Don’t think that only agnostics are going to take a hit, I am going after everyone on this one. We are going to break down my problems with all religions.
Jehovah’s Witness will be first. They don’t celebrate Christmas, birthdays or any other holiday. Passover is a huge blowout from what I hear though. As far as I am concerned, that is their business. I know as a kid it might suck not to get presents when all your friends do, but it must suck to be Amish from an outsider’s point of view as well. You should be able to practice your religion however you want so I have no issue with their take on holidays. It is all about religious freedom.
However, their belief that the world has only been around 5,000 years and change is my big problem with them. How can you have a belief that science blatantly disproves? You can say that God created this rock already 50 million years old, but explain fossils, why would God create something that immediately disproves the belief system? Why would God create the remains of dinosaurs that never actually existed?
Now everyone is going to feel really silly if some scientist comes out and says that they forgot to carry the nine with the carbon dating machine and the earth is much younger than previously thought. Until then, I have an issue with the religion. I would have no problem if they said, “With current technology we see that the planet is older than what was originally preached, however the rest of our beliefs hold firm.”
I will even take a shot at Catholics, they are too ritualized. They don’t speak as much Latin in mass as they used to, but still. I feel like I can lump most Christians in one group in the theory that they need to reexamine some of the lessons they have been preaching. Some rules are two thousand years old and just not current. It is a different world. Not that I think they should rap in church or dispel the ten commandants, but let us just take a minute to look at the bible with fresh eyes. I picked it back up and feel like I am getting a much different lesson than what I was taught in church.
My Islamic friends, first you need to get your own shit straight before you move on. This whole Shiite/Sunni thing has got to end. I think the most respected learned men in the Islamic world should go on the Hajj together and at the end sit down with their respective Korans. If they are not all identical, they need to get off their high horse about how the Koran is the direct words of Allah. It might have originally been written down my Mohammad, but when the printing press was invented you introduce an error possibility. I think that it should be an Islamic council that goes around dismantling the extremist madrasses (sp?) and correcting what they are teaching.
Don’t think Mormons are going to escape my sights, there is an LDS friend that I speak to and we have really good conversations. I take issue with the fact that the LDS church didn’t allow blacks into the priesthood until seven years after civil rights. SEVEN years!!! And I just don’t believe that suddenly it occurred to the head of the church to allow black into the priesthood. There is no way it went on for years without someone raising the question.
There is a lack of accountability in that decision for me. How I have seen others brush aside the issue bothers me. It is like some of them think their farts don’t stink. I also don’t agree that 12 men (even if they do pray on it) get to decide who is going to be a prophet. If it was a real search for a prophet, they would be scouring everywhere looking for signs of who God has selected to be His prophet. Like the way the Buddhists do for their own holy men.
As for the Jewish, give up on the messiah, you missed that boat. I am not saying that you missed the Jesus boat; you missed the boat on any Savior. If someone in today’s day and age turned out to be sent from heaven either we would have him locked up or the government would be trying to lock them up. Sorry, it is too late for saviors.
Everyone is right, everyone is wrong. No religion has it all the way right, and the people that do think that are farther from the truth then they think they are. It is like the more right you believe yourself to be, the more wrong you actually are.
This brings us to agnostics, they bug me the most. It isn’t the whole, “I believe, I just don’t believe in any of the established religions,” crap they spout. Most agnostics will admit they have a belief in God, but none I know are actually doing any kind of religious exploration.
I used to talk to this one guy about it; he has all the nonbeliever logical arguments against organized religion but no actual belief. I would ask him what it he believes and he would tell me how he disagrees with what the Catholics say about this and that. Each time I would have to tell him I didn’t ask what he doesn’t believe, but what he DOES believe. He never had an answer and he wasn’t looking.
I know some agnostics that can talk about some passages in the bible but don’t know much past that. Yet they will base their entire arguments off what limited knowledge they have. Which is pretty much what the Christian fundamentalists do too, just on the opposite side of the argument.
Atheists I get though. They don’t believe and I can’t fault that. If you don’t believe that is cool, just don’t give me crap about the fact I do. The one issue I do have with atheists is the ones who live mediocre lives. If there is no afterlife, and this is all there is, why aren’t you living life to the fullest? Why are you living in your crappy town, working your crappy job? Move to Paris for a year, get out there and live the best life, full of experiences because once the lights go out, that is it.
So that is today’s rant, not too mean spirited, just what has been floating around in my head. Before you send me a messed up comment, know that I pulled some punches and if you post stupid comments you agree that I get to unload with both barrels on you. Your comment is consent to make you look stupid and make you cry.
Any intelligent and respectful comment will be fully considered of course. Have a good one, and may you be as blessed as I have been, no matter what you believe. Because when it comes down to it fate, luck, karma, God, if they exist, they exist whether you believe or not.
