10 good reasons to give up religion once and for all

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Your commitment to spiritual development is commendable. However, joining a state religion such as Christianity, Islam or Hinduism is one of the worst ways to do this. In this article, I will describe 10 reasons why you should give up religion if you truly strive for a conscious life. Since Christianity is currently the most popular religion in the world, this article describes the shortcomings of Christianity. However, most of these points apply equally to other major religions (yes, yes, even Buddhism).

1. Spirituality for dummies

If your intellectual development is at the level of a snail, you are overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame (perhaps the reason for this is drug use or suicidal thoughts), and then you switch to religion, then perhaps such a turn will help you rise to a higher level of consciousness. However, your thinking is still flawed, you just changed one set of erroneous views for another.

For the majority of reasonable people who do not initially suffer from low self-esteem, religion dramatically lowers the level of awareness. While some religious beliefs give the illusion of empowerment, in general, religion burdens you with a vast array of misconceptions about reality.

As you plunge into religion, you replace your own independent thoughts with foggy group intelligence. Instead of learning to discern truth on your own, you are simply told what to believe. This does not speed up your spiritual growth, but on the contrary hinders its development. The job of religion is to turn off the human mind.

Leave mythology aside and learn to think for yourself. Your mind is a better instrument for spiritual growth than any religious teaching.

2. Loss of deep spiritual awareness

One of the worst mistakes you can make in life is sticking your personality to one of the specific religions or philosophies. Start saying "I am a Christian" or "I am a Buddhist." This imposes on your mind the obligation to adhere to a certain point of view, abandoning the entire depth of perception of the surrounding reality. You can no longer perceive reality as it really is. If that prospect seems normal to you, what about the offer to knock out one of your eyes? Would you be better off from a single, fixed point of view, instead of the most complex brain analysis of two streams of images coming separately from each eye? Or do you still like stereo effects?

At their core, religious "truths" are the fixation of your point of view, while the real truth does not depend on the point of view. When you replace truth with religious beliefs, you are confusing shadows with light sources. Therefore, you doom yourself to awkward wanderings in the twilight. Clarity becomes inaccessible to you, and the best explanation for what is happening for you is to say that life is a big mystery. Religious secrets, however, do not arise around truly unknowable things, they arise from the impossibility of understanding reality in a fixed frame of reference.

A smarter approach is to look at reality from different points of view, without trying to filter your perception through the prism of a religious structure.

3. Teaching obedience

Religions are authoritarian hierarchies designed to dominate your free will. They are law enforcement agencies that convince you to transfer your functions to outsiders who like to control others. By connecting to one of the religions, you subscribe to the peremptory worship of a certain group of people. This is not written in the religious charter, but in fact it works that way.

Religion is a very effective tool for transforming people into sheep. It is one of the most powerful social tools out there. The purpose of their work is to destroy faith in your own intelligence, gradually convincing you to rely on some external entity for everything, for example, a deity, an outstanding person or a great book. Of course, these instruments are usually controlled by those whom you should worship. By persuading you to shift all responsibility from yourself to an external force, religion increases your weakness, obedience and control. Religion actively contributes to this weakening, calling this process faith. The real task of all this is to achieve unquestioning obedience.

Religion seeks to fill your head with so much incomprehensible nonsense that the only option you have left is to bow your head in obedience (often literally). Get in the habit of spending a lot of time on your knees, because the duty to bow and kneel is present in all religions. Similar practices are used in dog training. Now say: "I am listening to you, my teacher."

Have you ever wondered why all religious practices are invariably mysterious, confusing and logically inexplicable? Of course, this was not done by accident.

By consuming large amounts of confusing and often conflicting information, your logic (your mind) becomes overwhelmed. You are unsuccessfully trying to juxtapose some conflicting beliefs, which is not possible in principle. The end result is that your logical mind shuts down, unable to find an explanation for the inexplicable, and control is transferred to the more primitive (non-analyzing) parts of the brain. You have been taught that faith is a highly spiritual and conscious way of life, in fact, everything is exactly the opposite. The less you rely on your brain, the dumber it becomes and the easier it is to manipulate you. Karl Marx was right when he said: "Religion is the opium of the people."

