This was posted by Tonedef, presented here unedited and uncut before my IntenseDebate system decided to sh!t itself.

I would like to see people walk away from religions on a voluntary basis, not by force. More like a child choosing not to suck its thumb for comfort anymore as it grows up and progresses onto the next stage. Religion has not been a particularly useful tool for humanity; it has had much effect, yes, but hasn’t done enough good to outweigh the bad. Sighting the stupidity of many humans is not really justification for the acceptance of religions as a legitimate form of social control. People should be encouraged to be the best they can be rather than “Controlled” and if they are too stupid to participate, the laws of nature dictate that they will perish outside the group’s cooperative protection. Thus eliminating the weakest of the species to let it move forward. These artificial structures we create within society are not doing the human race much good in the long run. Humanity needs to either accept that it just doesn’t care what happens to it and continues to blunder along as it does or wake up to itself, and make moves toward sorting itself out. Unfortunately nobody wants to draw a line in the sand when they think they might not be on the good side of the line.

While that would be nice in theory, as I’m sure that any being powerful enough to create the universe isn’t so small as to require our petty servitude for sustenance, I think it is invalid to make any judgement on the good aspects of religion being outweighed by the negative as there has been no point in history where some form of spirituality or mysticism has not been practiced.

So the question here is, does Religion have a place where humanity is headed? That question makes a few very foolish assumptions, first of all that Humanity is headed somewhere, secondly that our heading is not being determined by spirituality and mysticism due to the lack of state-church seperation and thirdly that the religious attitudes of today’s churches and sects are at all indicative of their potential use to society.

I think that the first assumption is valid only in as much as we cannot hit the brakes either way.

The second assumption is scary. To think that the mobs of God-terrified christians and oppressed Muslims don’t have every fibre of their being tuned to taking over our government is ignorant. It’s not hard to see, once you step back from bias, that Christianity poses a bigger threat to society than Islam. That being said, nobody should begrudge them their desire to live a certain way, it is only their need to cover up their failings through mass conversion that is a problem.

The third assumption, that Churches are operating at their potetial, is pessimistic and a shame. I think that religion could be playing a far more beneficial role in society instead of the superficial, narrow-minded and myopic role it takes now.

Tonedef’s position on natural selection is, unfortunately, short-sighted. As much as I joke about natural selection being sorely missed by anyone in a customer-facing job, I think that humanity as a species is at a stage where we can seriously look at avoiding natural selection and survival of the fittest altogether. Arrogance aside, it is something we can work towards, a situation where our medicine and our technology means that nobody has to been born into a position of net loss. That is, every birth strengthens the species.

Religion, along with abstract financial markets, are in fact aiding natural selection by diverting resources from technological improvement and understanding of our species. Keep in mind that this topic originated from my comments towards a blog advocating Creationism. Creationism is a theory that serves no useful purpose as it does not encourage further questioning or understanding. It does not provide a useful path on which we can travel. It is an aspect of cultural stagnation.

Religion could also be taken as a distraction from more meaningful answers to the questions of life. As long as people stay stuck in the metaphors, there is no way that their real meaning can shine through to progress us towards a more enlightened or pragmatically peaceful society. Religion, even the radical sects, are by nature conservative. Conservativism is the forethought of stagnation.

All that being said, advocating that anybody should change their beliefs system is hypocritical in the extreme. Presenting an idea and allowing someone to follow it is acceptable, actively pursuing them to do so or condmening them for not is unacceptable. Religion having any say in government is anethema to peace.

My position is a ‘hands off’ approach. We keep out of their beliefs and they stay the hell out of government. I for one will never again vote for somebody who brags about having a religious connection. I will not support their devisive and anachronistic agenda.

I will, however, attend my church occasionally and most probably baptise my daughter. Why? Because I bloody well can, and that’s the whole point.