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    Religious Hatred and Bigotry: Would A Loving God Do This To Us?

    By Wattree on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 5:56am |

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree


    Religious Hatred and Bigotry: Would A Loving God Do This To Us?

     

    In God We Trust.  REALLY!!!?

    Many people who profess to be “of faith” are involved in religion for the wrong reasons. They're not about love; they're about hating everybody who don't think exactly like they do. They use religion to justify their bigotry, as a "God-approved" reason to hate everybody who's not on "their team," or who is different from themselves.
    .
    In fact, religion FUELS every other form of bigotry there is. If you look at ANY form of bigotry, you’ll find religion at its root. As we saw in Paris, France, ORGANIZED religion is the most prolific instigator of hatred in the world. Just think about the irony of a military Chaplain - “Dear Lord, please help us to kill more of them than they do of us. Amen.”
    .
    Would God bestow such a malevolent force of hatred upon man.  I don't think so. When God created human beings, we weren't created to require either a "User's Guide," soothsayers, or other "anointed" men to tell us how to conduct our lives. We were given individual intellect and a conscience to help us navigate our way through life.  As I've pointed out many times before, when my neighbor is at work and his beautiful young wife comes out in the yard and flashes her beautiful smile in my direction, I don't need a book or a preacher to tell me what's appropriate conduct and what's not. The minute my mind goes astray I can hear God's voice - "Now, Eric, you know what you're thinking is not right, so just wave, go in the house, and take a cold shower." And in response, I do just that - problem solved.
    .
    And if you look at nature, even a dog will look over his shoulder before he steals a chicken wing off a table. So even he has a sense of right and wrong. In addition, Whales and other aquatic animals have an innate sense of when to migrate to other waters and where to go to spawn. And migratory birds don't need a calendar and compass to know when to fly South, and in which direction it lies. It was built into their DNA. The same is true of man.
    .
    Man was created with an innate sense of spirituality, and a knowledge of how he should live his life. The problem is, man is in transition. We were created to grow into much more enlightened beings, but at this point in our development the animalistic emotions triggered by our still very active brain stem are in direct conflict with our higher cognitive sense of self and the world around us. As a result, instead of using our growing cognition to seek enlightenment, many of us direct our intellectual energy toward satisfying our more basic, and animalistic needs, or the seven deadly sins - Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony.
    .
    That's where organized religion comes in. It reflects man's attempt to control the minds of other men in order to more efficiently pursue his baser needs. They promote wrath among their fellow men through the use of creed in order to promote their greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. And while I don't intend to become blatantly political here, I'd be remiss by not pointing out that every one of those "deadly sins" are uniquely characterized by the Religious Right and the GOP - especially wrath, greed, and gluttony.
    .  

    But of course, not all people of faith are bad. I know wonderful people of many faiths, but they're generally the ones who are more spiritual than dogmatic. But many of these Bible-thumpin’, Amen-Corner kind of people better HOPE that Hell’s a myth, however, because if it’s real, God’s going to be dumpin’ them in there by the church-loads.

    If God intended to hand down religion to guide us, wouldn't he have sense enough to just create ONE religion so his word would be clear and we wouldn't have anything to fight over? Religious organizations were organized by man for the expressed purpose of saying, "We’re Godly, and we’re God’s chosen people. Everyone who's different from us and who don’t adhere to our creed are heathens. They're not of God. They're evil, so we have God's permission to destroy them." It's that attitude that is the source of the world’s hatred and animosity.
    .
    A loving God wouldn't put anything that caused that kind of hatred and division on Earth. It would contradict his purpose, and God's not stupid. He'd know that creating more than one religion would be in direct opposition to the Biblical prescription to "Love thy neighbor." Just imagine what the world would be like if there was no such thing as Christians, Muslims, or Jews, and if all the people of faith in the world were simply spiritual and embraced the wonder of creation. The world would be a much better place, because it would simply be broken down into good people as oppose to bad people, and there would be no creeds for the demagogues to use to divide us. Now, THAT, would be the work of God. 

    So if Americans truly believed in the Bible, they would demonstrate that fact by reading and adhering to ALL of the Bible, and not just those parts that they find convenient. But it's clear that just about every church in America has missed the part below. If they followed the scripture below, there'd be no screaming and begging preachers, and there'd be no Bible-thumping  hypocrites - in fact, there wouldn't be a such thing as ORGANIZED religion, because everybody would simply be spiritual. But don't take my word for it. After all, as many preachers would no doubt say, I could be "working for the Devil."  But here's what the Bible says, in clear, and unequivocal prose:

    .
    “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."
    Matthew 6:1-34
    .

