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Absolutely all religions have this one unique flaw... [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-09-02

Absolutely all religions have this one unique flaw of being called a religion. Let me write here about some amorphous concept I will name religion but refuse to define so that I can mock it, not caring how wrong I am or what political allies I might insult by it. I will construct this concept from bits and pieces of mostly Fundamentalist Christianity but will defend to the death that it represents all of religion even though I know next to nothing about any religion.

To prove I know nothing about most religions I will project the Christian Fundamentalist practice of interpreting the Bible literally on to every single religion including those who don’t use the Bible or have historically separated themselves from a parent religion exactly because they rejected the practice of literal interpretation of texts. That is because I’m quite positive they will be guilty of some other projection of Christian Fundamentalism .

For instance all religions must have MY conception of what god is like. It suits my need to mock by portraying all religions concept of the divine as a single male god with awesome magical powers. My ignorance of the vast diversity of thought on the topic is unimportant. That people have been criticizing notions of the divine for centuries and have proposed new and different ways of understanding the divine can’t be possible as I thought of these critiques first, just twenty minutes ago. People objecting to a mischaracterization of their religion which they practice and know intimately clearly do not understand that my feelings about my straw man religion are more important than their feelings about their religion of which I know nothing about.

Anyone attempting to correct factual errors I make regarding real religions as actually practiced will be met with scorn and ridicule for not knowing that my amorphous construction of religion is the only definition of religion that I will accept as correct. The writings of so called experts who have studied these questions their entire life are clearly biased because they have studied it all their life. They should know the proper way to understand all of religion is to think about them on the commute to work and simply assume they all work as I imagine them to. Asking ME to put any more time or energy into it is an imposition upon my Atheism. My Atheism is also the only way to practice Atheism because I read this one book by an atheist author ten years ago which I loved because it fed my rage. Do not trouble me with all the other Atheist authors out there who put serious time and study into understanding philosophy and religion to make well reasoned critiques of specific religions or religious constructs, because frankly I don’t have that time and find them boring.

And best yet, I will repeat this process every so often because everybody loves me sucking all the air out of the room and making any real critique of religion impossible. Instead of delving into insidious aspects of Prosperity Gospel and how it provides a Fundamentalist Christian sanction for greed, we can all laugh at my new mockery of the same old tired straw man religion. We could discuss how mind/body dualism can be misapplied to justify abuse of others or that a focus on martyrdom assists in convincing some people who follow Christian Fundamentalism to see their own suffering under oppressive patriarchy as somehow noble. But that wouldn’t get any laughs and my recommends wouldn’t get into the double digits let alone catapult me to the front page.

My fellow atheists with actual, serious, well thought out critiques can just get in line. And people who have been persecuted for their religion don’t matter because, duh, they chose to follow something named religion which is clearly just a front for Christian Fundamentalism. And if the Christian Fundamentalists are the ones burning crosses on their lawn, well I’m glad all those religious people are fighting amongst themselves. Why should I care about anyone who doesn’t fit into my preconceived notions of the world?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/2/2191136/-Absolutely-all-religions-have-this-one-unique-flaw

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