The two parts of the Bible, the New Testament and the Old Testament, often contradict each other and are quoted depending on the situation. Church leaders behave in gross violation of their own teaching, for example, by covering up the criminal and immoral activities of their priests. Those who try to reveal these obvious inconsistencies are subject to religious persecution.

A highly conscientious person will reject membership in such an organization as an absurd idea. Behind the incomprehensibility of divine secrets, he sees artificial, deliberate confusion. They are created so as not to be understood, otherwise they will lose their mystical halo. When you can discern the true reasons for this whole masquerade, you will take the first step towards liberation from religious dependence.

The truth is, so-called religious leaders know no more about spirituality than you do. But they know very well how to manage your fears and insecurities in their own interests. They are happy when you let them do it.

Although all popular religions are very old, L. Ron Hubbard proved that the process can be replicated from scratch today. As long as there are enough people who are afraid to take responsibility for their actions in their own hands, religions will exist and flourish.

If you want to talk to God, talk directly. Why do you need intermediaries? God doesn't need translators. Don't let yourself be ruled. It is a big mistake to think that by turning off our own brain and replacing logic with faith, we become closer to God. In fact, we are getting closer to the dog.

4. Time management of the toilet

If you devote a lot of time to religious rituals, it's safe to say that you are practicing toilet time management, flushing most of your precious life straight down the toilet without any benefit to yourself.

First, you waste a lot of time stuffing your head with useless nonsense. This includes reading the worst fiction ever written. This includes numerous rules, laws and practices.

Seriously, if you have insomnia, try reading religious texts before bed. You will fall asleep faster than finishing a page. Why do you think they put Bibles near their beds in hotels? This is the best sedative known to mankind. Scientologists even overdid it a bit by including space aliens in their stories. It's a shame that Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) hasn't formally declared his religion; Stovokor (the band that made the Star Trek soundtrack) sounds great.

Once you realize what nonsense your head is clogged with, you need to get rid of all that junk in order to allow your brain to function normally again. This may take significantly longer than you think, or it may not work at all. The process is similar to trying to remove AOL from your hard drive.

Secondly, you spend a lot of time on all kinds of rituals and ceremonies, such as attending meetings of your religious community, studying prayers, psalms and other mantras.

If you add up all the time I have spent attending church, Sunday school, studying religion in college, and memorizing various prayers, you can count thousands of hours of wasted time. Although, I still learned some lessons from this. They, in fact, formed the basis of this article.

I remember well the many hours of sermons that the priests read to us, most of whom are completely mediocre orators. Perhaps they had problems with diction due to the fact that they drink alcohol while on duty.

I don’t know what makes people consciously throw out several years from their lives in order to study the dead language of religious scriptures.

The more time you spend on religious practice, the more time you devote to meaningless, inappropriate pursuits … and the more diligently you will try to convince yourself to believe in the phony phrase "Yes, yes, this is what I wanted to do all this time."

5. Material support for parasites

In addition to a huge waste of time, passion for religion is associated with serious financial spending.

At the very beginning, you are limited to small donations that go to attract other newbies. Perhaps you wanted a different use of your money? If you are tempted to donate money, find another, more noble reason. Go outside and do something that really helps people. If you have absolutely no idea about this, take a can of paint and paint over obscene writing on the nearest fence.

Most religious tax collectors do not use your donation for community benefit. I am sure there are priests whose deeds command respect and are of real benefit to society, but in most cases this is not within their competence. In addition, the fees of religious organizations are usually tax-free, so that the church, in fact, parasitizes on ordinary taxpayers. Despite the small amount of donations, if you take into account their number, you can understand what kind of money is circulating there.

To generate additional income, all religions offer believers a number of similar services. Under a continuous stream of obscure gibberish, you will be treated to a biscuit and a glass of Cahors wine, and then it will be announced that now you and your loved one have somehow become closer to each other. In some religious movements, it is customary to wave a smoking, pungent-smelling vessel, in others - the excess skin is cut off from a person, in the third - they pour water on you and cut off a bun of hair, in the fourth - they take the responsibility to forgive you for your mistakes and even crimes. But everything always ends the same. You will be invoiced, the only difference from other invoices is that instead of “paid for services” it says “offered donation”.

