Thanks god for...

I am always immensely amused when religious people find ways to attribute positive events to their sky fairy's generous intercessions, but somehow fail to hold it accountable when bad things happen tonthem. Two examples caught my eye this week. A friend of my wife's sent an sms letting everyone know that her young son was innhospital in a serious condition with pneumonia, but that he was about to be saved by the lord jesus, in response to her apparently fervent prayers. So where was god when her baby contracted pneumonia? Recovering from a hangover; distracted by trying to decide which ostentatiously pious sportsman to grant victory; whispering in the ear of a Catholic priest as he sodomised an altar boy; or did the all-powerful god send pneumonia to test her faith (human sacrifice is after all an integral part of biblical teaching)? Rather than thanking god for her boy's survival, perhaps she could recognise that hundreds of years of science has developed an unbelievably effective body of modern medicine. Those doctors saved her son, not some ridiculous imaginary friend. It must take a lot of self-discipline not to question the motives of a god in a world so manifestly randomly cruel. But I guess that's what Sunday school and madressas are for - indoctinating the common sense out of people requires that you start early.

Another recent example is that of a South African surfer who survived a shark attack. Did it occur to him that god sent the shark to kill him? Maybe he had coveted his neighbour's wife?

All of which reminds me of a great atheist t-shirt: "prayer: the act of begging an all-powerful deity to change its master plan for the universe."

Religion is hatred

The recent brutal murder of a young man in South Africa for being gay (http://mg.co.za/article/2012-06-28-gentle-mans-brutal-murder-turns-spotlight-on-intolerance) is all the evidence I need to reject religion, and to know that my growing commitment to actively opposing it is justified. Not only because religious people can justify this kind of brutality with reference to their pre-enlightenment fables, but because of their insidious impact on the rest of society.

Although I attended a church school, I was never able to bing myself to believe the fanciful stories thrust at me in daily church services (thanks in large part to my rationalist, science-teaching parents - more about that in a later post). However, some of the dogma, I am horrified to admit, stuck. Homophobia was one that it took me a long time to despatch. It is only in my mid 30's, with much influence from my wife, and some active challenging
of my beliefs that I accepted that a person's sexual choices or orientation should have no impact on their acceptance by society, provided the golden rule is observed, that they bring no harm to others through their actions.

The fact that I, a fervent atheist, have cruelly judged gays largely (although indirectly) on the basis of a religious dogma that ruthlessly pervades our society, both pains me, and reinvigorates my desire to fight religion at every turn.