If anyone out there remembers my "how I became an atheist" piece, Daz On The Road To Damascus, you may recall I mentioned that the initial spark which led to my Damascene moment was provided by a video of a chap, whose name I'd forgotten, talking of how he'd become an apostate of the Church of Scientology.
Well, Gentle Reader, a recent article over at The Freethinker about LRH's son reminded me of it, so I did a little googling and found the very video which started the process that turned me from atheist to Atheist—from a-religious to anti-religious.
What I found shocking, the first time I watched it—having, until then, had little to no exposure to strong religious belief—was how easily people—quite demonstrably "normal" people, rather than whackjobs—could be manipulated into believing such obvious rot. What struck me this time around, was that the only difference between this more modern religion and the more traditional forms, was age and terminology. Quite simply, it seems weirder not because it is weirder, but because there's not yet been enough time to for it become a socially normalised, and hence unremarkable, or even unperceived, weirdness. I've no doubt that if a child could be reared today in complete ignorance of traditional religion, and then suddenly exposed to "normal" religious belief in their twenties, they'd find that belief and those stories just as bat-shit crazy as Scientology. In fact, I'd venture to suggest, they'd see no real difference at all. Because, Gentle Reader, there isn't any.
Anyway, here's the video in question, in all its two-hour-long glory.
—Daz
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Hard to watch the whole thing. These people aren’t normal. They’re walking delusional hazards.
That’s the point I tried to make in my intro, though. Their delusion, and the “reality” they imagine is no more ludicrous than most other religions: it’s just that it seems more outré, as we haven’t all been surrounded for most of our lives by perfectly sensible-seeming people who believe this particular fantasy.
Replace Xenu with Satan, Cleared with Born Again or Saved. All it is really is a change of nomenclature.
That’s an extremely good point. I’m sure that if you never mentioned the idea of God to children until they were grown up, but gave them a very complete education in every other regard, almost none of them would invent ‘gods’ of their own, given scientific explanations (where available) to their questions.
Essentially, I don’t think there are any arguments for God which aren’t god-of-the-gaps arguments. And there aren’t many gaps left.
Stonyground says:
Once you start to examine it objectively, the Christian religion is completely absurd. I was brought up by rather moderate Methodists. As a child, you see everything that you are told by the adults around you as being perfectly reasonable. But it seems that only some of us grow up. I still find it hard to understand how people can grow into adults and not reject their religion’s silly fairy tales.