Quotable Atheist/Religion and Children

Ever since I got this awesome book "The Quotable Atheist" edited by Jack Huberman, I regularly post a quote from it on twitter. Pretty much every day (except the weekends), unless I'm off or home sick (since I leave it at my desk).

Today's quote was pretty long, but very important to me, so I posted it along 4 tweets. (If you didn't know that's what a twitter post was called, you need to get out from under your rock. ;-P) I also wanted to post the little biography of the speaker that the book offers, but that too, is long, so I decided to post the whole thing on the blog instead and just link to it.

Quotable Atheist quote of the day:

"We are told that religion is natural; the belief in God universal. ...It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists, and were religion not inculcated into their minds they would remain so. Even as it is, they are great skeptics, until made sensible of the potent weapon by which religion has ever been propagated, namely, fear." -Ernestine Rose

Ernestine Rose (1810-1892), was a Polish-born feminist/abolutionist/atheist. Her father, a rabbi, broke with tradition and taught her to study the Torah in Hebrew. Created a monster. She rejected the Bible by age 14, left home at 17 and by 24 was giving speeches against slavery and for women's rights and religious freedom. A minister in Charleston South Carolina, forbade his congregation to listen to "this female devil." A Maine newspaper said she was "a thousand times below a prostitute."

Now that's MY kinda gal! I WISH I was HALF as cool as this chick! What she says here is also very important. One of the worst things about religion is the child abuse (and I'm not even TALKING about the rape of children by priests everywhere that's covered up by the Catholic church, this is a whole 'nother brand of horror...). Children are taught to fear god and hell in a way that is just disgusting. I know it's not the same everywhere. I wasn't THAT scared of it (though I didn't understand why my pets wouldn't meet me in heaven and I thought that kinda sucked), but I have heard horror stories of kids that are told people of other religions would not go to heaven only to realise their friends were of these religions. Can you imagine that? "If you're good, you'll get to go to heaven when you die, but your little friend Mary is doomed to burn in hell no matter what. Sorry."

What the fuck!? And just that idea alone is horrific! You will BURN IN HELL for ETERNITY just for the simple act of not believing (or merely believing in the wrong way)! Something is messed up right there. Argh. Speaking of which, there are places in this country where the religious actually create simulations of hell! To scare them! Are you kidding me?! And people are OK with this!!

I shouldn't be surprised. I read about THIS today, which makes me sick. Adoptive parents beating a child TO DEATH because of their religion that tells them to beat the silliness out of children to put them on the right path to god! It specifically tells them HOW to "disciple" (read: BEAT) their children.

I'm getting really pissed off. I have to end this now. But seriously. Religion sucks.


The End.