The child abuse that is religion [View all]

[Augustus]

Today, buildings were burned down and several people were murdered across the Muslim world as thousands of people took to the streets to protest the latest cover of a satirical magazine in France named Charlie Hebdo. Let us pretend for a moment that just over a week ago, the editors and cartoonists of this magazine did not suffer a horrendous mass murder committed upon them by Muslim extremists.

The people protesting today are protesting the publication of a magazine. Let us be clear about what they are not protesting.

They are not protesting the lashing of a blogger for the "crime" of blasphemy.

They are not protesting the stoning of women for the "crime" of adultery.

They are not protesting the beheading of men for the "crime" of homosexuality.

They are not protesting the mass murder of school children in Pakistan.

They are not protesting the mass murder of civilians in Nigeria.


While recent events (and arguably, the last few decades) have put the spotlight on Islam in particular, let us not for a moment pretend that other religions are immune to the kind of mass irrational hysteria and objective evils mentioned above.

Christianity had the crusades. Today, it is relegated to the suppression of women's rights and gay rights. And while there aren't (usually) people taking to the streets to commit murder on a massive scale, there is the occasional abortion clinic bombing and death of a gay teenager either by suicide or homicide.

The evils committed in the name of God usually only vary from religion to religion only by degree, not by the brutality of the evils themselves.

So this is the part where I'm told that religion is not actually the problem. No, the deniers will say: It's the powerful using religion as a weapon as a means to an end. There's nothing wrong with having spiritual beliefs, they'll say. Those beliefs are warped by the corrupt and it is they, the corrupt, who are responsible for the evils, not religion itself.

The deniers make this claim for one reason and one reason only: They are religious. They've never committed evil acts in the name of God, so how can it possibly be religion's fault for the evil acts of others? In addition, many of these religious people may not even agree with the atrocious tenets of their faith - such as homosexuality being a sin, or abortion being murder. Yet they're still part of the tribe. Can't speak out against your own tribe.

These people miss out on (or intentionally ignore) the law of large numbers: One person's probability of winning the lottery is slim. But if 100 million people play the lottery, there's likely to be a winner.

Are the 1.6 billion Muslims on this planet going to take up arms and murder 12 people for drawing a cartoon? No. But two of them did. A few hundred thousand of them took to the streets today to protest the very publication that just lost those 12 innocent people. Not the atrocity that occurred at those offices a little over a week ago, but the "atrocity" of that publication printing more of the cartoons that were the very excuse for their murders in the first place. If these thousands of religious people are not being corrupted by the powerful, they're certainly sympathetic to the evils committed in their God's name.

There are millions of Christian sympathisers to the words of Jerry Falwell, who said, and I quote: "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." Examples abound, and I can literally fill an encyclopedia with them. Horrible, inexcusable, evil, disgusting, atrocious, hateful garbage coming out of the mouths of religious people, horrendous acts committed by religious people, sympathisers and deniers.

The contemptible atrocities committed in the name of God do not happen in a vacuum. Nobody is born with religion. Religion is taught. And it is here that I come to the subject line of this post. To believe in something without question and without evidence: That is the very definition of religion. And it is exactly this lack of critical thinking and reasoning that children possess.

The natural development of the human brain requires that children accept as fact whatever is told to them, without question. It is also a feature of the development of the human brain for children to react violently (eg. Throw temper tantrums) when they don't get something that at the moment they perceive to be the most important thing in the world. Maybe they want to play with some toy, maybe they want some kind of attention. Whatever it is, they don't have the rational capability to be reasoned with, and will cry, scream, and even hit people and things until they either get their way or exhaust themselves or move on to some other distraction.

Sound familiar?

Somewhere, during adolescence, the brain develops the ability to discern fact from fiction, to critically analyse and to question, to demand some kind of rationale, some kind of evidence, some kind of logic to any observation being made or any assertion being put forth. This is the usual course of human brain development, but for one area: A psychological trauma inflicted during the formative years of childhood is extremely hard to overcome.

Many do overcome, of course, but it is not easy. When you are systematically told, from the day you are born, day in and day out, that homosexuality is evil and that homosexuals will go to hell, the adolescent development is stunted. It is psychological abuse inflicted upon impressionable children that carries into adulthood. Consequently, we have thousands of grown adults throwing literal temper tantrums on the streets of Muslim cities today.

They were told, you see, that any depiction of the prophet Mohammed is blasphemy. They were told this virtually every single day from the day they were born. They were taught to pray to God, every single day, and have followed this ritual from the day that they were physically capable of doing so. It is no wonder that the publication of a magazine cover with a depiction of their prophet puts them in such fits of unadulterated rage.

But no rational human being will agree that their behavior is anything but. Let us repeat, lest we forget: They are not protesting atrocities committed on massive scales, they are not even protesting the very atrocity that happened a little over a week ago, but are protesting the "atrocity" of a printed cartoon.

The law of large numbers comes into play, and a certain small number of them will set fire to buildings. A smaller number will murder people. An even smaller number will commit future acts of terrorism. And, sadly, the smallest number of all will actually renounce their faith and overcome the psychological abuse they received as children.

It is the very publication of satirical magazines and non satirical works of criticism of religion that increase the numbers of people who do overcome. Without the Charlie Hebdo's of the world, the world continues merrily on with this trajectory of self destruction. I am well aware that many of the things I have said here will offend many people who have taken the time to read this.

If you are one of those people who are offended, I ask you to reflect on that very real emotion you are feeling and to question its source. You might just be one of the few who can overcome. Thank you.