Why I Can't Just Let People Be Happy With Religion

So many in the atheist community have asked me why I cannot simply be satisfied with the position in society of being accepted without bigotry. It is a good question and one I feel that I should take a look at.

In the simplest possible terms, we, as human beings on planet earth, do not live in bubbles insulated from one another. Throughout human history, the studies on ethics, morals, law, philosophy, and of course, theology have strived to find ways we should behave around each other, and have yet to come to a concise solution. Generally, we know that what one believes impacts how we interact, how we vote, how we raise our kids, and how we build for tomorrow.

As an example, if you believe the world is 6000 years old and is a testing ground for the real life after, then you might tend to miss the scarcity and preciousness of this one. You might seek death as a form of delivery. If you think that this world is an illusion, you might be ready to take ever-riskier challenges to test this.

But belief has it's limits, and generally, when confronted by new evidence, beliefs change. Unless, of course, it is based on faith. Faith is the enemy of reason, a grand test of gullibility, and a sacrificial offering of our critical faculties. To distill what is so wrong about the great number of faiths in this world, is no easy task, yet I will attempt it. The essential fanaticism, the consideration of human life as vessels to our reward, as opposed to our sole form of verifiable existence. The fantasy of purity, one which punishes normal human actions as dirty, wrong, or sinful, created sick, and commanded to be well by a cruel designer who has allowed this experiment to go on.

Usually this faith-based creator has an insatiable thirst for uncritical praise, and usually in the manner by which the faithful has come to by his own interpretation of holy writ, and which allows the desired morals to be enacted in the name of said faith.

Rather than seeking an objective truth by finding common ground, the faithful are encouraged to continuously seek personal experiences which reveal a subjective truth, often fulfilling a personal bias they have already had. Rather than maintain curiosity, the faithful tend to close their minds off to other possibilities.

Those with faith tend to answer questions with ambiguous, non-answers. Q: Why?A:  God. Q:Why God? A: God. A:Oh, and Love. Q: Should I believe? A: Faith. These types of answers tend to close the book on learning and have independently never arrived at any further knowledge, objective understanding or information.

Faith tends to infect every aspect of society, often leading to malformed logic regarding Economics, Education, Social Programs, Scientific Advancement, and often leads to the promotion of pseudoscience. Faith is the primitive disease we have the cure for, and despite the attempts to stamp it out, it manages to infiltrate our 21st century society.

Is religion inherently built on Faith? I do not necessarily think so. So what would it take for religion to give up in order to be off my radar as a concern? Let me take from the eternal Christopher Hitchens:

"It would have to give up all supernatural claims... No you are not to do this under the threat of reward, heaven, or the terror of punishment, hell. No, we can not offer you miracles... It would have to give up the idea of an eternal, unalterable authority figure, who is judge, jury, and executioner against whom there could be no appeal, and who wasn't finished with you, even when you died.

That's quite a lot for religion to give up, don't you think?"