    Is that clear enough?  So who are you going to believe, your silver-tongued, big car driving pastor, or the Bible?
    God, Creation, And Man
    So does God even exist? Yes, and I can prove it. God is whatever force is responsible for what we define as reality. So if reality exists, God must exists. That definition changes the discussion of whether or not God exists, to one of defining the nature of his existence (I simply using "his" as a convenient chauvinistic pronoun to avoid having to struggle with the question of whether God is a male, female, or simply an it). But I don’t believe that God is directly interacting with man, or anything else in the universe that he created. For me, God, Nature, and the Universe are one and the same, so everything in the universe, including man, is a part of God, and we can only know his will by his nature, and what he has done.
    .
    What Does This Have To Do With God?
     
    Thus, what "people of faith" call "faith," is not a faith in God at all, it's a faith in what another man has TOLD them about God, so it's actually a faith in man. What most people have "faith" in is merely a parochial accident of birth. The very same person who has "faith" in Christianity in Georgia, would have "faith" in Islam if he'd been born in Iran, or "faith" in Judaism if he'd been born in Israel. In short, we have "faith" in what we were taught, not God.  God is simply what we use to JUSTIFY our "faith."
    .
    God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to THINK, not to have "faith" in the contrived delusions of other self-serving and/or superstitious men. Every other species on Earth has sense enough to adhere to their nature but man, and if you'll notice, man is also one of the few species who can't live in harmony within his environment. In fact, our idiocy threatens to destroy ALL life on this planet.
    .
    Man is on a huge ego trip. There are over 200 billion stars in just this speck of a galaxy, and even though it is a speck in terms of the universe, you'd have to travel 186,000 miles every second for four and a half YEARS just to get to the next closest star in our galaxy - and again, there are over 200 billion of them, and there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies just like ours in the universe. So believe me - God is not as fixated on man as man would like to believe. In cosmic terms of significance, man is not even one thousandth as significant as one grain of sand on all of the beaches on Earth and beneath the sea.
    .
    Thus, it is only man’s arrogance and tremendous ego that makes think that God is more concerned about him than he is anything else he created in the universe? Consider this - did he send his "Only begotten flea" to save all the fleas in the world? If not, why not? What makes man think he’s more important than anything else that God created?
    .
    Another thing that betrays man's gross arrogance is our belief that we’re so important that God is going to jump through hoops to gain our favor. God’s not stupid. He's no more going to do magic tricks and jump through hoops to get man to worship him than any man would tap dance and do headstands to get the germs under his toilet seat to worship him. Yet, countless men, women, and children are dying every year in the ridiculous conviction by many that they’re acting on God’s behalf.
    .
    When I was a young kid, I would be walking into trees because I had my eyes closed praying that God wouldn't condemn me to Hell for the common sense - that he gave me - that kept popping up in my head. As much as I wanted to be "a child of God," I just couldn't get myself to believe in talkin' snakes - and I wasn't a big enough hypocrite to try to lie to him about it. So I had a problem. My religious training had me CONVINCED that I was doomed to go to Hell because I couldn't bring myself to believe in that nonsense. But at about the age of ten I said a simple prayer that freed me of that burden: "Lord, Please give me the wisdom to know the truth, and give me the strength and determination to carry it through."  It was a childish prayer, and not very eloquent, but it did the trick. That was one prayer that God definitely answered, because when I opened my eyes, I was free of preachers. It freed me to think for myself, and while you'll never see me in church, I still say that prayer every night . . . if I haven't drank too much gin.  So yeah, I'm flawed, but I'm sure God knows my heart is in the right place, and that's what counts. 
    .
    And finally, before you write me off as an agent of the Devil, you should ask yourself the following - when was the last time that Satan sent a message to mankind to stop killing each other?  And if God indeed "works in mysterious ways," how do you know it wasn't God's will for you to read this message?  And the basic message is short and sweet - we need to wake up, rein in our egos, and come to terms with our gross stupidity regarding God.

    .
    Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
    John 8:32

    Related Material
    I Pay My Tithes To The Homeless
    http://wattree.blogspot.com/2015/01/i-pay-my-tithes-to-homeless.html
    .
    THE BLIND FAITH OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF GOD
    http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-blind-faith-of-organized-religion.html


    Eric L. Wattree

    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
    .
    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    I must render unto Eric the Dayly Quote of the Day for this here Dagblog site, given to all of him from all of me.

