F. A. Karner AIX Technical Support | karner@austin.vnet.ibm.com
writes in part, replying to Matt Ivaliotes:
>> >|> >What is there that prevents you from being a Christian?
>I used to be one, then I thought better of it. Religion has its roots
>in ignorance and superstition. Over time, religions have built
>incredibly convoluted and implausible scenarios in support of the basic
>premise: the existence of god. Followers are required to believe, lest
>they be condemned to eternal damnation. The brainwashing artifices used
>are among others, faith, dogmas, ostracism, discrimination, persecution,
>etc. Kind of reminds me of that tenet of nazi propaganda: the bigger
>the lie, the more people are inclined to believe it!
Another view is that religion has its origins in light and truth, but,
the human bearers of it being human as they are, over the ages it becomes
encrusted with corruptions and superstitions, and also becomes sclerotic
and hardened, closing itself off to the new understanding and enlightenment
required by the human soul as it grows and evolves.
The difference between true religion and Nazism is that with the former, even
if its form has become as brittle and crumbled as a dead leaf, you can still
detect traces of the once living form -- even it the fullness of its original
intricacy and integrity cannot always be clearly discerned -- whereas the
latter was constructed out of artificial, dead substances - lies - in the first place and was twisted and ugly from the beginning. The living plant that
ages and dies always brings forth a new seed from which it can rise again
in renewed freshness. The one that was dead to begin with must be reconstruc-
ted again by force of lies, by those who serve the "father of lies".
