Religious Customs
Are Amazingly Stupid

The Chinese make paper replicas of houses, animals, utensils, tools, and burn them on the raves of their departed relatives, claiming that this sends them to the spirit of the departed who can thus use them in the spirit world. Similar customs prevail in the religions of many primitive races. But Christians deride the silly custom, and all sensible people kn

ow that it is childish, as reason does not approve the ritual.

Christian customs are just as ridiculous. Eating pinches of bread and sipping wine or grape juice are supposed to give the Christian a taste of the flesh and blood of Christ -- of course, the bread and wine must first be blessed by the priest or preacher, and by magic incantations and abracadabra, rig-a-ma-role and hocus-pocus transferred into the things it is claimed to be. It is thus impossible for the Christian church to get away from the cannibalistic theory of blood sacrifices, which is the tail end of the old primitive cannibalistic customs even now practiced by some savage tribes, of eating their enemies in order to partake of their valor art courageous qualities. The old Mexican Aztec custom of eating or cutting out the heart of its brave young men is similar. The whole of religion is based on morbidity. Anything promoting happiness is supposed to be wrong.

The Christian religion has attacked sex and sex desire as one of the greatest sins. Catholic priests are supposed to be celibates, and nuns and monks are required to take an oath that they will never have sexual satisfaction. Why did the church not attack God for making men desirous of fulfilling the sex instinct? But this queer custom, like that of the Chinese, once started, never stops.

We think that the Tibetan Lamas system of saying prayers by having the wind turn paddles, and rivers turn water wheels with prayer printed or written on them is foolish. But the Tibetan thinks these systems of appeasing the Almighty are just as efficacious as the counting of the Rosary by Catholics.

There is no logical explanation for these things. There is no reasonable explanation for the Christians' attitude toward sex, but it is well illustrated by the stories printed in the "London Freethinker":

"A parson's daughter in failing health took up a position in a farmhouse, and, after a few weeks gave it up. Asked by the farmer's wife, who had done her utmost for the girl, if she could give her anything more, she replied: 'I lack nothing, but I cannot stay here any longer -- the poultry are so disgustingly immoral.'"

"An elder, who lived in the same Scottish village, kept a few fowls. On Sunday the old follower of Calvin gave only his hens their liberty. The cocks he tethered to the table legs. 'It wadnae doe,' said he, 'tee let them disgrace ma sacred callin by gaen them freedom, the wandering vagabonds to gang aboot fornicating the Lord's day.'"

Whole tribes of primitive people have been wiped out or nearly exterminated by the Christian missionaries' insane zeal for putting clothes on tropical tribesmen whose skins had been exposed to the healthy air and Sun from time immemorial.

If god had wanted people to be prudes, why did he fill their bodies and minds with desire? If it was a sin to exercise sex desires, why did he not create man without sex organs? Why did he not make priests from the beginning without them, as certain insects are so born? Or why does not the Catholic Church unsex all of its nuns, monks, and priests?

The head-hunting tribes of Borneo require that a man must cut off some person's head, man or woman or child, before he can be called a man and marry. What a stupid custom, we think; no reason, no sense. How did it originate? Of course there are psychological causes which are not founded on reason: but once started such customs survive as long as there is a profit in them for someone.

For example the strange and primitive ritual of baptism. Nothing more childish could be imagined. Why does the silly rite continue? Probably because the preacher or priest gets from 50¢ to $5 every time he sprinkles a drop or two of water on a child's head and chants a few tunes and mumbles a few meaningless words.

On the battle field priests are supposed to rush to dying men and administer last rites. If they would put their efforts into trying to save these men from death their efforts would be more practical. When a man is unconscious what matter is it to him what mumbling some cleric makes over him?[The case against religion].

