

I have this bumper sticker and a few others on my car and boy do they get the looks! Especially on Sunday mornings back in Kentucky when the mini-van full of mom, dad, and the kids all dressed up for church pull up behind me at the stoplight. It is a trip to watch them peer over the dashboard while their lips move as they slowly figure out what the stickers actually say about god and hell and… Then you watch them pull back shaking their heads. I’ve never had any recoil in disgust or anything but I did have one lady pass me and say she would pray for me. Given the look on her face and the force of her words, I wasn’t sure exactly where she might be supplicating the Deity to have me to wind up.

But think about it, is this incredibly obnoxious or what: The common practice in the world’s main religions to condemn the rest of humanity to eternal gruesome punishment for not believing or behaving in a precise manner pleasing to their god?

There is no better example of the “Arrogance of Religious Thought” than believing you are superior enough in your thinking and behavior that you can suppose, demand, or feel certain another human will spend an eternity suffering in some omnipotent prick’s fiery medieval torture chamber.

What an asshole idea, whose time has come to be relegated forever to the dustbin of history.

Merriam-Webster defines “arrogant” thusly:

“having or showing the insulting attitude of people who believe that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people: having or showing arrogance”

People like the street preachers that rail against our sins of fornication and masturbation (why do they always pick on the fun stuff?) and the spate of “macho” pastors like these two bozos:



Mark Driscoll.



Dean Saxton.

DB’s who are so certain you are a slut, a fornicator, a fag deserving of hellfire.





How more arrogant can anyone get?

Even the supposedly kinder reincarnation religions of Buddhism and Hinduism relegate the unbelieving scum and sinners to eternal pain and sorrow through reincarnation of the soul into another round of suffering in this existence if not directly into a full blown conception of hell…

from the Wiki:

“Naraka (Sanskrit: नरक) is the Hindu equivalent of Hell, where sinners are tormented after death. It is also the abode of Yama, the god of Death. It is described as located in the south of the universe and beneath the earth.”

A shitty, bleak outlook if there ever was one.

We usually think of Xiansanity™ and Islamania™ as the main promoters of the idea of sinners and apostates and heretics deserving of eternal torment, but along with the Hindu beliefs above, here’s the world famous Tibetan Buddhist and all around nice guy, the Dalai Lama himself on the subject:

“I really wish there were no suffering in this world and no suffering after death. I wish there were no hells or ghost regions. But it would not be wise to believe that these do not exist and to continue in the negative ways that draw the mind down to these realms. The distance between our present existence and the hells could be as short as a single breath.”

AND

“Some people doubt the existence of the hell realms. However, many independent cultures speak of these realms, and there are people with clairvoyant powers who can perceive them. In Buddhism it is said that through meditation we can develop certain extraordinary powers of memory ourselves and thus recollect some of our previous lives, in which case we would be able to remember our own experiences in hell.”

I’ve taken a lot of shit from some folks on Facebook especially for daring to diss the Dalai Lama, cuz he is such a sweet guy (he does seem to be). I’ve critiqued his rather ludicrous beliefs on divination and reincarnation before and was amazed to find the depth of his delusions, but now clairvoyance and memory of past lives too? And tell me the bullshit above about hell he professes is any less ridiculous and delusional than any Muslim or Xian claim about the unbearable suffering in the afterlife that awaits us if we fuck up.

It is incredible in its delusion and especially its arrogance. People, we can do better than this.

No-one thinks like this unless indoctrinated by the pious into one religion or another.

Arrogance, delusion, fantasy repeated with the false certainty of religious sanction.

We need to drop religious thoughts and behaviors such as there being an eternal, gruesome, and deserved suffering of others who weren’t indoctrinated into our set of cultural myths.

Child indoctrination is the only thing that perpetuates this cruel nonsense.

Like slavery, eternal damnation is one of humanity’s worst ideas.

Let’s move on.

End Religion Now.



Damn, Let’s get on with it.

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