If Religion is the Opiate of the Masses, I Just Got High

[dballance]

1. I Find the Article at the Link to be a Further Example...

of what is wrong with religion and with the people who say it's okay to just let people be comforted by the fables and myths of religion.

Notice how the author appeals to the supernatural:

The preacher at the funeral spoke about the importance of God and prayer in getting through this. As he spoke, I couldn't help noticing the comforting effect of the preacher's words. They didn't need to be historically accurate or scientifically "proven" to work their magic.

Why don't the preacher's words need to be historically accurate or scientifically "proven?" If they are neither, then isn't it just a case of one human lying to another human to make them feel better - magic smoke and mirrors? Much the same way people lie every day with those little lies like "no, you're not interrupting me, come on in..." when, clearly, you are interrupting. Or, "no, you look just fine." When you actually look like something a cat drug out of the trash bin. So it is apparently okay for the clergy to lie to people so they can "get through" certain times. Might it not be better to face things head on rather than delaying the facing of reality?

He admits:
I doubt that a single person in that chapel doubted for even an instant that every word that preacher said was literal fact. That Jesus himself had personally welcomed Brit into heaven and shown her to a private room in God's house, an actual house somewhere in the heavens ... Except me. I believe in prayer and God, but I was having a little trouble accepting all of this at face value.

I'm glad the author is so much more enlightened than his fellow attendees at the service. Of course, it's somewhat rude and perhaps narcissistic of him to believe he's the only one there who might not accept everything the preacher says at face value. However, he believes in prayer and God. Though he does have his limits. He's happy to believe in prayer, a practice that has never been proven to work by any objective standard. He's also happy to believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving magic man in the sky who watches over all the universe and is intimately interested in every single person on earth, their faith, and their behaviors. Of course the magic sky-man is not interested enough to prevent hunger, famine, pestilence, disease, murder, war, etc. I could go on, but you get the idea.

But, when it comes to believing the magic sky-man's "only begotten son" actually might have greeted the deceased and welcomed her into heaven and helped her to her place in the magic sky-man's house where she was promised she would find eternal joy and happiness he balks at the validity of that.

Just what exactly are the author's core beliefs and stance that so easily allow him to accept one set of myths but not another? A "true believer" might suggest his faith isn't strong enough if he can't accept both.

Got high on religion did he? Guess he forgot that with every "high" there is the eventual coming down from the high and possibly an associated hangover or withdrawal from whatever drug one uses. Whether that drug is alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, street drugs like cocaine or meth or the widely used and abused drug known as religion there is always a price to pay for the temporary high. The author's positioning of the preacher as a drug dealer, whether intentional or not, seems an apt analogy to the same sort of function as a street dealer of drugs. Just another huckster providing a product that for a few minutes or few hours allows one escape from real life and its troubles (or joys too) in exchange for selling one's soul.