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The Supernatural, Dogma and Fraud

At the micro level -- individuals and local churches -- religion often provides comfort and community. However, at the macro level of organized religion, the consequences of belief systems based on the supernatural become clear.

Because they all make exclusive claims to God, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have been THE most persistently divisive influence in all of human history. If you doubt that, just turn on the news or visit the library or Google it. Their conflicts have caused, and continue to cause, endless grief, suffering and senseless death.

Most of those who try to snatch the reins of political power do so via some means of mass influence: race, ethnicity, provincialism, patriotism or religion. Religion is a particularly effective vehicle because their adherents have already been conditioned to dogma. Despots recognize a good thing when they see it. As Adolf Hitler said, "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."

The hidden purpose of religious dogma is to get people to accept the supernatural. Undoubtedly, the big dog of dogmas is: "The Bible is the Divinely Inspired Word of God". If you buy that, you're lost to reason. If you base your faith in the Bible because it's God's word, you're saying your faith in God is based in your faith in God. Circular logic. You haven't asserted ANYTHING other than your faith as a personal choice.

The supernatural - including God, heaven, hell, Allah, Satan, jinns, leprechauns, devils, angels, Santa Claus and tooth fairies - is an invention of the human imagination. The following is for those who believe in the supernatural.

Faith and logic are antithetical. If religious adherents would admit that they believe for PERSONAL, rather than logical, reasons, THEN they would be honest about their "faith". But it's dishonest to claim faith on a logical, rational, basis - faith is a personal position, not a logical conclusion.

Faith and doubt always go hand in hand. Faith without doubt is BLIND faith. It takes a closed mind to sublimate doubt to the point of blind faith. Normal people leaven their faith with a little common sense. Doubt always nibbles at the edges of their faith. After all, without doubt, faith would have no context, no purpose, no meaning, no point. Would it?

Because there is no evidence for anything supernatural (including God), NOBODY can claim ANY knowledge of it. Anybody who does is lying or delusional. It takes suspension of disbelief to believe in the supernatural: one must convince oneself that the impossible is possible. That is what dogma is for. Dogma is the opposite of curiosity. You have one life, one quest: yet you choose to surrender it to something you can't possibly know anything about.

When people talk about faith, they're usually talking about the supernatural: God, angels, miracles, etc. There is, of course, lots of doubt involved because the supernatural is entirely outside the human (natural) realm. It's not so much that God or angels can't exist . . . the real point is that NOBODY has access to the supernatural and thus NOBODY knows ANYTHING about it. Anybody who claims to have faith in something he knows absolutely nothing about is actually confessing to placing his imagination before, and above, his intellect: this is known as fantasy.

Fantasy has its place . . . but not where life decisions are involved. Placing fantasy above intellect is surrendering your quest for meaning. You are surrendering the meaning of your life to your religion; to your version of God.

And that's fine. Just be honest about it. You made a leap of faith. Your faith is a personal position - not a valid logical conclusion. If all religious adherents would admit this, fundamentalist fervor would disappear. Therefor: war, persecution, retribution, retaliation, and other mindless acts of violence in the name of God would also disappear. Despots would have one less vehicle of control. If we all understand that we're just practicing personal preferences, there's nothing to fight about.