    I cannot cut and paste right now, but this Matthew quote is exquisite.

    As if Eric needs an award from me. hahhaha


    by Richard Day on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 1:49pm

    Before our parents Adam and Eve ate of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good or Bad, there was only one faith.

    Trust God who said "Do not eat and you'll live or decide to ignore Gods commandment and die.

    Perfect Adam and Eve chose and their offspring reap the affects from their poor decision. Imperfection leads to Death.   

    An inclination towards spiritual qualities was instilled in man not animals.

    Because a dog looks before he steals your steak off the grill proves he has learned obedience by having experienced what disobedience brings. 

     Adam and Eve knew what disobedience would bring, but they made an unwise choice.

    Not because of imperfection but because of selfish desires, also inherit in most humans.  

    Some of mankind stills displays an aspect of spirituality, some greater than others.

    Depending on how well they have nourished that quality, does their conscience become perfected. So that individual lives come into harmony with the Will of the Creator . leading to the greater harmony of society as a whole.  The Whole Earth and its peoples all living in harmony with one another as PLANNED until temporarily disrupted. 

    Once the world is rid of those who don't care to have a trained conscience.  Hallelujah.


    by Resistance on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 2:30pm

    Once the world is rid of those who don't care to have a trained conscience.  Hallelujah.

    I'm looking forward to the rapture as well. Good riddance to bad trash.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 3:25pm

    Angelic protection 

    No rapture, we are going to have go through our own Red Sea moment so the miracle is real to each and everyone of the survivors.

    To be told to future generations, some who'll probably not believe   

    With no apparent escape except Divine protection.

    As with Daniel and the lions incident and the incident of the three Hebrew boys thrown into the fiery furnace where an angel appeared to protect them.

    Angelic protection; no rapture. 


    by Resistance on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 6:45pm

    Are you sure you posted this comment on the right thread, Resistance? If anyone has an extremely trained conscience, it's Eric: he's extremely judgmental, very sure of what's right and what's wrong.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 4:29pm

    oops!


    by Resistance on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 6:36pm

    Artappraiser,

    Everybody's judgmental, and no one is MORE judgmental than ORGANIZED religious fanatics. I don't judge gay people's right to marry, or a woman's right to choose, or whether Muslims are more fanatical than any other religious group. I leave that to the "people of faith."  After all, that's why they organized in the first place, in order to judge others. But I understand your sentiment.  The people who we generally CALL judgmental are the people whose judgment differs from our own. And yes, I'm sure about what's right and wrong, but I have the good sense to understand that my JUDGMENT in that regard is limited to me, and shouldn't be shoved down the throats of everyone else.  And finally, since I'm an independent thinker, my judgment differs from most people - and I thank God for that on a daily basis, unless I've had a little too much gin.

    So Artappraiser, learn to assess the message. Trying to attack the messenger is not only childish and ignorant, but it signals that you have absolutely nothing of value to add to the discussion, and, you're doing more feeling than you are thinking. That falls under the heading of "wrath," so thank you so much for making my point regarding the animalistic flaws in man's thinking.


    by Wattree on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 7:20am

    Ooookay . . .

    So we're right back to talkin' snakes again . . .

    Eric L. Wattree's photo.
     
     

      by Wattree on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 6:27am

      That's a great poster, it made me laugh, whoever made it did a great job of getting the atheist argument across. A lot better than the spaghetti monster meme and the similar usual disparagements we are used to seeing on the internet....
       


      by artappraiser on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 7:06am

      Another tool of the Snake and his offspring, spreading more falsehoods?

      Man and woman was not created with original sin; that was an action and course they chose when they chose to poison and corrupt themselves, when they chose to eat of the fruit from the Forbidden tree as WARNED, with the result; their offspring suffer death because of their disobedience.

      A poison that triggers the processes of the death of cells? 

      Not the original plan of the creator, but nothing is impossible for the Creator of the Universe to correct.    

      Had they not disobeyed; Jesus wouldn't have had to come to live amongst Man Kind 

      He would have remained content amongst his own kind. 

      In this day and age ignorance is no excuse, Disobedience is a choice. 

