I’m firmly of the opinion that the thing, the one thing, that elevates man from the animals is the spiritual. Certainly physically, man is just an animal in every respect.

My mum didn’t like that, but you know, I can’t get too upset about that. Biologically, we are animals. That’s all we are. Ethically, sometimes I’m not so sure either that we aren’t either. We need some ethics. Some spiritually redeeming features, for us to be judged as anything beyond animals.

Maybe I’m being judgemental – but we need to make judgements somewhere on some grounds, so here are mine.

If you’re a liar, or a cheater, ever stolen from someone, ripped someone off, beaten someone up, mugged someone, stolen someone’s identity, committed fraud, forged a credit card, hack a computer or a website, written a computer virus, dropped a bomb, started a war, ripped off the public for profit, married someone for money, started a war in the divorce courts to squeeze money out of someone who hasn’t got any, lied about someone and known you’ve been doing it, then you’re an animal, you haven’t got any morals, you’re irresponsible and stupid. You’re no longer human in my eyes.

Basically, if you’ve ever abused a position of power and been a shitty person, you’re just an animal.

Easy.

But let me explain to you why I feel so vehemently against religion.

A spiritual belief in the existence of a higher deity, undefined and undetectable by our pathetically limited sense (after all, we can’t even see television programmes or hear radio transmissions without a decode), is an entirely rational, and actually, very humble philosophy to adapt.

To live one’s life knowing that one is smaller, less intelligent, less powerful, that another life form, and to have a belief in the better nature of such a life form, requires an essentially humble and hopeful agenda.

And further than that, to participate in a religion that is basically an organised gang of spiritual snobs, and to then believe that you’re going to some invisible, vague paradise where you can get everything you want as long as you follow some contradictory and archaic commandments is just plain deluded.

Of course, delivery of this paradise is dependent upon your death. Beyond which there is no return. Beyond which, you have no comeback. God’s selling the Ultimate Timeshare Flat.

Sure, there’s the ten commandments and by and large they are generally pretty good guidelines for living your life ethically : don’t covet people’s oxon, don’t murder people, the usual. And some of them are absolutely crackers : the usual, perverse interpretation of statements that somehow makes it ethical to stone gays and burn people who believe in God’s of different names. That’s exactly what my merciful God orders isn’t it?

Yep, God told me to burn these gays, and to torture these people who don’t believe in him? That’s My God, the merciful one.

So, part of the reason I can’t stand religion is because his fanclub are just so basically fundamentally stupid. Questions are blasphemy and a God that can’t justify or explain himself is just a charlatan who hasn’t got his story straight yet in my book.

BURN THE BOOKS

Whatever Jesus was, he probably wasn’t the guy they write about. Whoever they’re writing about probably didn’t exist and certainly not in that form.

Nonetheless, lets move on from that and uncover a couple of more reason why I don’t like religion. What God is so insecure he needs other people to close down his competitors? Aren’t there enough afterlife’s available? What exactly is God’s beef with other religions? It’s not as if he is, you know, got sole franchise on the human race . And if he has, I’m calling the Monopolies commission right now, because I don’t want only one truth, one way, one life. I quite fancy a choice when it comes to choosing my eternal-life providers now. Single Market Salvation never provides the best deal.

I’ve long had some beliefs of my own. Religion is for the weak. Religious wars are perpetuated by the insecure and the stupid, and the sooner that humans realise that there is only one race, only one tribe, only one earth, and that fighting people who believe in slightly different Gods is the pinnacle of stupidity then maybe we as a whole will evolve and find paradise for everyone. In the meantime of course, there’ll be plenty of martyrs going to heaven, plenty of pointless, stupid deaths, and the near extinction of all of mankind.

And when you die, and there is nothing, what do you get? A refund? An ISA? Some alternate option because your investment was sold to you by a charlatan? Nope, nothing. I’m not making an investment like that. I’m not believing in someone who cannot prove he doesn’t exist, someone or something that’s too chickenshit to show it’s face, that relies only on lies, half-truths, deceptions and beliefs. You wanta believer God, well come out and show yourself.

I believe in things when I see them. I believe in things that I know are real, are true. I don’t believe in things that I can’t prove, can’t see. Show yourself if you’re there. You, God, only ask for one thing : belief. And I only ask for one thing : proof. If you can rescind your demand, then I’ll rescind mine. Easy.

Now, in the meantime, being Lord and God and being you know, thoughtful and forgiving, if I don’t believe in God, or religion, then please forgive me.