Religion has affected most people in one way or another. Whether you were born into it or have dealt with religious people, you may be wondering, why exactly is religion absolutely absurd.
I’ll be covering 13 reasons why religion as a whole is absurd. Perhaps you are curious or questioning your beliefs. Keep reading for details on the top reasons I found.
Why Religion Is Absurd?
1. Blind Faith
Religions’ entire premise of religion is to believe with absolutely no proof of anything. People will counter with, “that’s why it’s called faith.” However, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.
We are in a heavy science age, with tons of scientific evidence for so many things. If half of what is claimed was true, surely there would have even been a shred of evidence.
There are claims that certain religious people did exist, but there is no proof of any higher power.
2. Heaven And Hell
With heaven and hell, the concepts themselves don’t exactly make sense. Someone that is a nonbeliever but is an amazing human, would still be damned to hell for not believing.
Even outside of Christianity, other Abrahamic religions follow similar paths. However, a murderer could repent and be forgiven. That doesn’t sound very well thought out.
The concept of the afterlife doesn’t make sense and if they were real would be incredibly biased and hypocritical.
3. Sin
Sin is something that everyone does, sure. Some sin is worse than others, but it feels less like religious doctrine and just being a good person.
Not being a horrible person should be on everyone’s radar. However, there are so many gray areas that the blanket term sin doesn’t make that much sense.
Religious sin is viewed through a black and white lens. Things in life are very rarely so easily decided.
Should someone who kills another in self-defense be damned to an eternity of fire and brimstone? No, because that’s not how it works.
A person in this position has still sinned, but they didn’t do it maliciously. It literally became a life-or-death situation for them.
4. Love Thy Sinner
This one is good in theory, but not believing can be considered a sin. If they find out you aren’t religious, it suddenly turns to anger and outrage.
They’ll make you out to be some sort of monster for a simple belief. It’s such a backward way to think. They should be more understanding and simply pray for you. That’s rarely the case.
Religious zealots will say love thy sinner while telling people that they are going to burn in hell. That doesn’t seem very loving or caring to me. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.
5. Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is rampant in religious communities. A man doing something is okay, but if a woman does it, suddenly it’s horrible.
With Christianity, you have the whole new testament versus old testament debate. Meaning, that they suddenly don’t have to follow the old testament because of the new one.
Outside of these instances, there is still just constant hypocrisy. Killing people is bad, but God killing the firstborn son of Egyptians was deemed okay?
How can people be expected to follow the rules of a God when that God doesn’t even follow them? It’s ridiculous how often people are told not to do something but God has done the same.
6. Violence Since Inception
Religious wars have been around since their inception. Fighting people over a belief is such an outlandish idea. However, it happens time and time again.
For instance, the Spanish Inquisition was Catholics “rooting out heresy.” As you can imagine, lots of people died unnecessarily. Religious wars are a dark stain on humanity’s history.
These constant holy wars have done nothing but murder innocents and spread hate even more. Why would a peaceful, all-loving God want innocent people to be executed for their beliefs?
Perhaps God is not as all-loving as has been preached. Either God is full of hypocrisy and contradictions, or God isn’t as peaceful as religious followers claim.
7. Stories Of Violence
In the Bible, there is a story of kids mocking a prophet. So, the prophet cursed them in the name of God and sent two bears to maul 42 children. That isn’t very peaceful.
In that instance, the crime did not fit the punishment. Noah’s ark is another one. Anyone not on the ark is presumed to have died during the massive flooding.
There are countless stories of people being murdered and for what reason? In the name of God.
With the book of revelations, God unleashed plagues and then killed the firstborn sons of people. You may be able to argue, that it was in defense of his people being slaves.
However, plenty of those people had nothing to do with enforcing or creating slavery. Why were the innocent punished for this?
8. The Teachings Themselves
Religious teachings are full of contradictions and baseless reasons for following the religion. There are sections in the Bible about beating your wife. That has no place in society today.
All of these teachings are supposed to make you a better person, a better follower but half of the stories sound like they belong in a fairy tale book because they are outlandish.
9. Hateful Tendencies
Religion, despite its claim to be peaceful, is full of rabid zealots. As time goes on, there is no less violence from religion. Not on a large scale, but violence still occurs in the world.
Not to mention, religions everywhere constantly put women as less than men, never equal. People also tend to be absolutely rude to those who are nonbelievers.
Christianity versus Islam is a huge example of hate. Neither side likes the other and there are still places in the world where they are killing and murdering each other for religion.
10. Coercing People To Convert
If you have to indoctrinate people as children, perhaps the basis is not as good as it should be. Other religions focus on adult conversions, like Scientology.
Not only that, but the coercion comes in with telling people if you don’t believe you will have a horrible eternity of being punished for sin.
Fear-based coercion is not a symptom of something good.
11. It Doesn’t Make Sense
Noah’s Ark is the example I will use once again. How in the world would a man get two of every animal on a giant boat?
Not to mention, the world flooding in such a way is scientifically ludicrous. The world suffers from global warming, but for a flood like that to happen so quickly is a little out there.
12. Money Grab
Don’t forget, a lot of religions want you to donate 10% of your entire income to the church and after you do that and pay bills, they want the rest of your money.
A lot of elderly are religious and it’s wrong that they are being pressured into giving up so much of their income.
Mega churches are the other half of that problem. Those places bring in millions of dollars and can’t even bother to help the people they are supposed to.
Some small churches will do food drives or help people out when they need it, but so many ignore the plight of the people that have given them their money.
Churches and places of worship are also tax-exempt, which makes the rampant greed that much worse.
13. Guilt
Religious guilt is a constant issue. It can lead to people becoming suicidal, or even going through with it. There is absolutely no reason we should guilt people for stuff out of their control.
If you are gay or lesbian, they will make people feel so bad about themselves and guilt-trip them in an effort to force a change in sexuality. This isn’t something people actively choose.
Who would choose to make their lives harder? Besides, no one should be forced into not loving whoever they want.
On top of that, you have the gay conversion camps that are detrimental to the youth they force into those awful places. If God actually exists, why would he let them be tortured in his name?
To learn more, you can also read our posts on why pride is a sin, why the Bible is unreliable, and why church is so boring.
Conclusion
There are so many more reasons why religion, in general, is absolutely absurd. Life experiences alone can give you many more than the 13 listed in this article.
In a world of science and equality advancement, there is no place for hateful words that try to tear people down for simply not believing the way the masses do.