The Proverbial House of Cards

My last post, as well as others, may have alluded to some hostility I feel towards religion. I don’t really feel “hostile” towards it…

just altogether fed up with it.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

In the video below, Bill O’Reilly tells Richard Dawkins that because science cannot yet explain “everything”, Bill’s “throwing in with Jesus.”

In what sense, Mr. O’Reilly?

In the sense of your boisterous and blustering American bravado and exceptionalism that raises the red, white and blue, along with its wars and capitalism run amok, as idols to be worshipped and praised as if they were stamped with the approval of the man, Jesus, himself?

Isn’t that what you, and the network that brings your brand of “religion” into millions of homes every evening, are all about?

Certainly seems so to me…

But the Jesus that I’m familiar with, the one that said “blessed are the meek”, I don’t believe that one would approve.

I don’t believe he would want to “throw in” with you at all.

He might even tell you to lower your arrogant voice and listen to what your guests have to say, for a change.

What Mr. Dawkins was trying to tell you is that your religion may rest on a foundation that is the proverbial house of cards.

Consider that the christian idea of Jesus as god incarnate, who came to rescue us from our sins via his atoning death…

that entire idea is based on the concept of original sin as presented by the book of Genesis in the Old Testament.

But it’s hard, no impossible, to dismiss the story of original sin as allegory.

After all, everything that comes after it, including the need for Jesus’ very existence, is based directly on it.

And if it is “allegory”, then allegory of what exactly?

That man (and I guess we should include woman as well) is borne sinful…i.e., sin is built into his genes, and therefore he deserves punishment and is in dire need of atonement?

That’s just the way god set it all up?

Well, that doesn’t paint a very pleasant portrait of god, now does it?

Sort of a planned obsolescence?

That tends to portray god as less intelligent designer and more demented psychopath, doesn’t it?

The concept of original sin requires, by its very nature, some place from which that sin in fact originated…

Doesn’t it?

And the bible clearly tells us that place is with Adam…the first created human.

But the problem is that his very existence is refuted by everything we know from science.

In short, it simply never happened.

So, everything else that follows, including the story of Jesus’ atoning death, is really…unnecessary.

That’s not to say Jesus wasn’t a real person who walked the earth and was crucified for insurrection by the Romans over 2,000 years ago.

And that his reported words give rise to one of the greatest moral philosophies of our time…and one that Bill O’Reilly seems not to have a clue about.

No, that we’re pretty sure of based on historic fact.

But the rest of it, sort of folds under the weight of it’s own ridiculousness.

Dawkins is hostile towards religion because he believes it impedes intellectual growth.

In that sense, it is a barrier to the continued evolutionary progress that he quite “religiously” believes in.

I, on the other hand, just believe that it is a blinder…

an impact blinder.

And that’s even more the case with the warped sense of “patriotic religion” to which Bill O’Reilly obviously subscribes.

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