The problem with free will is that it means humans can do shitty stuff. The bigger problem with free will is that when there’s an after-life or there’s reincarnation or something beyond what little time we have here, there isn’t a pressing need to improve the world around you or be a positive member of the community around you; this isn’t universal, many religions teach you to cherish the earth, but with any promise of some form of afterlife there will be people who will just not give a damn.

Enter Religion. Now we’ve got a bunch of guys claiming to know how God wants you to act and most of the time it’s decent but some of the time it’s horrific. Of course, the problem with religion is that most of the big ones are pretty loose about their moral restrictions; Christianity, in particular, allows complete forgiveness and acceptance to heaven for simply asking forgiveness on your death bed. It’s supposed to be sincere, but the priest providing the last rites has no special ability to discern sincerity. So you can do whatever the fuck you want to as long as you feign sincerity long enough to ask forgiveness.

The reason you can do whatever you want is this ephemeral promise of eternity. So what’s a benevolent God to do? Convince people he doesn’t exist! Without the supernatural crutch of God, people would have to get their act together, do unto others and all that good stuff; you’ve only got one life, so you better not fuck it up. So you wanna know my theory? I think that if God existed, he would be working towards an atheist world where they follow his principles because they think it’s best, not because He thinks it’s best.

You want to know the really insidious thing about this? This means, that religion is a creation of the devil. Yeah. I know. It’s fucked. By creating religion, the devil co-opted God’s kick-ass plan. And the best thing about it (that devil is really tricky) is that God can’t interfere. He can’t come down and say “No! There is no God! Do not follow these religions which the devil has created!” because he would then be co-opting his own plan. Some people say that “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he didn’t exist” but that’s wrong; the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that God does.

I moved back to Brampton after spending eight months in Guelph for school a few days ago and had to reorganize my entire room to allow for the new computer desk and to fit in the couch I have for relaxation. It’s fucking sweet. Anyways, one of the things I had to do was reorganize my bookshelf where I store my books and DVDs as I had purchased a few books and quite a few DVDs in the past eight months. So I took everything out and put it back in. Today I glanced over there for no reason in particular and discovered that one of my books was upside down. This was the only book in the shelf that was upside down so it wasn’t a frequent mistake made in the haste of the process. This book was the Holy Bible. I’m so subconsciously sacrilegious.

You know who’s retarded? Those stupid atheists who get offended whenever God is mentioned. The atheist who refuses “God bless you” because he doesn’t believe in God. Let’s be honest: “God bless you” has become little more than a courtesy in our society. It has no real significant religious connotation. It’s like being offended by the word holiday. Our language and culture is a certain way and if you would prefer to not have that culture and language, live somewhere that doesn’t have them.

You know who else is retarded? Christians who lump all atheists (typically including weak atheists, strong atheists, agnostics, and even non-Christian theists, all of which I will differentiate in a later post) into one single group and treat them accordingly. Not only are there various levels of theistic belief, but there are also assholes at every level.

The atheist who refuses “God bless you” or tries to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance is just being an asshole who thinks his personal beliefs should be enforced on the rest of the world. I do understand that the pledge was modified early in the 20^th century to include the God statement and it has no place in a pledge to a nation which claims to have a separation of church and state, but the net effect it has on you is nil. No child, sitting in class as they recite the pledge, is seriously examining it to make sure they follow it religiously: they’re droning on by rote.

The Christian who pities the atheist or condemns the atheist for their “immoral” ways is an asshole who thinks that he must declare to people who disagree with their moral compass that they are wrong. The Christian who tries to place his Christian values into the secular laws of the state is an asshole who thinks his personal beliefs should be enforced on the rest of the world.

Both sides have assholes who should be ignored for being assholes.