I Don't Like Religion
Earlier today, I was watching the film "Room". A great film, by the way. But it reminded me of just how bizzare I find it when religion appears in media and film. Just one sentence in the film gave me quite a lot to think about, and it wasn't even a very important line. Something along the lines of "Did it make you feel like God had abandoned you". That totally pulled me out of the movie. It's just so jarring for me. I was raised in an atheist household, and grew up watching Star Trek, whose creator, Gene Roddenberry, was so atheist that he said that religion and superstition and mystical thinking were not to be part of his Universe in any way. To try and explain why I find religion so perplexing, let me offer an analogy:
Imagine someone hands you a piece of paper with the words "This is a cake" Written on it. He is adamant that this piece of paper, is in fact a cake. Understandably, you're skeptical. Your only evidence for this is a bit of writing on a piece of paper, and the sworn word of the person who wrote the words. Now, you'll remain rightfully skeptical, but the man's children? They will be raised believing for their entire lives that this piece of paper is in fact a cake. And when people tell them that it's obviously not and they're misinformed, they won't accept it. After all, their dad taught them that it was true since they were children. Now, over time, hundreds of years in fact, this group, let's call them "Papercakers", have gained a reasonable following. While at first peaceful, they end up going to war with poeple who believe that some cardboard is a piece of cake, and people who think that there are lots of pieces of paper that are cakes. After a while, these wars die down and for the most part, people segregate themselves into areas where the government share their particular cake-based beliefs. But as time moves on, some people start to question the validity of the Papercakers' claims. They examine the paper, and find that all reasonable evidence points to it being just a piece of paper with some writing on it. But of course, this kind of skepticism cannot be allowed, and so these skeptics are silenced or forced to hide. But as time passes, they can come out of the shadows. As society progresses, the Papercakers start to understand that other people can have opinions of their own and shouldn't be persecuted for those beliefs. At which point those skeptics look at the papercakers, utterly confused, and say: "Why in the world do you believe that this random piece of paper is a cake! You have absolutely no reason to believe it!" And how do they respond? "I've known that this piece of paper is a cake since forever. I know it's true." But of course, why do they know it's true? Because their parents told them. And who told [i]their [/i]parents? And on it goes, until we reach one man that wrote the four words "This is a cake" on a random bit of paper.
90% of Americans are religious. That's terrifying. How can that many people justify believing that a piece of paper is a cake? In the realm of all sense, that claim is nonsense.
Believe what you want. I don't want to stop you. But I will never understand you. And, as Patton Oswalt put it:
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Imagine someone hands you a piece of paper with the words "This is a cake" Written on it. He is adamant that this piece of paper, is in fact a cake. Understandably, you're skeptical. Your only evidence for this is a bit of writing on a piece of paper, and the sworn word of the person who wrote the words. Now, you'll remain rightfully skeptical, but the man's children? They will be raised believing for their entire lives that this piece of paper is in fact a cake. And when people tell them that it's obviously not and they're misinformed, they won't accept it. After all, their dad taught them that it was true since they were children. Now, over time, hundreds of years in fact, this group, let's call them "Papercakers", have gained a reasonable following. While at first peaceful, they end up going to war with poeple who believe that some cardboard is a piece of cake, and people who think that there are lots of pieces of paper that are cakes. After a while, these wars die down and for the most part, people segregate themselves into areas where the government share their particular cake-based beliefs. But as time moves on, some people start to question the validity of the Papercakers' claims. They examine the paper, and find that all reasonable evidence points to it being just a piece of paper with some writing on it. But of course, this kind of skepticism cannot be allowed, and so these skeptics are silenced or forced to hide. But as time passes, they can come out of the shadows. As society progresses, the Papercakers start to understand that other people can have opinions of their own and shouldn't be persecuted for those beliefs. At which point those skeptics look at the papercakers, utterly confused, and say: "Why in the world do you believe that this random piece of paper is a cake! You have absolutely no reason to believe it!" And how do they respond? "I've known that this piece of paper is a cake since forever. I know it's true." But of course, why do they know it's true? Because their parents told them. And who told [i]their [/i]parents? And on it goes, until we reach one man that wrote the four words "This is a cake" on a random bit of paper.
90% of Americans are religious. That's terrifying. How can that many people justify believing that a piece of paper is a cake? In the realm of all sense, that claim is nonsense.
Believe what you want. I don't want to stop you. But I will never understand you. And, as Patton Oswalt put it:
