The One True Religion

What makes you so damn sure God believes in us?

Rev. Gianni D'Oro, from Conversations with the Lunatics

Religion has given us the Dark Ages, the crusades, the inquisition, the holocaust, the 6-day war, the Armenian genocide, the war in Kosovo, the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the civil war in Iraq, the civil war in Lebanon, the intifada (Parts I & II, Part III coming soon to a Holy Land near you), the wars of ‘48 and ‘56 against Israel, the genocide in Darfur, the recent bombings in Madrid, Bali, and London and, of course, the events of September 11^th 2001. That list does not include the thousands of uncountable skirmishes, melees, kerfuffles, commotions, riots, battles, conflicts, fights, campaigns, hostilities, hot wars, cold wars, sorties, actions, assaults, frays, engagements, scrimmages, suicide bombings, clashes, disputes, feuds, rumbles, romps, pogroms, quarrels, blitzkriegs, flaps, fusses, tussles, massacres, assassinations, brawls, scuffles, spats, squabbles, tiffs, altercations, scraps, scrapes, fights, rows, ruckuses, tumults, rhubarbs, rumpuses, slaughters, hassles, donnybrooks, beefs, and branigans throughout the ages which ended in death for some, or all, of the participants, merely because they believed in something different than someone else.

The history of mankind is largely the history of brutal horrors and bloodshed visited upon millions and millions and millions of innocent people because they had the temerity, the gall, to believe in something that was intended only to honor God.

Think about that for half a moment. Someone wants to kill you because you believe that God wants us to pray five times a day and he believes that God wants us to pray just once a week. And that guy over there wants to kill me because he thinks God wants us to pray standing up while I pray sitting down. And that other guy prays on his knees but somewhere else they have to pray whilst licking their own navels.

All religions are man-made. Every last one of them. Whether you wear a funny hat, fall to your knees, pray in a dead language, burn a candle, light some incense, spin like a top, bow down, stand up, hang from hooks embedded in your skin, drink strychnine, eat peyote, play with snakes, sit in the dark, wrap some funny boxes around your head, stick arrows though your face, stay a virgin, or play with your poop, every religious practice was invented by men.

Here’s where mankind gets even more ridiculous, if such a thing is possible: none of the parties involved in this bloodletting are disputing God, the disputes are only about the different ways to honor God. It’s as if I wanted to kill you because you believe in the color blue and I believe in ... apples. Looking through the broad lens of the past, people who believe in religion honor Him most often with the spilled blood, broken bodies and crushed skulls of people who believe something a little different.

Right now, as you read this, Christians, Jews, Muslims (Sunni and Shiite), Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, Falun Gongs, animists, and maybe even Jainists and Zoroastrians, are being killed because of their religious beliefs. Probably no Southern Baptists or Mormons are being killed at this moment, but that might just be an oversight on someone’s part that will be rectified soon enough.

But also right now there is another group of people who are not being killed for their religious beliefs. In fact, throughout history, this single group of people have never been subjected to systemic slaughter for religious reasons. That makes them unique in the annals of history. They live among us in every country of the world, they are part of every race and color, they are our neighbors and colleagues and friends and relatives and yet their kind have never been subjected to religious persecution. Ever. No genocides, no holocausts, no kerfuffles have ever been waged against them.

At this moment not a single agnostic is being killed for their beliefs (or lack thereof).

As a person who believes in a religion or even just identifies their self as belonging to a religion, you must ask this question: Why is my God killing my people?

Oh no, you say, not in my religion, my religion teaches that man has free will; it is man with his free will that is killing my people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all religions have that loophole, bub. But still you may protest, my God isn’t killing my people because He is a loving God. Have you read the Old Testament or the Quran? Don’t you know that your God, Allah, the God of Abraham, Jesus’ daddy, is completely capable of, and comfortable with, smiting any one of you? It says so in all the books you say He has written. Please, spend some time reading Numbers to see how often He kills His own followers because of some minor infraction. Read your own stories and you will know that He, the Creator of the Universe, is vain and petty and jealous and He will joyfully have you whacked just for walking with a Midanite woman or gathering firewood on the Sabbath. It says so in your books.

Still, if you are incapable of believing in a brutal God, a recidivist God, an insecure, neurotic God demanding only of feckless fealty, and that your God is now only kind and beneficent despite all the documented evidence of his brutal past, then you must ask yourself this question, Why is my God, the one true God of the one true religion, allowing these filthy heretics and infidels (may God curse them!) to slaughter my people?

Do the math and know that this twisted human equation has but a single correct answer: God hates religion. The only people who are not being killed for their religious convictions are those who don’t have any. Which means, obviously, that the agnostics are the secret Chosen People. They are the only ones that God is not killing or allowing to be killed by other religious zealots, and it has always been that way throughout history.

Religion equals hate, hate becomes death, death is the wages of belief. Religion is dripping in the blood of believers, while no one has ever, in the recorded history of manunkind, waged war against the agnostics. Therefore God is clearly on the side of the non-believers out there, not yours, and He is slowly killing those who believe in religion. God hates religion and He is glad to let other believers kill you.