Religion Chokes the Human Spirit.

I haven't posted any content in awhile, so here are some Oldies to make up for it. New post coming soon.
Religion chokes the human spirit.

Never in history has the human race witness a more destructive or harmful force as religion. looking back through history, various religions are responsible for countless wars, deaths, and atrocities.
What nobody has bothered asking is "Why?".
Why do we mindlessly follw these 5,000 year old mistakes. yes, prior to man's remote understanding of the world around us, we needed some way to explain our surroundings.
1. How did we get here?
A- the universe burst into existence (method is up to you, who really cares?) and on a small planet in this universe your species evolved into sentience. congrats, your theoretical intelligence has put you at the top of the food chain.

2. Where do we go when we die?
A- does it really matter? nobody knows until they get there, and nobody who gets there can come back and tell you, so debating this question is EXTREMELY academic and pointless. if you want to believe that you'll be reincarnated, believe that, if you want to believe that you exist then you cease to exist, then believe that. the answer to this question can only be decided by you and it doesn't really matter anyways.

3. What do we do til then?
A- You live stupid! you go out into the world, learn about it, try to improve it, try to fix the things you decide are wrong with it. these are all highly natural things to do with one's existence.

Therefore-
You do not need a organized religion to explain all of this to you, I just finished explaining it all to you. religion was originally established with the basis of one person coming to a conclusion about the world around him, he tells the people around him, and if they agree then this becomes a point in their religious view of the world.

The Human Problem-
While the concept of quenching fears is a good one, it has a problem. Humans have the unhealthy natual desire to control other creatures, including other humans. nowhere has this power been so great as it is in religion.
For example-
one human comes up with a basic religious belief. I.E. the sun is able to warm us and to burn us, it must therefore be a god. to a unknowing person this is a reasonable belief. but what if one person comes up with a way to gain benefit from this? a crafty human states the next possible conclusion. I.E. If the god is burning us, we must have made it unhappy. we should give it food to make it happy so it'll stop burning us. the people leave food for the god, the crafty person eats the food. the people see this as proof that the god exists, thus granting the crafty person more power if he so decides to use it.

thats just one example of how insanely religion can be used for personal gain. here are a few historical examples:
1- the jews were led to believe that every time the committed a sin, they must slaughter and burn a food animal to pay for their sin. now who can come to gain from this? nearly anyone. someone who is dishonest and raises food animals can raise the price of their food animals because of the scarcity this custom creates. if the tradition is to sacrfice lambs, then lamb meat skyrockets in value. you can even see how these con-men tried to keep a lock on their market, in judaism pork and shellfish were considered "unclean" religiously, so they could not be eaten, and could not be sacrficed. furthermore you have the people who perform the ceremony. they can now charge whatever price they want to let these people sacrifice the food animal in the "proper way". and again even the people who introduced the concept of what is a sin can profit or gain from their neighbor's suffering. a wealthy man with many wives (as the hebrews had back then)wouldn't need to worry about adultery, so making it a sin would only punish the people who were too poor to support a wife. therefore the rich could easily get richer under the guise of looking religious.

2- the Hindus believe that each person is reincarnated from a previous form. this in itself is not a bad thing. what gets bad is the rating of each form of life. someone born a man is inherinetly better than someone born a woman, and both of them are better than someone born into the untouchable class. the untouchables being one of the most clever and wicked religious cons of all time. somebody managed to convince an entire group of people that they were a lower form of life than insects and that the most they could ever hope to gain from this incarnation would be to serve one of the higher incarnations or to die quickly.

3- and don't start laughing at the hindu's too soon christians, let us not forget that christianity managed to convince everyone that black people were a sub race spawned by the devil and that the best they could hope for would be to serve the white people.

I can keep going, but i think you get my point.
All of these terrible things were done with the pretext of religion, and as time went on the more complicated the mythology became and the more brutal the scams became.
During the Catholic reign over europe the catholic church literally would charge people money to buy their way into heaven, yet again letting the rich get richer for doing nothing more than upholding a lie that their ancestors put into place. (yes folks, the catholic church was a family business)

Now here are my questions and I don't expect to get any real answers.
1- why do you hold onto a mythology that hurts you?

2- why do you not seek vengence against those who did these injustices?

3- why not come up with something better?

honestly folks, theres gotta be better religious answers to those three intial questions posed than the answers the organized religions give us. don't get me wrong, I have no problem with mythology on a personal basis. but I have a serious problem with people attempting to control other people through their intellectual weakness.
yes i said it, intellectual weakness. mythology is the answer for the people who are too mentally unsure to accept the utter lack of real answers the universe has left us with.
There are no real answers.
Either accept your mythology for what it is, a crutch. or give up on it entirely.

Personally I believe in reincarnation. I believe that the world makes more sense to me if souls constantly live their lives and then go through it all over again.
have I joined the hindu faith?
No
have I joined the buddhist faith?
No
I simply believe what I feel I need to believe to function in this world without answers and I move on.
You should do the same.
Believe what you Need.
Not what you're Told.

and if someone ever says to you "Hey, why don't you come join my religion?" PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE! if you discover someone else's path and decide you'd like something similiar for yourself, thats fine. but remember,
Strangers who come knocking on your door ALWAYS want to sell you something, regardless of what they tell you.