Why?

A Realistic Outlook Is Necessary For Our Survival And Well-Being

A person can have a completely unrealistic outlook and still live a very happy life. For example, I have a high school friend who believes that one day Jesus will return and send evildoers to hell and take him and his family back to heaven to live with Him in paradise everlasting. This belief brings him comfort and helps him manage the sadder aspects of life. Jesus won't return, but my friend will die happily believing that one day He will.

On an individual level, this can work, to some extent. As I said, this belief makes him happy. But on a collective level, beliefs like that can be tremendously harmful. They lead people like my friend to being negligent about the environment, for example, and to push for political action that damages the world. So. long after my friend is gone, his children and grandchildren, as well as your children and grandchildren, may suffer because of my friend's mistaken belief that Jesus will return before that can happen. A realistic outlook is necessary for our overall survival and well-being.

~Brad Warner, in It Came From Beyond Zen!

The Unicorn

You have the right, as everyone does, to believe in a god or multiple gods. You have the right to any religion you decide best fits you. You have the right to believe a female brontosaurus lives under the Brooklyn Bridge with her fourteen pups. You have every right to believe unicorns live in your shoes. But the day you begin telling me not to wear shoes because I'll upset the unicorn, a problem appears. The day you start involving the unicorns in deciding how I should live my life, a problem appears. The day you begin making decisions for my family and my country based on the opinions of your unicorns, a very large problem appears.

Lifted Directly From Twitter

Old Occam

Science and Religion

Science will admit when it is in error.

Religion has many times killed to prove it is right.

The Christian Theory of Original Sin

To teach people they are guilty of a crime they did not commit (original sin) causes great harm and damage. This teaching helps clergy retain their power over others.

This is not a wholesome teaching.

Frank Zappa's Thoughts on an Anti-Intellectual Religion

Drowning in Superstitious Ignorance

(Need I point out this man starts in the singular and ends in the plural, avoids the conjunction 'and', and fails to end his sentience with the required period?)

The Origin of Nepotism

Pope Paul III with his cardinal-nephew Alessandro Farnese (left)
 and his other grandson, Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma (right)

Many early popes rushed to appoint relatives to highly lucrative posts such as cardinal. "Ten papacies wouldn't have sufficed to satisfy all his cousins," complained one writer of Pope Alexander VI.

Since popes—i.e., unmarried church men—were not in theory supposed to have children, many of these appointments went to their nephews—some actually were offspring of the pope's brothers and sisters, but many so-called "nephews" were actually their own illegitimate children. The Italian word for nephew is "nipote," which became bastardized to "nepotism."

~Richard Zacks

The Biblical Practice Of Capturing Women For Sex

The practice of capturing women for sex during warfare back then was so common that the Bible spells out the detailed ground rules. "When the Lord your God gives you victory in battle and you take prisoners, you may see among them a beautiful woman that you like and want to marry. Take her to your home, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails and change her clothes. She is to stay in your home and mourn her parents for a month; after that you may marry her. Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you have forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her." (Deuteronomy 21:10-14)

In biblical times, a woman, in effect, was the property of her father and then of her husband. She was a servant with certain privileges, and many responsibilities. The single greatest responsibility of a girl was to preserve her virginity. This was no fond wish by her parents. This was the law, and a very harsh law.

~Richard Zacks

Needless Violence

And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. 

These verses are from the Christian Bible, the book of Exodus, chapter 12, verses 29 and 30.

These verses tell us the very old and the very young died. Of what crime is a three minute old baby guilty?

These verse also tell us animals died. Of what crime is a calf guilty?

The Christian Bible is one of the most violent books in the history of humankind.

Original Sin

Buddhism does not accept the idea of original sin. You cannot be guilty of something you did not do.