When you donate money to religious organizations, you are doing much worse than just throwing money away. You finance evil. Or do you think that spending a billion dollars to protect pedophiles and molesters is a good use of the money collected from donors? It is difficult to imagine a more blasphemous use of human donations. Even Wall Street hucksters do better, at least they honestly declare their greed and lust.

One of my spiritual mentors at the Catholic School turned out to be a child molester. I stumbled upon an article about this in the local newspaper by accident. In my youth, I did not notice anything suspicious in the behavior of our teacher, and, frankly, I even loved him. Therefore, I was simply shocked when the truth about his extracurricular activities was revealed. True, he did not teach with us for long. His superiors, who apparently knew about his sympathy for the young flesh, constantly moved him from place to place. I'm glad that I managed to avoid his attention, but sad for those who are out of luck. It seems to me that God should slightly raise the standards for his earthly servants.

Why are Catholic priests forbidden to marry? This has nothing to do with what is written in the Bible and does not provide any advantage. This rule was invented by the church so that the clergy would not have heirs. All property of priests, after their death, always goes to the church, increasing its wealth. Apparently God needs even more money. This highly effective system has resulted in the church now being one of the richest and most influential organizations in the world. This is not surprising given the financial system described above.

Ordinary believers (not clergy), on the contrary, are encouraged to start large families, thereby supplying the church with more new followers. Condoms are banned in all religions. Get married, have more children, bring them to church, and we undertake further brainwashing - roughly this is the general meaning of all the instructions that priests give to their parishioners.

Are you still convinced that donating your money to such a structure is indeed a “good deed”?

To become, perhaps, one of them?..

6. Encouraging incest

Religions often impose closure in a narrow circle of like-minded people. You are strongly encouraged to spend more time with people who share your faith and avoid gentiles. Sometimes this is done subtly, sometimes more explicitly.

If you are one of the saved, received the true faith, on whom enlightenment descended, then, therefore, everyone else is still in darkness. Some religions openly inculcate intolerance towards gentiles. Others are more politically correct, but in any case, they put outsiders in an unattractive light. This creates obstacles for the exit from the religious community to the outside. The main idea is to support a closed structure by their own members, to encourage loyalty to internal foundations and punish the manifestation of free thought.

The very idea of inciting hatred for religious reasons (as well as for any other) is not acceptable for a conscious person. From a global point of view, this is sheer idiocy. But this tool for managing people is still actively used by puppeteers in cassocks. When you have been taught to fear and keep away from everyone whose religion is different from yours, fear is fixed in your mind and you are much easier to control.

When you join a religious movement, your new environment will control your actions, encouraging obedience and punishing behavior that is contrary to the generally accepted within the community. Why are they doing this? They cannot do otherwise. Tell your new friends that you are going to leave the community and start thinking with your own head, and you will see how hatred boils in their eyes. Instantly, you turned from best friend to worst enemy for them. For religious people, there is no greater threat than the desire to have their own opinions.

There are far safer ways to enjoy community support than joining a religious sect. Try to make friends with conscious, change-ready, free-minded people who are willing to communicate with you, no matter how stupid your beliefs are. At first, this freedom may scare you, but very soon you will get used to it and begin to get real pleasure.

Since I am often asked the same question, I think now is a very opportune moment to answer it publicly. Do I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior? No, neither Jesus Christ nor credit cards I accept. Although, I write the name of the Savior with a capital letter. Does this mean that you and I can no longer be friends? Please forgive me, don't leave me here alone.

7. Idiocy or hypocrisy - what to choose?

When you declare yourself an adherent of one of the state religions, you have only two options. Either you are an idiot or a hypocrite. If you've already chosen the former, I'll explain why. Well, I will use long words so that you probably understand me.

First, the idiotic principle itself. You have to go along with all the artificial, contrived nonsense that is being fed to you. Recognize that the earth is only 10,000 years old. Believe in the stories that corpses are sometimes resurrected. Explore stories about various deities, angels, and demons. Trust those who tell you all this. They cannot cheat. Accept all their dogmas. Be a good boy!

Ready? Congratulations! You are an idiot believer. Now you are saved, enlightened and after death you will be greeted with fanfare … Of course, if everything that you were told turns out to be true. No-no … If the guy in the robe says it's true, then it is, it's really true. I'm a believer, so I can't help but believe.

