Religie - De Menselijke Zwakte (Dom0ne mirror, subtitled EN/NL)

One could say that religion is defined by
"Belief in a postulated supernatural agent,
for whose existence our senses cannot give us evidence,
but that agent is invoked to explain things
for which our senses do give us evidence."
'Initiate!'
Why are you religious? Why did you choose your religion?
Why do you follow something that causes this?
We are told religion is based on compassion, charity and selflessness,
and that Jesus taught all of these divinely inspired virtues.
But ofcourse the Bible says that naughty children must be beaten, 'witches' must be burned alive,
and anyone indulging in heresy, adultery or homosexuality must be stoned to death.
Does something this powerful, something that you base your actions and morality on, something that guides you,
informs you what to believe and how to goodness, have a most exceptional reason that cannot be challenged?
Has religion been passed down by the creator of existence, or is it a creation of the human mind?
Children will spontaneously invent the concept of God.
Religion is integrated into the brain.
Religious beliefs are a by-product of cognitive mechanisms, designed originally for other purposes.
What you start to see are these mechanisms that we're born with, make us all very vulnerable to religious ideas.
Religious ideas are much easier.
It's disbelief that is cognitively a little bit harder.
Is religion divinely inspired? Or is it simply a panacea to humanity's weaknesses?
How many of you here right now need an area of your life to be changed?
Probably many, yes.
We can literally change someone's life by learning how to pray for them.
Studies have shown that highly religious people are happier on balance.
Ofcourse! I would be happier too!
You know, if you went to a doctor who said: 'you have terminal cancer',
and I said: 'No you don't, you're gonna live till thousand!',
I could make you happier if I could convince you you're gonna live another hundred years,
when the doctor gave you six months.
That's the point! It's a lie, but ofcourse you're happy!
Do you desire to see clarity in disorder?
To believe that you have control over that which you are powerless to control?
The fishermen depend for their lives and livelihoods on unpredictable natural forces.
Getting divine help to deal with that kind of uncertainty,
is often thought of as one of our most fundamental religious instincts.
These motivations have little to do with a deity, but everything with being a human,
and will always reveal itself regardless of a divine communicator or not.
Does religion allow you to justify your prejudices and intolerances?
Validating your disrespect for groups of people that are different to you?
That come from different cultures, have different ideals, that speak different languages?
There is only one way to salvation and that is through Jesus Christ.
Now, Muslims need to hear that!
"And anyone who rejects Islam and abandons it, cut off his head."
You say you thank God for ideas, you thank God for 9/11, you thank God for dead soldiers, thank God for AIDS...
What you preach is hate, miss.
You don't get to call the Word of God hatred!
I am not one bit afraid, because I serve the living and true God.
What is your faith belief based on? Why are you religious?
Motivated reasoning: we doubt what we don't like.
Confirmation bias: we notice data that fits our beliefs.
15% of Americans believe that Israel must occupy the remainder of the Biblical lands and tear down mosques.
The true believers will then float up to heaven and watch it all happen in Rapture, sitting alongside their God.
'Faith' means: making a virtue out of not thinking.
It's nothing to brag about.
Is Obama the Antichrist? 73% say 'yes' or 'maybe'...
Do you have a living relationship with your god, or is this wishful thinking?
Do you communicate with him, or is this simply a creation of your own mind?
My father is not a human father.
My father is a member of the evolutionary level above human, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity,
when many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion.
If you define mental illness as anyone who hears a voice talking to them, then anyone who's heard the voice of God, is crazy.
Do you need to believe there is a caring paternal figure out there looking after you, because you are scared that you're alone
in the magnitude of this universe and existence?
...and the attachment system is the fundamental care-taking system in mammals. And think about religions:
You're in distress, what do you do? You turn to a caretaker; you turn to an attachment figure.
Will you be greeted at the Portal? By the Lord Jesus Christ, as one of His? As an old friend or yours?
Someone that you've communicated with? Someone you've trusted and relied on?
Or are you a stranger?
Has your god informed you of his protection, or have you manufactured it?
Just as you wished to have your father with you, in a lonely or threatening situation,
while in fact you know nobody was near?
All of us have mechanisms to identify and favor kin.
And religions hijack this.
Just look at the Catholic Church: the priests are 'brothers', the nuns are 'sisters' and the pope is the 'Holy Father'.
Has your choice of religion been influenced by the creator of existence, or by your environment?
Have you simply followed the religion of your parents, and of their parents, and or their culture?
Are you a Muslim, because you were born in a Muslim country
and completely immersed in Islamic culture and teachings, all of your life?
Why does the Christian God decide to increase the number of people he converts after large-scale Christian imperial wars?
Why would the Christian God only contact the people indigenous to Europe,
and those people enslaved by Europeans?
Do you believe in Allah because he is all-powerful, or because your family members stretching back centuries believe he was?
Why do you not follow Taoism or Buddhism? For what reason have you discounted them?
Are you basing all of your faith simply on the religion brought to you by your upbringing, or the first one you've been told about?
That is not a 'Muslim child', but a child of Muslim parents.
That child is too young to know whether it is a Muslim or not.
I'm willing, God!
I'll do what you want me to do!
I'll say what you want me to say!
In Jesus' name! Amen!
There is no such thing as a 'Christian child'.
Children are not born with an innate understanding of religion.
They are however simply impressionable individuals who innately desire
their parents and environment to inform of how to survive in succeed in life.
Do your beliefs anaesthetise you from the concept
that nobody knows or ever will know why we exist,
all but then to survive and produce offspring,
that will innately and futilely battle with the same conundrum?
Religion giving you answers where none can be found,
satisfying your need for resolutions and knowledge, when doubt is prevalent.
Religion is dangerous, because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers, to think that they do.
One attribute of religion seems to me explanation.
For example, the origin myths.
Origin myths are universal among religions to explain the existence of the world, and the existence of people.
Science has gradually encroached on this explanatory function.
We are -as we now know- risen apes, not fallen angels.
Death is man's punishment for disobedience.
Death was not originally intended, death was the result of the fall of man.
Do you fear death?
Does your belief in the concept of a living, eternal existence when you die help you to appease your fears?
The majority of adults continue to believe there is life after death, that everyone has a soul
and that Heaven and Hell probably do exist.
If a few thousand years ago I came up with a religion or god that said:
yeah, everything's good if you do unto others, you love you neighbor and you stay out of trouble, and when you die that's about it.
You just turn into dirt.
Tell me if you think that concept would have taken off?
No! It would... no!
We need this, because we're freaked out.
We're the only creatures on the planet that are aware we're going to die and that's the way it works.
And we are freaked out!
We have no reference point for 0.
We can deal with anything but 0. Can't deal with that.
Go ahead and live the next 80 years on this planet, knowing that at the end of the journey there's a big fat 0.
And you can't wrap your brain around it.
Well, I'll tell you how people wrap their brain around it:
They lie to themselves and create a god!