Religious belief encourages shifting the blame, avoidance of responsibility. You can pray for the president to die and blame it all on god, or the Book, or the god’s evil twin/nemesis. Superstitious beliefs encourage putting the blame for our shortcomings on the alignment of the stars, our karma, crystal vibrations or breaking a mirror. It’s a common human tendency to think more highly of ourselves and when forced to acknowledge a failure to live up to our self-image, to find something to blame that on. In others words, to avoid responsibility. Religious belief offers lots of scapegoats. Sacrificial lambs, if you will. They pay for your sins so you don’t have to. How convenient, how irresponsible.

When you strip away the supernatural and superstitious you are left with the inescapable conclusion that each of us is responsible for ourselves. We ought to own both the positive and negative within us.

Gods don’t ask people to kill other people people kill people and blame it on their god. God doesn’t hate anything, people hate things and claim that their god shares their opinions.

It’s pathetic to use religion as an excuse for inhumane behavior. We who do not believe hold every person responsible for their own words, thoughts and actions.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why We’re Superstitious (time.com)
• The Bigger Question (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)

Print Friendly