Sunday, February 07, 2010

The ridiculousness of religions

Religion - for some mysterious reasons - is a very sensitive subject.

Actually it's quite understandable that you would feel a little awkward if someone tells you that what you believe is ridiculous.

Well, how else would you define things like:
- there is a god so powerful that at one point he decided to create the universe (makes you wonder what was he doing before... must have been bored in that void!) in six days, but yet he had to rest on the seventh... (was he pooped!?)
- this god created one male and one female human beings that weren't worth his trust (that is easier to believe) and ended up screwing all up for everyone else to come, by eating an apple offered by a talking snake...
- at one point later on, the son of this god came to the world by the means of a miraculous conception of a virgin (feel sorry for Joseph)
- this guy was able to walk on water and make plenty more tricks like that, including dying and resurrecting after three days... that's right!
- a prophet called Jonah got swallowed by a whale and survived three days in her belly
- a wolf ate a grandma and took her place in order to trick and eat the granddaughter too... no wait, is that a different book?

Anyway, I just saw a great, funny and thought provoking movie (Netflix rocks!) called Religulous and I strongly recommend it to everyone, believer or non believer. Because it's about time to realize that those damn religions for ages have been the way for the governs of justifying wars, invasions, and other unacceptable behaviors and rules of all kinds.

Accidentally - or not - they also screwed up many aspects of our life. I wrote this a few years ago. Fortunately, despite the incredible level of sexual repression still present in the western countries, I had a pretty free and fun sex life so far. Nonetheless, I sure would have had even more fun (read: more women) had those incredibly unnatural rules not been invented thousands of years ago.

Here's the trailer of the movie: Bill Maher, what a guy. He's got a blog too.




On a completely different note, just in case I still have some readers by now, I'd like to report that, after three days at home, today I felt better and hit the water for a light wind wave sailing session that ended up being quite remarkable.
Here's the aspects that contributed to its specialness:
- as I said, I had just been sick for three days
- while parking I met Pascal and he said it wasn't that good and that lowered my already low expectations
- it was me, Glenn and Anatol
- I don't exactly know what happened, the wind turned more sideshore, the tide hit the low and started to fill in, but something did happen and we had a magic hour of really, really clean, glassy and peeling waves.
- the colors were unbelievable. Thanks to the light wind, you could see the rocks on the bottom like in an aquarium
- it was Superbowl sunday. Since I got here 9 years ago, Superbowl sunday has always provided me with great sessions.

Feels good to feel good. Especially considering that next week is a wavy (and windy) one...

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wowee GP, I make not comment re. religion but I wonder who made the waves come just right for you to have a good sail?

Anne

Anonymous said...

Michelle and Ulli's comments on the linked post are funny.

John said...

I love that movie and thought it was amazingly insightful and hilarious. I am a very privately spiritual person and know how important it is to have that element in your life. Fo rme, it isn't organized religion, but for many of my friends and family it is. Whatever works for you, whatever brings you peace and joy, fulfillment, whatever, get on it. But when religions ride pessimism and hatred, fear and violence, it's time to reconsider... In any case, I'm a reader and I subscribe to your posts. Glad you're feeling better. More bikini photos and a luchador mask and you're golden. Let me know if you need one.

Sincerely,
JB

cammar said...

Anne,
those waves were generated by a storm that passed north of the islands a few days ago. If you want to learn more about what create waves, there's many books I can recommend...

John,
the risk there is that if you believe for a lifetime in organized religion stuff, then it's easy to be fooled by your president that says:"we have to fight this war, because god in on our side..."

Dave said...

Like John said "privately spiritual". In this world we are mostly free to live and believe as we wish.I was raised in a religious home and still carry my core beliefs, but at the same time have many issues with it. It gives me personal peace to have my beliefs. And really, that is all that matters.
As far as you not getting as much 'fun' as you could if people weren't hung up on religion? Maybe your game needs some work ;)

cammar said...

Has anyone ever got a:"I would but I can't because I'm married..."?
That's what I mean.
Read the freeasadog post, and it will be even more clear.

James Douglass said...

GP- Don't worry, you've still got readers! And I agree 100% with what you're saying about religions being crazy. Another good documentary I saw on that theme was "the God who wasn't there". That one goes into more detail, analyzing the origins of the different stories in the Bible, and basically concluding that yeah, it is mostly just made-up fairy tales.

Meesh said...

Are you saying that the wolf didn't eat Grandma?!! That's disturbing, I've believed that for 35 years. What's are you going to tell me in the next post..... that there is no Santa Claus??!! My world is in ruins.

Anonymous said...

I'm all with you GP.Their have been more war's fought on the behave of religious believe than any other kind.I do understand John ,but religion seems to be used to control people rather than help

Mikey said...

Amen.

Or I think we'd both prefer: Ah women!

Anonymous said...

After reading a "relatively" serious post Michael's simple comment made me laugh out loud and that surely is what life is all about!

Anne

Unknown said...

Must say i totally agree with you GP. The problem is religion isn´t based on logic and therefore it can be really difficult to discuss religion with religilous people.
Simply because there beliefs aren´t based on logic and therefore it´s impossible to have a logical discussion on the matter.

But anyway, love your blog!

cammar said...

Blog reader Mats, sorry but there's still some stupid people that would give me shit if I publish the name of some spots, and I prefere to avoid conflicts.

Blog reader Philipp says that from Germany he can see the movie in 10 minutes segments on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HKHaClUCw4
It's not available in the USA, which makes sense, otherwise noone would make movies like that anymore.

Thanks everyone for the comments.

Anonymous said...

waaaaaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! religion! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Unknown said...

This whole argument about there have more wars fought over religion is simply fiction, please use another excuse to hate God. Example, Hitler, Mao, Kim Jong Il, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hirohito, Attila the Hun, etc, not exactly men of the cloth. Shall I continue with examples, these are the most murderous people who ever walked the earth?
As an engineer Cammar I am utterly surprised that a person of organization and of rule and design can so quickly dismiss out of hand a creator of this wonderfully complex system called the universe and chalk it up to a cosmic burp. Where did it all come from? Also other errors, the bible said fruit, not apple, Jonas was swallowed by a fish, not a whale, god created the universe with increasing complexity, and his rest was for him to enjoy his handiwork and to model for us our division of labor/rest not because he was tired.

Otherwise I enjoy your blog. Thanks for letting me be as free to share my view as you share your's.

George Markopoulos said...

amen to that Robert

Arnie said...

Absolutely agree. Religion, I think (believe...???) is in essence good, but man who practices it is corrupt and exploits it for its own little interests. Religions, I think (believe...???) are meant and instated to make sure we don't wack, screw, pervert, corrupt, etc the peepee out of each other; instead we tend to use it to do just that. We all boil down to own simple thing: we're all human and hence not different. Just leave it like that and we can keep our own little power trips at home: One doesn't need a religion to be a good person! Though it often turns out the other way (I guess I said the same thing three times but differently...LOL)

Anonymous said...

Boring article....it sounds a personal matter. Maybe GP did not get what he was expecting!!!!!
More, anyone is free to say no for whatever reason, even without a reason!!!!

Anonymous said...

nice post. thanks.