Hello people, im back!
I realise that haven’t made a post for a long, long time. This is because I decided to travel the world and learn even more about people and societies. Not necessarily just to be able to diss ridiculous ancient superstitions and cults (often also called religion), but because people and societies interest me.
Luckily I am well off and I can easily afford to take a few years off to study whatever I am interested in.
I have had many experiences across the world and I have learned a lot. It has dawned on me why the west rules the world, and why the only real threat to this dominance is China (atheist) and possibly India (turning atheist) if they get their act together.
It has also become crystal clear the extortionate high price we all pay for religion. I am not just talking about the horrible cost to the individual, but I am talking about the cost to society and how a select few, fucks everyone over with the ultimate tool of ignorance “religion”.
Ignorance is the key word here, because it goes hand in hand with religion, look at the worlds dictatorships and all of them restrict information. This is also true for the dictatorships that are now falling like dominoes, Kaddafi and his ilk. For as long as they managed to control information they remained in control of their population. Once they opened up to the internet and modern communication their days were numbered.
All religions, indeed all oppressive systems can only survive under this principle of control through information denial. This is especially true of Islam and this is clearly illustrated in a frightening statistic.
“In one year Spain translates more books into Spanish than all the middle eastern countries combined have done since the crusades.”
The power of knowledge is also starkly illustrated by the historic evidence of the Ottoman wars, how could a few thousand Europeans hold their ground against a hundred thousand Turks? The answer is the flow of information of course. Printed books where illegal in the ottoman empire, while in Europe information flowed like wildfire.
The result of the free flow of information is the fall of the church as a dominant force in western societies and it has made the west totally dominant over the rest of the world.
Its not hard to see why this is the case if you consider what religion focuses their efforts on, typical “important” issues in a religious society is honor, female dress code, restricting or regulating sexual activities, killing or incarcerating people for blasphemy, stoning women for being raped, praying at set intervals, etc.
In the west, in productive free societies, focus tend to fall on improving health, life quality, environmental issues, ensuring financial prosperity, improving education, environmental issues, etc.
In most religious societies such issues are not even on the agenda.
For example in the last country I visited before returning home, Pakistan, no one talked about the real problems of their society: poverty, hunger, crime, corruption, health problems, environmental destruction, hunger, imams raping students in Islam schools, terrorism, degrading infrastructure, etc, etc, etc.
None of these issues where up for debate, instead bearded pedophiles (imams) where given hours upon hours of airtime talking about suppressing sexuality, the glory of martyrdom and the alleged greatness of their particular sky daddy.
I find Pakistan to be a particularly interesting case, they are in continuous conflict with India, and yet while India storms forward towards becoming an economic superpower as they focus their efforts on science development and improving the lives of millions of their citizens. Pakistan is going in the opposite direction, its becoming more and more religious and as a direct result more and more citizens fall into bottomless poverty, the average lifespan is falling, literacy rates is in freefall, the economy is contracting at a frightening speed. And in general there is more suffering and ignorance all around.
Its not long until Pakistan no longer pose any real threat to India, apart from nuclear weapons they have no real military force that can match the force India is developing thanks to science and economic prosperity.
No matter how you turn it religion is a huge burden nnot only on individual societies but on the entire planet, We all pay a heavy price for tolerating religion. If we allow it to spread its slimy tentacles it will drown us all in suffering and misery. If I have learned anything from my travels is that religion must be confronted and fought at every opportunity. Any society that don’t fight the oppressive ignorance of religiosity deserves the faith that is coming for them. (see Afganistan).
The west has nothing to fear from fighting the religious mob. Especially since we get more and more equal rights between the sexes in the west. Gender equality enriches our lives tremendously, we have better married lives, better sex lives, better family lives and more productive, adaptive, robust societies.
Islamists will never see this fact even though it is obvious, they will continue to oppress 50% of the population and as a result they have to work harder to feed their families as their societies continue to exclude 50% of their workforce and 50% of the nations thinking capacity.
While we in the west move forward to a future with ever longer, satisfying, productive, lives, Religious societies are moving full steam ahead in the opposite direction aiming for the stone age.
We have nothing to fear from them, they will destroy themselves. The question is do we have the hart to stand by and watch while they do so, probably we wont. Our superior morals will compel us to help, but I am not sure if we should.
Of course I am not saying that western society is perfect, no one is! And that is just the point, we recognize that things can be improved and we set out to find new better solutions that improve life for all of us.
Of course some people would like to point out terrorism, but the fact is you are in more danger of injury or death driving your car to work than experiencing a terrorist attack in the west today.
The west is getting a lot of grief, and probably rightly so over incidents where innocent civilians are killed or mistreated in Afghanistan for example. The fact remains that compared to the thousands of military sorties carried out these incidents represents only a tiny fraction, as compared to when the Taliban ruled when pointless death and needless suffering was the norm and a daily occurrence. That doesn’t excuse such instances, but it brings into question if we should help at all?
I don’t know the answer I just think its worth while discussing this question.
From the Taliban’s point of view pointless death and needless suffering was a goal in itself to satisfy their interpretation of ancient fairytales. And they survive only because we show extreme restraint, lets face it, if the west wanted they could turn Afghanistan into a parking lot devoid of any living thing. But the west values life while religion values an imaginary life after death and as a result the human species pays a terrible, terrible price in broken societies, pointless deaths, needless suffering and wasted lives.
The question we are all faced with in the west is:
What can we do to get rid of religion? Not just in our societies but across the globe so we can finally rid our self of this needless burden.
Posted by escapedmentalpatient