Think Critically and Demand Evidence

Geographical location predicts which religion a person believes. Social construction and brainwashing ensure sustainability of belief systems. Religion is an ideology like any other, it has a beginning and an end. An ideology of ignorance, the whole basis of religion is understood to have been invented to control the masses. Kind of a government before government was invented, laws before law enforcement. And an opiate for the poor and ignorant still being trafficked today.

There is no evidence, historical or otherwise, for religion today while the fabrication is easily discernible. Scientific discoveries from the last several centuries have eroded any reasonable explanation for gods and critical thinking which naturally demands evidence have demolished sheepherder fairies about the universe.

Here is the main problem when critical thinking is applied: Which god? Christian? Muslim? Greek? Egyptian? One of the thousands if not millions of Native American or African Tribal gods? What about Cthulhu? Or a pink unicorn? Or gnomes that like making shoes? Every single one of those would be as valid as giving up and saying "god did it." And that's not even getting to the issue of defining what "god" is. Is it just a thing that had a hand in creating the universe we observe before us? Is it something that exerts force in this universe? Is it a number of somethings? Is it a fundamental force yet to be discovered or understood? Everyone seems to assume god is a human-like thing but why make that assumption? We can't even say with certainty that we're the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, what makes us so special that an unknown force looks exactly like us?

The demand for factual substantiation presents further explanations extracted from the simplistic talking points of the brainwashed flock. The availability of information in the age of enlightenment has forced the religious to produce more damning evidence of the fatuous primitive scriptures. Whatever gleaned from yet unexplained scientific concepts have become the rallying cry for the religious. Saying "proof that science can't explain" is a nonsensical sentence because science is the closest to an effective method to prove anything. All that's left then is amateurs interpreting natural phenomena according to their presumptions of the supernatural. The knowledge of ancient cultures, easily explainable today, indicates that it's not religion that described these things. It's people. It is Arab numbers that are responsible for Islam even existing outside of Mecca. So numbers made Islam great, but not in the 'wonderfully enlightened' way, just in the 'large group of fools' way.

Muslims, when asked about the atrocities committed by terror groups will conveniently denounce (particularly when they're in a non Muslim country; in Muslim countries support is unapologetic) by concluding a group is really wrong or are not true Muslims and Quraan doesn't allow killing innocent people. Yet "true Muslims" or said terror outfit disagree on what an "innocent" is. The allegedly infallible text is vulnerable to interpretation by anybody in any way desirable. This shows at the very least that what you want to call supernatural isn't perfect.

 (Flat Earth theory is widely held amongst Muslim theologians.)




 
 

 

Flat Earthers teach creationist fairies lacking factual basis. Life evolved out of simpler non-living systems as soon as we discount the supernatural, which we would be very foolish not to. Because attributing everything we don't know to a god makes us stop trying to find out. The brain is constantly assigning meaning to otherwise random data that fire-hoses itself across neurons. We have to recognize when we have incorrectly assigned meaning to data. It's just natural. There has been so many things in this universe that were previously attributed to gods, although they did not really know, as we today know for certain that these things depend on something else. They were therefore lying. To admit you don't know something makes you able to discover it, something you can not do if you attribute this something to a fictitious solution.

Critical thinkers demand that extraordinary claims be supported by extraordinary evidence, and refuse to accept extraordinary claims that are made by people who provide no evidence at all. Facts and evidence make something real, which has been provided by the scientific community for macro evolution for quite some time.

 (The objective isn't to provide material congruent to reality but to promote enthusiastic abandonment of reason for mysticism. Surely he wasn't born believing this nonsense as it's the result of systemic brainwashing which he will regrettably pass on to new generations.)
 
Today people who reject evolution either don't know anything about it, or have a vested interest in selling snake-oil, and know that they can't continue to sell Christianity to people (which is, of course, the biggest religious business at present) if they admit that evolution is true. Invariably, new discoveries make the scam of religions increasingly impossible to defend. Of course, it's not like we need new discoveries to disprove religions, usually their holy books do that all by themselves. The case against Christianity which is the largest of the three Abrahamic religions is simple;

1) Archaeology absolutely does not support Biblical claims.

2) Apart from a few minor characters (i.e. Pontius Pilate) there is no outside evidence to suggest that any of the Biblical characters actually existed.

3) Even if some of these characters did exist, the assorted miracles and other fanciful occurrences are enough to show that they are not reliable recordings of history, but the myths of an ancient and barbaric people.

Thinking critically is the best way to a healthy society where tolerance, progress and lesser violent behaviors would be cultivated. In this paradigm a generation of critical thinkers assimilates into society where decent and responsible parent would teach their children how to think rather than what to think. There is probably no better gift than to imbibe an individual with the ability to reason on their own. Teaching religion at school is the best way to promote belief without evidence and generate new generations of brain dead or lobotomized individuals incapable of independent analytical thought. It's the best way to ensure backwardness, intolerance, and violence.

Schools provide credibility to anything taught there and teaching ancient myths is an exercise in futility. Since religious people study a single book consisting of four hundred pages for life there is little to expand upon and the rest of life is spent on trying to fit new information on what's written in that single book. When learning places imbue innocent minds with fairies about creationism through fear, the natural beauty of the contemporary world has little truth or enjoyment. Evidence-based thinking introduces first steps of evolution (first came bacteria, algae, fish, amphibians [generalized]) while infinitely investigating the truth behind it all. Compare fresh young mind reading "The Origin of Species" and a more contemporary explanation, "Why Evolution is True" by Jerry A. Coyne, an excellent introduction to basic concepts, to Biblical stories about demons/devils and gods/angels battling a cosmic battle in a mythical place. The difference is demonstrable as it is appreciable.  

The scientific theory first needs to predict something in the way gravity and evolution predict observable events. It lists that every living organism on this planet has a genome (chromosomes and DNA) as conclusive evidence of evolution. DNA is universal in all living things, even vegetables have it. This links us all to every other life form on this planet. This is the scientific fact that proves definitely and without a doubt that we all, living things, have a common ancestor.

There are other kinds of mental viruses: Nazism, Communism, Fascism. Utopian dreams often become utopian nightmares. When we rid ourselves, finally, of the stupefying burden of religion, that is not the end of irrationality. Humans are basically irrational creatures, we arose from the muck, we developed tools of logic, reason, etc. Only when we use these tools do we rise above prejudice, superstition, and ignorance. But it doesn't change our basic irrational reptilian brain. Rational arguments against god make no difference to the faithful because faith itself is irrational. Faith is blindly following the unknown through inability or unwillingness to understand. People will believe what they want to believe regardless of the evidence. No amount of logical arguments will convince you of something that you arrived at without logic. This is the futility of rational arguments.