Good God - Philosophizing on God and Religion

[realelvish]

Why the hell am I writing this? Of all the self-centered, self-righteous, pig-headed crap I've done, why am I adding this to the pile? Why am I writing this shit when I know no one will listen, and no one wants to listen

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[realelvish]

I wouldn't say, "beautifully", that was more of a rambling rant. I'd been added to this document since highschool, and felt that it was more or less complete enough to share with the world.

Just not on facebook. I don't want to provoke my very Christian in-laws into a long, hateful quagmire. They already know basically that I'm not any religion, but I do my best not to make them want to proselytize at me.

I think that we also have a lot of natural aversions to crime. We don't go around killing people because we were taught not to, but because we're hardwired to help our communities to prosper, something that crime works against.

I also think that religious people who believe that hellfire is needed to keep people in line don't realize how humanity is fundamentally hardwired to be helpful to itself and its community, rather than destructive. They take the actions of a few desperate or just plain bad people and try to attribute these traits to everyone.

This philosophy, especially as it applies to grouping the lower classes of society, comes from (when it comes to Christian philosophy, at least) the Middle Ages. Back then, being a peasant or a commoner meant that in the eyes of the law, you were incapable of being truthful without being tortured. They looked at the high numbers of criminals that were from the poor classes, and assumed that all poor were criminals. You'll see echoes of this philosophy even in the political system of the US, in the electorate college. When you hear rich people rambling on TV about poverty or illegal immigrants, it's all traces of this very old, unfounded belief.

/more rambling