Seems like reason is waking up on the face of absurdity

Whenever I feel it's time to stop my rants against religion and give up with the debates, something absurd comes out of it again and reminds me it's all worth the effort. This time the honors go the Finnish Church. Apparently some not very wise people (I say apparently because they are most likely very well-educated) happened to talk crap about homosexuals, the classic middle ages' brainless idea of them (homosexuals) not being normal, having some kind decease, childhood trauma, bla bla bla, all that retarded stuff that is not even worth talking off.

Anyway, that late display of stupidity costed the Finnish Church losing more than 10,000 (and counting) followers and members in only one week!!! This really made my year. If there is something I have to recognize about Finns is their love for honesty and their excellent ability to react and act immediately against the non-sense. This is the raw example of that!

At the same time, it raises the same arguments that have been going on for decades but that have become stronger only during the last years; that religion should be put under scrutiny and free inquiry. All other aspects of human civilization: sciences, philosophy, literature, even morality have evolved enormously during the last 2000 years, everything else but religious dogmas. What happened during the last week to the Finnish Church, which is supposed to be one the more open-minded out there (no I'm only trying to be possitive), is the unmistakable truth that once reason is put next to faith, the latter one falls on its own weight!

Just as any journalist's column, writer's book, scientific research, philosophical theory, political proposal or even your grandma's opinions are questioned, dissected and analyzed, so should be the case for any religious book out there, anyone! From the Bhagavad Gita to the Bible to the Quaran, with the same rigorousness and logic as just about everything else. Why should religions be over-respected to the point of denying free inquiry and reason which is the main advantage we have over the rest of the animals?

Why should we give them so many privileges when they have historically being (and still are) the source of so much suffering and misery for human kind? Why defend so eagerly old writings that would fail a kindergarden-level test? Why give so much, even own lives, for dogmas which are totally based on faith and exclude evidence despite the available technology and capacity we have for finding it? Just as Sam Harris argues in his book The End of Faith (2004), that's why religious tolerance is a doble-edged sword, because it's hard to draw the line, and because by tolerating and respecting religion so much, we are opening the door for extremism.

What most of the people don't realize is that there is no room for tolerance in religious books, from the Old Testament to the Quaran to the Book of Abraham, all of them are crystal clear in exposing their God's almost psycopath tendency to anihilate whomever doesn't follow His sayings (why is it always a He is an entirely different topic of discussion) the way is it's been commanded.

If a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim (just to keep with the 3 biggest ones) follows his religious book dogmatically, then the words "tolerance to other religious views" shouldn't even have a coherent meaning to him, because by doing so, would mean disrespecting what God has commanded him to do. Jews are supposed to be the people selected by God, the chosen ones. For Christians (and all its different divisions) Jesus Christ is the messiah, the son of God Himself, sent to earth in order to liberate us from all our sins, any other option is just not the truth for them. Muslims on the other hand, believe Christ was just another messenger of God, and that the Old Testament (which is the only one Jews take as valid also) is just the incomplete revelation, being the Quaran the only and sacred truth there is to be, all the rest just don't know it, and once you know it you are not allowed to abandon it, otherwise it is consider a crime (apostasy) of which only death could spare you.

So it doesn't really matter which one you want to take, the point is, as long as you choose one, you are supposed to invalidate all the other ones, leaving no room for tolerance. By being tolerant you are allowing intolerance in one hand and on the other hand, you are not following scriptures the way you should, which at the end doesn't really make any sense. That's why it is such a misconception to think that religious tolerance is something benign, it really is not. I obviously do not mean that we should treat this matter with violence, that is the whole point of this, as rational animals, we should use that reason to allow free inquiry, and by really allowing it, religious ideas are doomed to remain fantasies and not part of your every day decission making plans.

Allowing tolerance to the Church allows this kind of shit to happen!! Allowing tolerance to religious views allows basically tolerance to anything as long as it is in the name of God, Ala, Shiva, Zeus, Jehovah or any other imaginary friend of the kind. OPEN YOUR EYES!! I would like to finish this post with a quote from Sam Harris from his "Letter to a Christian Nation",

"Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings." - Sam Harris -

Living la vida loca??

Well finally back "blogging" after this last crazy month which saw the birth of my first child, a beautiful baby girl. And what a better catalyst for keeping the writing of critical thinking. During that month news have come and gone as they always do. One that called my attention, however, was the "confession" Ricky Martin made about his sexual preference. I mean, what's with that? Should that even be a topic of discussion? A headline? Should we even care? Should I write about it?

Giving the World we are living, I think I should. But think about it, why did Ricky have to deliverate for so long about letting everybody know that he likes guys instead of girls? Would he also have to deliverate for so many years telling us he prefers to eat apples rather than oranges? Or that he enjoys more by looking at an orchid instead of a peony? I use Ricky deliberatly here because it's a case most of us are familiar with, but it applies to any homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, asexual or any other label you want to use.

Preference for the same sex is widely common among the wild, figures are said to go as high as 40% (evolution 101 podcast). If this is the case, homosexuality must play an important role in evolution, whatever that is (think of a natural birth control). It doesn't surprise me then that the Pope along with the vast majority of religious leaders and followers, consider homosexuality as a sin and even as an illness, giving that most religious people are creationists themselves and really don't pay attention to evidence.

But whether homosexuality is relevant to evolution or not (most likely it is), it still blows my mind that so many people don't know that one is born with an already given sexual preference, meaning is not something you choose as you develop. So why should we care more about it than about the food one likes or dislikes? How worst or better does that make that particular person? I am glad an artist with such a big projection as Ricky Martin finally opened up, on the other hand, it astonishes me how hard that road had to be and how people keep talking about the topic.

I really hope I can do my job by teaching my daughter how irrelevant it is for me to know whether she will like boys or girls and rather focusing on being happy even if she prefers the oranges over the apples, so she doesn't have to sweat and waste energy the way Ricky did but instead brings the partner(s) she chooses to be part of her life to share valuable moments with her family. That would mean that at least in my family, which is the only one I can protect, we won't have to make this a topic of extraordinary importance because it really is not, or should at least not be, so if you see your male dog pumping another male dog, think about oranges!!!