Or another, hypocritical option. This is used if your brain is mature enough to detect the obvious nonsense underlying religious teachings that make you sick. You know how to distinguish truth from lies, but sometimes you doubt your choice. You are smart enough to realize that the Earth is much older than 10,000 years, and premarital (or extramarital) sex is quite fun, but in some areas there is less certainty. You are not ready to slam the door and leave, but you also cannot acknowledge yourself as a true believer. It often happens when your parents imposed religion on you, as the only possible one, and, of course, you did not participate in this choice.

For you, this is just an accident. You, of course, are not a fundamentalist, but you think that there is nothing reprehensible in attending church on Sundays, where they pour Cahors and treat them with rusks, if they promise bonuses in the afterlife for this. You follow the official religion accepted in the place where you live without unnecessary emotions. Do what most of your neighbors do.

In this case, with your tacit consent, you support the existing religion. You shy away from religious fanatics and atheists at the same time. You prefer to hesitate somewhere in between. You do not observe religious practices (or do, but carelessly and not consistently), but after death you will be able to show God your membership card.

Do you understand how wrong you are?

Try to get rid of the imposed ideas and get all this nonsense out of your head. Stop asking spiritual mentors what to do and how to do it, start thinking and acting on your own. If God really exists, then he is smart enough to discern who you really are through all this external tinsel.

From time to time, some of my readers make attempts to attract me to their religion. Most of them are not in a position to counter my poignant questions about their beliefs, but at least their very attempts command my respect. I have no idea why they are reading my blog (which aims to develop mindfulness, not the other way around). There is little hope that this is the first small step in the direction from blind faith to common sense.

It would be very beneficial for any religious group to recruit me. With a monthly audience of 2.4 million readers, I could enslave a significant portion of my readers to convert to my religion. And, of course, I could significantly replenish the church treasury by selling indulgences and calling for donations to them. After the release of this article, I expect an increase in the activity of such well-wishers. Of course, all of them will be guided not by greed, but by concern for the salvation of my soul. You can't just sit back and watch me pave my way to hell with my own hands, can you?;)

The spam folder in my inbox is already set up to receive emails from you. If 90% of the letter consists of quotes from your great book, it automatically goes there.

8. Inherited lies

Please tell me, how many of you practice a religion other than the mainstream religion in the place where you were born? You've grown out of your baby clothes. Isn't it time to outgrow your childhood religious attachments too?

What would happen to you if you were born in a different culture? Would you have the conscience to go through all the barriers to your current belief system? Or are your beliefs just a product of the environment you are in, not the result of a conscious choice?

Many religions are a mixture of several pre-existing cults. Christianity, for example, is largely based on pagan rituals. If those ancient pagan rites were copyrighted, Christianity would not exist at all. If you delve into the origins of Christianity without haste, you will see that this teaching is based on ancient myths, and Jesus himself was a fictional hero, collected from several mythical figures.

Many religious teachers (priests, priests, rabbis, etc.) are themselves victims of brainwashing. They have no real power and do not even know the intentions of their leadership. This makes them better preachers because they sincerely believe and are unaware of the true state of affairs above. Downline priests can be compared to bartenders. When you come to a bar, you talk to the bartender and you will never meet with the owner of the establishment. They suffer from inherited untruths no less than everyone else.

Are you sure your religion is based on the word of God? In fact, no more than this article. You are convinced that you are reading God's covenants only because someone dressed in a cassock told you that these lines were written by a person who was overshadowed by divine inspiration. In fact, any person can claim Divine inspiration. But we will continue to worship not the true texts, but only those recommended by the clergy.

Even the central figures of major religions did not follow the commandments they taught to their parishioners. If even they could not absorb all the "wisdom" that descended from heaven, then why should you do it? If you want to be like the people you worship, then you should have the right to at least choose who to worship.

Leave your childhood religion as a child. Consider open-mindedness as a reasonable alternative.

9. Compassion under duress

Religious rules and laws always hinder the development of consciousness. This translates into senseless violence and even war. Those who preach non-violence are often the most violent in practice. Such people cannot be trusted because they violate the rules they proclaimed without even bothering to make excuses.

When you add compassion to a set of laws and regulations, it stops being compassion. True compassion is a matter of conscious choice and does not require legislative support.