      BTW  Jesus is Gods Son, not God. 


      by Resistance on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 9:14am

      Resistance,

      We're ALL the sons and daughters of God. But somewhere I heard that Jesus was the "Father AND the Son."  But I don't pay no attention to that.  It's all a man contrived fairytale. Jesus was just another man - period.  And the people who compiled the Bible didn't even put it together until well over 300 years AFTER Jesus' death, so they were as remote from Jesus as we are from George Washington:

      About the Bible

      The Bible that Christians Worship today was compiled and "bless" by the Catholic Church, not God. Any book that disagreed with the Catholic Church was banned. What Christians call "The Holy Bible," and what these preachers run around thumpin’, wasn’t even put together until almost 400 years after the death of Christ. So everything in it is hearsay. In terms of years, they were as far away from the life and times of Jesus Christ as we are away from George Washington. So in reality, they didn’t know fact from fiction, any more than we know whether or not George Washington really chopped down a cherry tree:

      For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was no Bible as we know it today. Christians had the Old Testament Septuagint, and literally hundreds of other books from which to choose. The Catholic Church realized early on that it had to decide which of these books were inspired and which ones weren't. The debates raged between theologians, Bishops, and Church Fathers for several centuries as to which books were inspired and which ones weren't. In the meantime, several Church Councils or Synods, were convened to deal with the matter, notably, Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and Carthage in 397 and 419. The debates sometimes became bitter on both sides. One of the most famous was between St. Jerome, who felt the seven books were not canonical, and St. Augustine who said they were. Protestants who write about this will invariably mention St. Jerome and his opposition, and conveniently omit the support of St. Augustine. I must point out here that Church Father's writings are not infallible statements, and their arguments are merely reflections of their own private opinions. When some say St. Jerome was against the inclusion of the seven books, they are merely showing his personal opinion of them. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. However, A PERSONS PRIVATE OPINION DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH AT ALL. There are always three sides to every story, this side, that side, and the side of truth. Whether Jerome's position, or Augustine's position was the correct position, had to be settled by a third party, and that third party was the Catholic Church.
      .
      Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, "The Decree of Damasus", in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books.

      ROME HAD SPOKEN - FOR GOD - AND THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED.
      .http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080928064041AATOZUD


      by Wattree on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 9:50am

      I had/have already addressed the issue of Papal Influence. It is no excuse to rely upon that corruption as reason to stop searching for the Truth. 

      The Value of Wisdom

      ,,,,,,,

      4  if you seek it like xsilver

      and search for it as for yhidden treasures,............

      8  guarding the paths of justice......

      9  fThen you will understand grighteousness and justice

      and equity, every good path;

      10  for wisdom will come into your heart,

      and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

      11  hdiscretion will iwatch over you,

      understanding will guard you,........

      Proverbs 2:1-15

      It doesn’t matter what Rome decided for all the people, what they must learn and accept. 

      Rome has been proven wrong so many other times before  

      Galileo affair , Nicolaus Copernicus , Martin Luther 

      The Treasure (Truth) can still be found if one truly desires the Truth as if searching for silver or gold 

      Search for the TRUTH

      17 and behold, q a voice from heaven said, r “This is my beloved Son,1 with whom I am well pleased.”

      Footnotes

      [1] 3:17 Or my Son, my (or the) Beloved

      Matthew 3:17

      It is the Truth that sets us free, the falsehoods are only distractions and misleading lies  are intended to stumble/ensnare, in order to weaken faith. 


      by Resistance on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 1:33pm

      Resistance,
      This is my take on it.  What "people of faith" call "faith," is not a faith in God at all; it's a faith in what another man has TOLD them about God. So it's actually a faith in man. What most people have "faith" in is merely an accident of birth. The very same person who has "faith" in Christianity in Georgia, would have "faith" in Islam if he'd been born in Iran, or "faith" in Judaism if he'd been born in Israel, can't you see that?

      God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to THINK, not have "faith" in the contrived delusions of other men. Every other species on Earth has sense enough to adhere to their nature but man, and if you'll notice, man is also one of the few species who can't live in harmony within his environment. In fact, our idiocy threatens to destroy ALL life on this planet.

      Man is on a huge ego trip. There are over 200 billion stars on just this speck of a galaxy, and even though it is a speck in terms of the universe, you'd have to travel at 186,000 miles every second for four and a half YEARS just to get to the next closest star in our galaxy - and again, there are over 200 billion of them, and hundreds of billions of other galaxies just like ours in the universe. So believe me - God is not as fixated on man as man would like to believe.

      What makes man think that God cares more about him than anything else he created in the universe? Do you think he sent his "Only begotten flea" to save all the fleas in the world?  God is not stupid. He's no more going to do magic tricks and jump through hoops to get man to worship him, than you would tap dance and do headstands to get the germs under your toilet seat to worship you, and I'm sure you're not any brighter than God. So you can spare me all of this regurgitated Voodoo from your man-made User's Guide. To my way of thinking, you might as well be worshipping a totem pole.


      by Wattree on Sat, 01/10/2015 - 2:31pm

      To my way of thinking, 

      germs under your toilet seat

      When AA claimed you were judgmental, that was only the half of it, Your problem is lack of humility, thinking YOU know everything,  there is to know about reality. 

