you what you need. In fact, the Divine is the only one behind all good magic, whether the worker realizes it or not. Faith healing or any other kind of magic will either lead you down the path of willingly becoming as devoted and disciplined as clergy in your religion or it won't work at all and it will result in you treating God like your servant plus creating really bad vibes around you, which is a kind of bad magic, congratulations. There is always the logic of "Can't God work through a doctor as well?" which many doctors subscribe to because they see their work as a spiritual life's calling and a way to serve their Divine mission in life. And people who work magic don't even use magic on its own - they go to the damn doctor.

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