If the Devil is six then God is seven
Feb. 1st, 2006 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lectrix_lectiWoo fucking hoo. The Muslim world officially hates Denmark and Norway, thanks to some Danish depictions of the prophet, facsimiled in a Norwegian (ultra-Christian) paper. In some places, they burn poorly rendered Danish and Norwegian flags and mill around streets and scream a lot because of that, Danes and Norwegians working in afflicted areas are evacuated for their own safety, and it's a general violent mayhem. Muslims in Norway want the dormant blasphemy act revoked and altered to fit their needs.
See, this is exactly why I loathe organised religion. It creates its own problems, and, amazingly, creates more problems than it solves.
If not someone at some point had gotten it into their head that pictures of god(s) and prophet(s) and such were Bad Things, and worked it into Islamic dogmas, this would not have been an issue. Unfortunately, someone did, and the result is that Muslims all over the damn planet throw tantrums because some artists drew what they imagine said prophet looked like.
All the rubbish in this or that religious practice about not eating lobsters and not lending money and not spilling thy seed upon the ground and not mixing wool and linen and lying around with your arse in the air a zillion times a day and no meat on Fridays and no milkshake with the hamburger and not cutting your hair and not drawing pictures and not putting up curtains in your house and not listening to music and shaving your body but for fuck's sake not your face, it pisses me so incredibly off.
Whatever god you believe in, he/she/it doesn't bloody care.
He/she/it doesn't give a damn about your eating or shaving or drawing habits, because mankind created religion. Religion came to partly to explain baffling natural phenomena, partly for some shrewd people to gain power over their fellow men and women. "Oi, you can't have the juiciest part of the pig, that's taboo to everyone but the chief and the priesthood". "Oi, you can't shag your neighbour's pretty daughter because the priest wants in her pants-equivalents". "Oi, you can't draw a picture because I say so".
I find all this uproar over a few drawings maddeningly irrational and petulant. Unfortunately, it's also quite dangerous.
Did you find this disrespectful? Believe me, it was meant to be. It's about organised fucking religion.
See, this is exactly why I loathe organised religion. It creates its own problems, and, amazingly, creates more problems than it solves.
If not someone at some point had gotten it into their head that pictures of god(s) and prophet(s) and such were Bad Things, and worked it into Islamic dogmas, this would not have been an issue. Unfortunately, someone did, and the result is that Muslims all over the damn planet throw tantrums because some artists drew what they imagine said prophet looked like.
All the rubbish in this or that religious practice about not eating lobsters and not lending money and not spilling thy seed upon the ground and not mixing wool and linen and lying around with your arse in the air a zillion times a day and no meat on Fridays and no milkshake with the hamburger and not cutting your hair and not drawing pictures and not putting up curtains in your house and not listening to music and shaving your body but for fuck's sake not your face, it pisses me so incredibly off.
Whatever god you believe in, he/she/it doesn't bloody care.
He/she/it doesn't give a damn about your eating or shaving or drawing habits, because mankind created religion. Religion came to partly to explain baffling natural phenomena, partly for some shrewd people to gain power over their fellow men and women. "Oi, you can't have the juiciest part of the pig, that's taboo to everyone but the chief and the priesthood". "Oi, you can't shag your neighbour's pretty daughter because the priest wants in her pants-equivalents". "Oi, you can't draw a picture because I say so".
I find all this uproar over a few drawings maddeningly irrational and petulant. Unfortunately, it's also quite dangerous.
Did you find this disrespectful? Believe me, it was meant to be. It's about organised fucking religion.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 10:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 10:31 am (UTC)I firmly believe that the world would have been a very, very, very much better place without organised religion. I also firmly believe that if people want to be quietly spiritual on their own, or in small congregations that don't take it upon themselves to impose anything on others, that's perfectly okay. What does piss me off, is the urge most religious people feel to force their own bloody belief down everybody else's throat.
The most likely explanation of how religion came to, is the lack of scientific explanations in pre-history. Gaining power must have been added as a clever afterthought. While the start wasn't malicious, the result is.
I do realise why people needed and still need (the crutch of) religion. I also realise the role it fills, however, I do see that the role organised religion fills only has the importance followers assign to it. To me, as an atheist and a human being, the most important result of organised religion I see is fucking up the world all through history.
My point is still that organised religion creates more problems than it solves, and what's the good in that?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 11:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 11:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 10:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 10:33 am (UTC)I've re-read this a few times now, and calmed down a bit, and I think that although it was written in a state of pure fury, I still stand for every word.
I need to write a novel about a world where religion didn't arise.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 10:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 11:17 am (UTC)I often think about what a world sans religion would be like - what would be the substitutes? Because I do think that people need some level of going beyond themselves, but maybe that would manifest in caring for others? Or in cruelty to others?
I also think it's far more interesting to imagine a world where religion never arose in the first place, than to imagine a world (Earth) where religion ceases to exist. I don't think people can do without it once it has been a part of society.
Edit, damnit
Date: 2006-02-01 11:18 am (UTC)I want to edit comments!
Re: Edit, damnit
Date: 2006-02-01 11:39 am (UTC)Re: Edit, damnit
Date: 2006-02-01 11:40 am (UTC)Re: Edit, damnit
Date: 2006-02-01 11:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 10:02 pm (UTC)about religion...it should come naturally when people gather and/or form some sort of society? it doesn't need gods or belief in something ungraspable. any religion is based on rules, agreements and understandings. but then i think of politics as religion and vice versa, and so it'd be impossible for anyone to exist without religion.
and on to something else ie deleting: tss. i don't delete/edit *that* much. but yeah me too would like that function *coughs*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 11:34 pm (UTC)An often-heard comment from Muslims these days is "you don't know what Muhammed means to us". Well, no, I don't. I do, however, know that one comes a helluva lot further in this world with an ounce of rational behaviour, because ranting and burning flags and shaking one's fist and cocking one's gun will get EXACTLY the reaction you express above; that democracy and free speech should never back down for fanatism.
PS
Date: 2006-02-01 11:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 09:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 12:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 01:30 pm (UTC)*thinks of about a million puns involving Guns, cocking and loading, assumes Paul has probably heard every single one a dozen times, decides not to go there*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 01:33 pm (UTC)*bet you weren't expecting THAT one !! :o)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 02:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 02:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-03 12:10 pm (UTC)thing is, i was thinking just like you but while writing it my mind wandered off to religions such as taoism. which too, at times, has elements of something-out-of-reach so that wouldn't work either. hm. i know i had a point but misplaced it.
imo, burning flags is just as offensive. i also wonder if they know what this could turn into. what if single countries, eu or america would withdraw benefits. or if nazis and racists here would begin to burn mosques and seriously harass muslims. it's not unlikely, it has happened before and it's definitely not something i want. so, reacting that way will most probably cause even more harm.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-03 12:20 pm (UTC)I have a feeling WWIII is going to start because some kid somewhere shoves another.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 12:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 12:49 pm (UTC)