      Millions of stars and galaxies, yet no one has discovered a Planet such as ours. 

      Perfect in distance from the sun, so we don't burn up,

      Perfect in tilt, to give us the seasons, to moderate temperature. 

      Perfect in the composition and control of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, so life can exist. With plant life cleaning the air of CO2 and giving back oxygen. Plant life to feed the Creation.  . Too much hydrogen we'd be a sun. 

      Perfect in pollenization methods designed, to increase food supplies for all of creation.

      Perfect in distance from the moon, to control the tide.

      Perfect in revolution, to control gravity.

      A Perfect home for man, because our loving father cared    

      Tell us Wattree;  In space; Do Black Holes Exist?  You cant see them but the evidence points to their existence.

      I suppose you'll lecture us, they don't exist because YOU can't see them? Spare us. 


      by Resistance on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 1:36am

      Resistance, you said,

      "Millions of stars and galaxies, yet no one has discovered a Planet such as ours."

      Here are the facts:

      So Many Earth-Like Planets, So Few Telescopes

      "It’s a big universe, but it’s full of small planets.

      "Astronomers announced on Tuesday that they had found eight new planets orbiting their stars at distances compatible with liquid water, bringing the total number of potentially habitable planets in the just-right "Goldilocks" zone to a dozen or two, depending on how the habitable zone of a star is defined.

      "NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, now in its fifth year of seeking out the shadows of planets circling other stars, has spotted hundreds, and more and more of these other worlds look a lot like Earth — rocky balls only slightly larger than our own home, that with the right doses of starlight and water could turn out to be veritable gardens of microbial Eden.

      "As the ranks of these planets grow, astronomers are planning the next step in the quest to end cosmic loneliness: gauging which hold the greatest promise for life and what tools will be needed to learn about them.

      "The planets unveiled on Tuesday were detected by a group led by Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics."

      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/science/space/as-ranks-of-goldilocks-p...

      .

      Photos of the MILLIONS of galaxies in the universe.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=largest+photo+of+the+universe&biw=1093&b...

      Wake up, man!!!

      We are nothing special. We're just one of BILLIONS of termites that infest the universe. So believe me, God is not kicking it with Pat Robertson.


      by Wattree on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 5:26am

      It's exciting to view the heavens and marvel it's beauty.

      Maybe someday, when the Earth is full of righteousness and Perfect knowledge abounds, we'll expand out into the Universe and inhabit New Worlds  


      by Resistance on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 9:47am

      Resistance,

      I can't see gravity, magnetism, nor the wind, but I have sufficient evidence to believe they exist. I can't say the same for talkin' snakes. So while I'm not quite as judgmental as you suggest, I do have just enough judgment not to believe in Voodoo, Santa Claus, walkin' dead men, or people going around telling the Red Sea to scoot over. I don't think that level of critical thinking is unreasonable.  But then, I suppose everyone has to set their own standards of what constitutes reason. That's what makes the world go around, or does the universe go around the Earth?  Considering the context of this discussion, I don't want to make any offensive assumptions.


      by Wattree on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 10:13am

      Reply below  

      Is Walter really speaking? 


      by Resistance on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 9:54am

      Is Walter actually speaking or does he appear to be? 


      by Resistance on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 9:53am

      Resistance,

      It seems to me that, that's something you should be asking yourself about God.  Is it really God speaking in the Bible, or is it just the delusional contrivances of self-serving and/or superstitious men?  And while you're at it, you should also consider whether your "faith" is in God, or the men who are TELLING you about God?  Because before you can have faith in God, you have to be certain of what he said, and that he's ACTUALLY the one who said it. And since your "faith" is TOTALLY reliant on the word of others, I don't see how you can be. So stop trying to delude yourself, because you can't delude God. Your faith is in man - and considering man's nature, you're placing the fate of your soul in very shaky hands. Hmmmmm.  Think about that. And you should also consider the fact that since "God works in mysterious ways," it just might have been his will for me to tell you this. You have "faith" in the words of all these other men, why not mine? They weren't any better than me, and I don't have any agenda other than trying to get you to use the brain that WE KNOW God gave you.  In fact, that's the only thing in this entire discussion that we truly know for sure that God had a hand.


      by Wattree on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 5:33am