Religion's next ?

Africa, corporate gaming, trash TV. What's next in this blog ? Religion perhaps. I've been too busy with studies and work lately to have time delving into complex issues. And even if yesterday and today I saw two brief religion-related examples of what makes it a contribution to the rotten kind's achievements, it's such a dangerous topic that I'm still reluctant to talk about it.

What I find particularly shocking about religion is how it is perceived as something so important while it is actually something so meaningless. People think they come close to understanding the meaning of life while all they do is wasting their time and energy worshiping thin air. Just the concept of worship, in religion or in anything else for that matter, is highly revulsing to me. Worshiping or loving something which possibly does not exist, or even if it does, that you've never seen, that you don't know, is a grotesque thought. It would be like spending a life counting sand grains, it's pointless. Why people think more important to love what they don't know, a mere concept, than to love or fight for the right causes, the right people ?

It's so shocking to hear someone saying he helps the poors or the weaks because Jesus tells him to do so, or because he's spreading Jesus' love. Does it mean if Jesus doesn't exist or if this person was born before holy books were written, he wouldn't give a damn about the poors and the weaks ? If religion didn't exist, would he be just a heartless individual ?

Careful, I said I wouldn't start talking about all that today. But here's something I read on American Atheists which I think is quite close to the truth that each human being should understand as superior to any teachings of any religion:

"Your petitioners are Atheists, and they define their lifestyle as follows. An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist accepts that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth – for all men together to enjoy. An Atheist accepts that he can get no help through prayer, but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and to enjoy it. An Atheist accepts that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment."

The only part that I don't necessarily agree with is the "loves himself", I don't think loving oneself is so important, and it has nothing to do with atheism per se. The key point is to love, or at least respect, the others, at all cost. This is so important. It would defeat any antagonism that religion has created because each religion puts God above all else, then the individuals who worship him, while those who don't are perceived as evil scum. Religion just creates madness and hatred, there's nothing sane about religion. On the other hand, if you put others, other people as a whole, as an absolute, without including yourself, well, you can't hurt them anymore because it would go against the basis of your principles. Because even if an atheist believes in non-believing, he is still a man of principles.