Religion is a “Beautiful Thing”

The following statement is from an online message group:

“…I hear a lot of Atheists who believe that religions are all wrong and must be killed off and what not [even though I’m an atheist] I think a religion can be a beautiful thing, in the hands of the right people. ...”
Here is my reply, revised and extended:

Please, give me some examples of how religion is a "beautiful thing in the hands of the right people."

When you do that, please be sure to help me understand how the "beautiful thing" religion is could not be realized without the delusion of supernaturalism; the intolerance for others’ non-belief or differing beliefs; the fiction of afterlife; the threat of eternal damnation & suffering; the cult-like worship of pain and death; the rejection of scientific proofs and evidence; the enslavement of young minds to superstition and lies instead of reality, reason and knowledge; all of which are part and parcel to the theistic mindset.

Are you saying that the beauty of religion lies in the charitable works of churches? If so, does that infer that charity is the sole provenance of religion? That good acts wouldn’t exist without religion’s promulgation of delusion and supernaturalism? That people of religion are driven to do altruistic things not because it is simply the humane thing to do, but because religion pressures, inspires, motivates them, and to the exclusion of non-believers’ altruistic instincts and actions? Or because religious charity is a way to proselytize to those desperately in need of material aid in an effort to gain converts? Is that the “beauty of religion?”

Or maybe the beauty lays in the fear it instills to gain recruits and ensure compliance; the subservience to shaman like authority; the false hope of life after death; the rejection of science and downplaying of secular knowledge?

And who are these “right people?” Mother Theresa? The pope? Fred Phelps? Rev. Al Sharpton? Bakker, Falwel, Robertson,Wright, Hinn, Graham, Huckabee, et al? The faith healers? The multi-millionaire televangelists? The terminally ill person who prays for pain relief or cure which never comes? The crippled and blind who flock to Lourdes in the hope of restoration that never happens?

The proselytizing door to door hucksters? The ministers/priests who molest and are protected by their church? The apologists who twist and turn scripture to make it suit a kinder gentler religion? The fundamentalist evolution deniers who want schools to teach myth as though it were science? The "Christian Nation" radicals who know nothing of our nation’s roots, distort history, and seek to tear down the “wall of separation” between church and state?

Were the Inquisitors the "right people"? The Crusaders? The witch burners? The anti-Semites and religious leaders like Martin Luther who enflamed it? The suicide bombers? The book burners? The Christian Zionists who want to see no peace in the Middle East, lest it impede the End Times prophesy fulfillment? The abortion doctor killers? Those Christians who used the bible to justify slavery, discrimination, and oppose inter-racial marriage?

How about those faithful who pray over a sick child and watch them die when medical science could have restored them to health? Those who use scripture to justify subjugation of gays’ rights, or the control of women's reproductive rights, or the military invasion of non-threatening nations? Those who conduct exorcisms on the weak or the mentally ill? The religionists who falsely claim condoms spread AIDS and thus condemn millions of third world peoples to their death through unprotected sex? Those who justify killing for land ownership based on biblical precedence and divine will? Those who sacrifice their own lives to kill innocent “infidels” to get their reward in paradise? Who indoctrinate their children to view non-followers as “the other?” Who oppose women’s rights because their scripture tells them women are less than men? Which of these are “the right people?” If none of them, then who?

Religion is a mind virus. That it has some connection with charitable works; or because the false promise of life after death in Candy Land is soothing to those afflicted by religious fable; that its music, art and architecture is often iconic, its rituals hypnotic in their pomp and spectacle; is hardly a validation of, or justification for, its deception, false promises, rejection of reality, exclusionism and intolerance.

Its “beauty” doesn’t override the dependency, threats, fear, ignorance, hate, and misery it spreads through the brainwashing of the young, undereducated, desperate and gullible. I see no beauty in deception. Show it to me.

Yes, religion should be killed off. Fortunately the scientific age and man's acceptance of reality is causing religion to self-destruct throughout the civilized world. None too soon, and long over due.

Yours in Reason,

Hump