Get a Load of That Religion!

Admit it Christians; when you hear a Muslim extremist say he can't wait to sacrifice his own life in order to be rewarded with 72 virgins, you wonder how he could be so foolish as to believe such a pile of bologna.

Then you read your children stories about water being miraculously turned into wine, the seas parting, and an angry/verbally gifted fruit-pushing snake forever altering mankind. As you close the book, you instruct the kiddos to believe without question.

It's the same for every religion.

I have a feeling Mormons, who believe the great Joseph Smith was repeatedly visited by an angel named Moroni, snicker when they think about how gullible Scientologists are to believe the story of how Xenu, dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, 75 million years ago brought billions of people to earth, stacked them around volcanoes and then blew them to bits.

I have a feeling Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe Satan and his demons arrived on earth in 1914 and now rule the world, have a difficult time keeping a straight face when they hear a Hindu speak with great anticipation about coming back to earth as an exotic tree frog.

Many of these stories grew in popularity after people convinced others they were visited by divine spirits, or god himself, who informed them of how the world was created and which earthly behaviors would gain you access to a perfect afterlife.

You believe god created a world full of people, yet only chose to contact a couple. To the fortunate few, god told outlandish stories that, unless born into a family that scared you into believing them, no rational human being would buy.

Or are you under the impression that, had you been born into a family that taught you Xenu's habit of blowing up people with hydrogen bombs was a certainty, you would still be smart enough to reject the story of Scientology and instead believe the tales contained in the book you currently regard as gospel?

When people learn I'm an atheist, they usually want to start an argument about creation, but I have no problem with someone believing the world was started by an intelligent force, as long as their theory ends there.

But thinking the intelligent being then communicated with only a few earthly creatures is where you go off the deep end.

Now, if someone revealed that God approached an ancient person and said, "I command you to strive for perfection while occasionally helping out your fellow man," I might be open to believing him or her; because that actually makes a little bit of sense, and you religious folks rarely portray God as an entity with sense.