h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Driving through town today on the way to pick up my drugs at the pharmacy, I was confronted by the issue of organized religion. The nearest town is relatively small (consisting of under 100,000 people) and has over 150 churches. I'm not kidding, either. There are about 65 First or Second Baptist churches and they are going to be the subject of my little ditty here today. Many of these churches are building huge new churches on anywhere from 10-100 acres of land. It makes sense that congregation size of these churches has exploded as quickly as the town, but what I find obscene is the sheer amount of money spent on these new edifices. Many of these churches are also including billion dollar "sports worship centers" for the members of the congregation to use. These complexes include indoor olympic-size swimming pools, indoor basketball, football, and baseball fields, indoor tracks and, in one case, and indoor hockey rink and arcade. How do country clubs promote worship, I ask? They DON'T. The chapels and classrooms are even bigger and better. More billion dollar buildings that could probably house the entire town are part of the plan. These churches go on missions. A LOT of missions. You might say, well, missions are good, you're spreading the word of Jesus Christ throughout the land and so on and so forth, but do you ask WHERE these missions are to? The missions are usually in some sort of exotic place where the "missionary team" can stay at a resort area. Bermuda, Jamaica, Japan, and resort areas in Mexico are favorites with these "good Christians." I, personally, believe that charity starts at home. Why spend millions of dollars a year for church members to do a ton of good in other countries on the beach? Passing out pamphlets about Jesus while you sunbathe on the beach to the hotdog vendors is hypocritical. Why don't these people go where everyone isn't a tourist? Why don't they spend money trying to feed or really educate the "heathens"? The churches have only so much money, you know, after they built this huge country club for members and can't afford to spend money to go into the slums. That would cost a lot in innoculations and special clothing so that no one will get *gasp* dirty and wouldn't be worth the trouble or money. That money is better spent on throwing seventy-thousand dollar dinner parties for a fefw elect bishops and clergy members. It's easy to remedy the money solution after all by making people give a "donation" at the door of the church. Of course, you don't *have* to pay, but they won't let you in if you don't. I find it absolutely DISGUSTING and REVOLTING that these people who call themselves Christians and good members of the community can stand up and pat themselves on the back for it. I am not criticizing churches who build new additions and new churches because they are growing so quickly and spend their money wisely, I'm criticizing people who buy their pastors super-expensive sports cars and house them in 4 million dollar houses. How is this good? People wonder why their is so much corruption in religion, and this is why. No one is willing to actually do good, they just want to get a warm fuzzy for passing pamphlets out on the beach warning tourists of skin cancer and how Jesus can help them. Most of these hypocritical groups are made up of prominent members of society and are above criticism. Well, goooooolly, maybe they're in line with God himself. They sure seem to think so.

Ah, yes, organized religion is lovely, isn't it? Might as well use it, and get a lovely holiday... Or forget about it, because others sure as hell will not...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. sick, i tell you, SICK it makes me.

I know, I was just being cynical... Which as all I'll allow myself to be when confronted with religion... It's too damn ignorant for my taste...

i just realized that, instead of 'against' in the subject, i wrote 'anit.' hm.

This is one of the many many reasons I am an Agnostic

**RANT WARNING** **RANT WARNING** **RANT WARNING**

I find myself in agreement, charity does begin at home and these despicable examples of pointless money-squandering drone-producing hypocrites need a good swift kick up the *ahem*. Money of these sorts of amounts would be much better spent elsewhere.The mainstream organised Christian religions are typically the most hypocritical institutions on the face of the earth. You only have to look back in history to see this.

Myself, I'm a Pagan. I choose to worship nature, not some intangible 'omnipotent'uncaring deity. I can see nature and I can see what we humans are doing to eachother and the earth, frankly it sickens me and this sort of money-wasting from 'the church' only goes to strengthen my resolve against mainstream religions, which have been the cause of 99% of the worlds conflicts since civilisation began.

- Z.Z
(on her moralistic, anti-religious high-horse cum soapbox)

Have a look at:

www.landoverbaptist.org

Or a read of Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.

I do wish they'd tax churches and the like. Either that or I'll try to set up an atheist church .

But what do you expect from an organisation with over a thousand years experience of power and privilege?

Damn you Constantine. I'm glad your city got renamed.

I find a lot of organised religion when pursued fundamentally is very derogatory of groups of people, and I'm anti-discrimination so therefore I'm anti-organised religion.
*sighs* I don't have a problem with the actual beliefs, it's just the people who have bent them round to benefit them (eg Muslim fundamentalists who have lost sight of the fact that Islam forbids killing; ditto for the Crusades, Middle East conflict etc etc)

I'm an agnostic... mostly because of this... Whenever you bring up the subject, people go all... crazy... It's creepy...*sigh*

That's the thing, I'm not agnostic and do consider myself a Christian, however I don't believe everyone is damned and I can see how all religions parallel and have aspects of goodity. I'm just sick of the sheep. I'm sick of people who are too busy to do anything except use religion as a shield for their own devices. Religion has caused every conflict one way or another and is the means to an end. I think most people believe in something and don't see why everyone has to worship the same god. Doesn't every man have his own religion anyway? Basically, anywhere that there are people, life is going to suck unless they have a brain.

True, that... I would still say that science can be just as much of a poorly disguised excuse for a religion... Our science teacher got really offended when we questioned the value of nuclear phsycis...

Most religions have a tradtion of violence, but is the violence inherant in the religion?

Personally I think that people cause wars. I think people would get into little groups and poke the other little groups with sticks whether the little groups are based on gods or whether they're based on tiddlywinks.

Maybe its just that religion has the resources to buy bigger sticks.

Ok its probably a little more complicated than that. I guess all that stuff about unbelievers burning for eternity probably doesn't help.

Nope, violence isn't inherant. Violence comes when the original prophet dies, and people take over. It's called deindividualization, I believe. Crowds are simple to manipulate, and power corrupts... If religious practice was a personal thing, then we would've avoided the whole problem. Unfortunately, belonging to a biggger whole gives a sense of confidence, and the belief that you know all the answers to the eternal questions provoke a sort of arrogance that in time turns into the illusion that the unbelievers will burn for eternity. Jesus never said anything about hell, he might have said something about a process of purification. Also, "eternal" in the biblical sense is said to be a translation of the arameic word describing an undefined amount of time, which could just as well be a week as all eternity... But we like to be right, so we twist the words till they suit our own purposes... sad, really....

People are the problem when they use religion as a shield. When a leader dies, there's always someone who thinks that they can do a better job of 'lifting' the church out of a hole. Usually that means that they're trying to make religion stylish. When religion becomes stylish, people start doing the 'I'm better than you are' routine. Then, the groups starting determining each other's destinations. Usually along the lines of 'You're going to hell.' 'No, you're going to hell.' 'I'm not! You're a devil worshipper!' 'Well, you're a Christ killer.' 'Am not!' 'Am too!' 'Am not!' 'Am too!' Notice how it all reverts to people thinking they're better than the other person. Sounds a lot like the arguments I had with my brothers when I was little, really. So, what does this all prove? That mindless drones following the desires of society are dangerous. The weak-minded and insecure people are the problem.

Or, highly intelligent, but power-corrupted people cause problems through crowd manipulation. Do not underestimate the power of a good speaker, take Hitler as a nice example...

Or the power of a bad one with passion. I can listen to someone for hours, even if they're a terrible orator, if they are intensely passionate about the subject.

Indeed... that's true.

I do try not to lie.

Truth is still subjective, so I sometimes feel the need to confirm it.