The more religious a person becomes, the less compassion he has. Instead, the illusion of compassion appears. Most religious people are fanatics with a pronounced rejection of all other beliefs. They are the least trustworthy and most of them suffer from psychological disorders. They are forced to pretend to be good, in fact, they are just cogs in a system created to attract the maximum number of people into unconscious slavery to the higher clergy. They are slaves promoting slavery.

A glance into history shows that religious people love to fight each other. Instead of unconditional love, they practice temporary tolerance. The only unconditional aspect (for which all religions have been famous since ancient times) is the lust for blood. Any unflattering statement about them makes you a potential target … either for re-education or for physical destruction (which, in principle, are the same).

If the ideal of unconditional love is close to you, you will not find it in any religion. Real compassion does not come from faith in God, it does not come from practicing magic rituals or reading church books. Compassion can only arise on the basis of a conscious choice that requires freedom to choose, without the threat of punishment or the promise of a reward. If you blindly follow the rule of your faith, then you can most likely say that compassion is absent in your life. You probably don't even know what real compassion is like.

The more people give up their religious beliefs, the better our planet will become. This does not mean that we should give up spirituality. It just means that we should not substitute something far-fetched for spirituality.

10. Faith is based on fear

Fear is an important part of all religions.

Blessed are the beggars (you have to sacrifice). Blessed are the meek (one must obey). Blessed are the humble (no need to question inherited authorities). Blessed are the hungry (even the last one must be given). Blessed are the merciful (if they notice that they are deceiving you, you must forgive). Blessed are those who have a pure heart (turn off the brain). Blessed are the timid, cowardly, downtrodden. Blessed are those who do not oppose power and consider themselves a slave of God. Ha ha ha!

This is how the church wants to see you. You are being pushed to forget about courage, honesty, courage and deliberate actions. This is stupidity, not divinity.

Religion teaches you to be afraid to stand out from the crowd, to be afraid to stand up for yourself, and to be afraid to think independently. It destroys your faith in yourself by explaining why you are unable to control your own life. You are not worthy. You are a sinner. You are unclean. You are of the lowest caste. There and then you are offered the (always the same) solution - to submit to external authority. Believe in your inferiority. Let them rule your destiny. Follow their rules and procedures. Live in fear for the rest of your life, in the hope that everything will be fine in the end.

When you practice faith and not conscious life, you are constantly in a state of fear. Eventually, this state becomes so habitual that you forget about it. It is very sad when you reach the point where you cannot even remember what it means to be the creator of your own life.

The coward replaces courage with faith. This is a good marketing trick for those in control of the process. If you are afraid or unwilling to take responsibility for your life, you are ideal for religion.

Fear that has settled in one part of your life will invariably fill all other areas. You cannot control it. If you feel discomfort with the fear of following your dreams, openly communicating with the opposite sex, and determining your own actions, this should serve as a signal for you that it is time to start hurriedly getting rid of religious nonsense. Don't let the fear take hold and take hold in your mind.

Don't try to calm yourself down by consuming religious trash. If you need to believe in anything, believe in your own potential. Trust in your intelligence. Start nurturing this faith.

Give up the belief that the majority cannot be wrong. If a large number of people behave stupidly, it does not change anything, and stupidity remains stupidity. It only means that stupidity is very popular on our planet. When people are in a state of fear, they are ready to accept any nasty thing in the hope of reassuring themselves. For example, alcohol or religion.

Religion is spiritual immaturity.

It is quite possible to enjoy your own life without wasting time serving the religious establishment. Get your head out of your own ass and finally open your eyes. If you need something that you want to worship, use your own mind. Clean it from the cobwebs and start using it.

Besides … if God really exists, as most religions say, then there is a good chance that he is a complete idiot. He made us in his own image, didn't he? Therefore, perhaps we should not, without understanding, run to worship the first group of crooks we come across. Are we not self-sufficient as our Creator?

God will not physically punish those who do not worship him. The fact that thunder has not yet struck me testifies to the fact that God is much more tolerant of his earthly servants. I’m even ready to give you my token to heaven, and I’m going to slip through the fake one. I was born into a Catholic family, I was baptized, and my uncle is a priest. With such an impeccable reputation, the guy standing at the gates of paradise can't keep me out.:)

Praise to Zeus!