Dough Diary

Debating religion

Having watched Question Time last night and also having been involved in a few “debates” about religion and the veil I am starting to think there is no point. Question Time last night was infuriating as it seemed like no one was brave enough to really say what the majority of us are thinking. As usual the only person who came remotely close was the guest political comedian, himself an Asian but a Sikh not a Muslim. There have been many articles on both sides of the fence in the media but my point is this, how you can have a rational debate with someone who believes in religion? Being rational and logical are the diametric opposite of having faith and thus, is a religious person in a position to logically debate about their behaviour when the most important thing in their life is conforming to a set of illogical ideals written in a book that only a certain group of people believe in and no one can prove? And to make matters even more tenuous there are different interpretations of the book and so basically you can do what you want and excuse any kind of bad behaviour, even murder, by saying the book said it was alright.

If religion didn’t exist and we started it up tomorrow then Psychiatrists would be busier than ever. I was dead tempted to start a new religion this morning that worships our Lord Valentino Rossi and his superhuman motor-biking skills. To follow this faith you must believe that if you ride like Rossi you will never die in a hideous pile up as God Rossi will always protect you from the infidel car. You must also never take off your helmet in public especially not in front of the infidel car driver. You get my point I think? Let me break it down a little more if you don’t. We humans have evolved (a contentious subject with some Christians) and understand why it goes dark at night, why some people are a little bit odd, i.e. not Witches or Devils, and why people have different coloured skin and talk in different languages.

It’s pretty clear that religion is a bunch of stories created in the olden days to control people and validate every day occurrences. Granted it had its uses then and it has its uses now but overall the greater need for this method of control is gone. Some religions have evolved a bit and we, the atheists tolerated them as the not-so-crazies and called them “moderates”, but now with world affairs getting a bit mental a lot of disillusioned people with low self esteem have decided to become fundamentalists. The key to understanding this is to delete the “funda” and read the rest of the word. No religious person is going to moderate their behaviour because it upsets a bunch of other folks when they genuinely believe in Allah, God, Rossi etc…it’s like trying to reason with a Schizophrenic.