"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years."
Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872)
Religion is the perfect symbol of this world, at least according to someone who doesn't particularly like this world (or loathes it more than words can say).
This guy told that guy that God told him (this guy, not that guy or you) to give that guy money.
The same people who won't let you open a bank account because a bureaucrat hasn't provided the right documentation, will agree wholeheartedly 100% with all their rivals on a live election debate to unreservedly vouch for an unsigned copy of a copy of an ancient text indirectly telling people not to use condoms.
Dreams, hallucinations, paranormal claims, and drug induced perceptions all have one thing in common. While utterly convincing, they're fantastically dumb when studied closely. Allegedly, religion is the same.
One reason for atheism (not the best one) is that most religious tales are quite absurd. Yet somehow, their inventors realized this would make them more believable to the masses.
This alone proves to atheists that God was not involved in the creation of these tales, and in fact does not appear to exist at all. Of course, everything they have seen so far proves that.
There's nothing wrong with most faith adherents, but could someone at least invent a believable belief system?
Just because something is absurd doesn't mean it's true.
Of course religion is not entirely delusional: there are also suspected lies involved. These lies are believed to have been made by many highly revered prophets, for example, those of Islam and Mormonism.
Sometimes, if you want to get rich in this life, you must make extreme promises about the next life to get people's attention.
People don't want to give up their hard-earned money unless the expected benefits overwhelm their innate skepticism.
Many members and leaders understand what's really going on, but they agree to deceive each other and themselves.
At best, most religions represent wishful thinking about those areas where science is absolutely incapable of giving any answers.
Whatever you may think, it often is sincere.
Unfortunately, the best logical deductions (such as they are) are still likely to beat wish fulfillment in terms of accuracy.
If they absolutely had to guess, many scientists would say that the universe is ultimately meaningless, possibly even abhorrent.
In fact, religion may be the result of absolute terror. Reality could well be more horrible than we can imagine. Who's to say it's not?
Does that mean it would have been better if mankind had never existed? Quite probably.
On the other hand, things could have been much worse, at least on this planet.
This explains the phenomenon of sacrifice of time and wealth, the common element of most religions. Still, it's unclear how anyone could hope to bribe an infinite god.
The worst part is not the typical belief system itself, but how shallow it can be.
One of the most insulting examples was called 'Evan Almighty'. While I can't afford movies I read the detailed plot summary.
The experience of encountering God, if such a being were real, would be beyond anything a screenwriter could envision: the maximum tolerable stream of new insights, perceptions and paradoxes, instead of all the tired, mundane jokes seen in the movie. They could at least have tried, but of course the world remains inalterably mundane.
A human being wouldn't even be able to talk to God, no more than an atom could have a meaningful conversation with Carl Sagan.
Hollywood alone has the power to expose the largest audience to the most mind-bending ideas. They invariably do the opposite.
The best evidence for religion (and it's not very good evidence) is that something so obviously false still manages to prosper.
Some kind of mystical 'force field' may be preventing people from thinking clearly, which could require the constant intervention of a higher power.
It only affects this single subject. In other areas of life, people can think somewhat more clearly, or at least more normally.
There's usually only one 'master' religion possible in each region, with slightly different offshoots that strongly distrust each other. However, devotees can be persuaded to trade faiths if it's in their interest to do so.
More recently, some faiths (mostly Islam) have evolved to become less tolerant of the competition, which allows them to spread faster, until they may have to be confronted.
Does it actually make sense to believe in nonsense, if it can be scientifically proven (using double-blind trials) that the belief confers a real, measurable benefit? It might.
Religious people are happier. Perhaps prayer works like a mild antidepressant.
If there has to be a religion, a group of adherents should work together to invent the least implausible faith possible, or more likely several competing versions thereof.
It's fun to make up stuff! It also feels very meaningful to be at the start of a great adventure. Why accept some mainstream confabulation from long ago?
Religion represents a natural desire to organize the world. Ultimately, the goal will be to organize all of reality.
There appears to be a bias effect at work in the universe, which generates far more tiny minds like ours, than much larger or even infinite minds.
The most advanced faiths of the future may use anthropic reasoning to try to influence their members' destiny.
The most likely future mind state of any observer can be altered by controlling their current state. This would include erasing and even changing their memories.
It would probably still be wishful thinking.
Eventually, mankind will have to grow up, or at least evolve to the next level.
Ultimately, only logic may remain, and even emotions could become obsolete. Then humanity will no longer exist in any recognizable form.
The dangers of religion will only get worse.
Many strange changes lie ahead, and society will have to adapt in highly stressful ways before the century is over. Religion will continue to prosper and even expand, but it will have increasing trouble keeping up.
Finally, it will make an easy target.
There will be enough disappointed, angry, and frustrated people to put all religion to the test:
According to various scriptures, God has already personally 'spoken' to thousands of people. Now it's time to speak to mankind collectively.
There may come a day when hundreds of millions of people, if they dare, will transmit a collective message to God, perhaps through telepathic prayer attempts or merely by signing a pledge: show us one absolutely undeniable miracle that science can study and confirm (but not explain); or go away forever.
The best hard SF novel ever written: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
Soon to be banned in dozens of countries.
Buy the book
Read the chapters