What religion needs is dogs

I am greatly disturbed by people who lose their family in calamities like Hurricane Sandy, and then go up to a microphone and say "God is good!" Indeed. That's exactly why god killed your children -- because he's "good".

Why does god bring hurricanes and tidal waves and fires and earthquakes to places where innocent children live? Because he's "good". Priests, pastors and rabbis say "We cannot understand god's motives, but since he is god and is all good, we know that there is a positive reason for these seemingly tragic events." That's not a real quote. They all say the same thing, so I just mashed one up. Let's face it: that's what they say, and it stinks.

Religion wants you to sit there and take it, and still praise the god who allegedly caused your torment. This is called "faith".

Today, it finally hit me. Who thinks like that? Dogs, that's who. You can abuse a dog, even fail to feed it -- and it will still love you, given the opportunity. You are god to your dog. You can do no wrong. This is the attitude religion seeks in its followers. You must be like a dog, always sure of who your master is, and always loving and loyal, no matter what the monster does to you.

How can anyone believe in god?

One stupid thing that believers say

Believers have a hope, an expectation, a promise of eternal life in heaven, while atheists have, well, nothing. I believe that the Bible is telling us that there is more awaiting Believers after their lives on earth have ended. Ultimately if it turns out there is no God and no heaven, Believers would have lost nothing while atheists have lost everything.

-- Anonymous commenter quoted by Ed Brayton on his blog.

That is so funny. You'll have lost nothing by believing in god if it turns out it's all hogwash? You've lost your life, you idiot! You didn't see anything around you because your view was muffled by layers and layers of lies. You missed the meaning of life --  totally. It amazes me when I hear people talking about how atheists have "nothing". Duh. It sure doesn't feel that way to us. We've got everything but god -- which pretty much describes all of reality.

Accommodating the religious

Some atheist writers try not to upset those who are religious. There seems to be this idea that religion is wrong but believers are just poor slobs who, well, believe. So we shouldn't pick on them. This is nonsense.

Mind you, if the person concerned is less than 16 years old, I say fine to this proposition. Let's leave the kiddies alone. But everyone else who believes in god is, in my book, culpable. They do wrong by believing in god. They are failed human beings.

When we were lesser beings and didn't have our current mental faculties (I'm speaking of our evolutionary ancestors here), the idea of gods must have cropped up for the first time. Sure it was fuzzy but I'll bet it was there. Pre-human primates invented god.

Once these nascent minds reached a point where they could think about the world, they undoubtedly tried to come up with explanations for the things they saw. And this line of thought brought them to the idea of gods. They made it up and then they believed it. Probably all sorts of primates were religious -- and more power to them. In their own way, they were trying to think. It's kinda cute.