ANIMALS ARE KILLED TO THIS DAY TO APPEASE THE SUPPOSEDLY MERCIFUL GOD! 
"The superficial truth is some times a blatant lie.While the errors of History can never be accidental:the writer only knew what was known at the time.[Brokaan] 

Today, Islam is the only religion that practices blood sacrifice as a ritualistic norm on huge scale, which increase by the year! An animal sacrifice in Arabic is called ḏabiḥa (ذَبِيْحَة) or Qurbani (قُرْبَان). The term may have roots from the Jewish term Korban; in some places such as in Pakistan, qurbani is always used for Islamic animal sacrifice. In the Islamic context, an animal sacrifice referred to as ḏabiḥa (ذَبِيْحَة) meaning "sacrifice as a ritual" is offered only in Eid ul-Adha. The sacrificial animal may be a lamb, a sheep, a goat, a camel, or a cow. The animal must be healthy and conscious. "Therefore to the Lord turn in Prayer and Sacrifice." (Surah Al-Kawthar) Quran, 108.2 Qurbani is an Islamic prescription for the affluent to share their good fortunes with the needy in the community. On the occasion of Eid ul Adha (Festival of Sacrifice), affluent Muslims all over the world perform the Sunnah of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) by sacrificing a cow, camel, goat or sheep. The meat is then divided into three equal parts. One part is retained by the person, who offers the holy sacrifice to Allah. The second is given to his relatives. The third part is distributed amongst the poor. The Qur'an states that the sacrifice has nothing to do with the blood and gore (Qur'an 22:37: "It is not their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah. It is your piety that reaches Him..."). Rather, it is done to help the poor and in remembrance of Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael at God's command.

Let's face it. Religious scriptures are full of Blood Sacrifices and killings, all in the name of God or Deity. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" [Courtesy: ISLAM WATCH].

Religion Has Done Little to
Prevent War, Famine, Crime,
Oppression, Misery,
and Unhappiness

Each religion claims that its god or gods have supreme power. If their god or gods had any such power, they could wipe out all the unhappiness in one gesture. The truth is, of course, that there are no such gods and it is only the imagination of propagandists which originate such gods and such powers.

For

 ages men have been and still are, human slaves. In the United States of America as late as 1865, black men had little more freedom than dogs or horses. They were owned as chattels by white masters. The masters could and did make them work all their lives without any pay whatever. Every slave could be beaten, mauled, and mutilated or killed, and many have been so treated by drunken and cruel masters. The children of the slaves were sold like cattle and sheep. All of these things were done under legal authority. All of these terrible things were done under sanction of the Christian religion. Most American slave owners were religious Christians. The slaves themselves were supposed to be Christians.

Those who favored slavery quoted the Bible as authority for maintaining this cruel and inhuman practice. The Catholic Church and the Baptist church stood side by side in protecting the perpetrators of this inhumanity and oppression. When the Civil War took place, the Methodist Church in America divided on the question of slavery. The Methodist Church South and the Methodist Episcopal Church existed separately for generations. The Methodist Church South espoused the cause of slavery.

Men who owned slaves preferred to fight and kill or be killed rather than to give up their ownership of their human chattels. Even to this day Christian men, including priests and preachers, countenance and assist the whites of the South in keeping the Negroes there from voting and expressing their political views as all Americans are supposed to have the right to do.

Every office holder who takes an oath to support the Constitution of the United States winds up by saying, "so help me God" and then actually nullifies many of the rights the Constitution tries to guarantee.

There have been more wars since Christianity was established than there were before. Since the birth of Christ there have been only a few years in which there was not a war between Christian peoples. Cruel and tyrannical wars of extermination against the Indians of America were carried on by Christian people. With a Christian cross in one hand, a sword and gun in the other, the early Christian Spaniards conquered the Indians in North and South America. Murder, rape, torture, and enslavement, and in many cases positive extermination, followed in the bloody wars of the Spanish conquests under Pizarro and Cortez. The Catholic Church grew wealthy beyond its dreams as the result of this conquest. The Indians were Christianized under force of arms, but the new god they prayed to was as powerless as the old ones to protect them from the cruelty of and enslavement by their Christian conquerors.

In recent years the Italians under Mussolini, from the most Christian country on earth, coming from Rome, the seat of the Pope, ruthlessly murdered their way to ownership of the lands of Ethiopia, taking the Ethiopians' lands and country in one of the most cold blooded robbing expeditions ever known. The Ethiopian king was only restored to his throne by a more powerful nation, still worshiping the same god as the others.

Did the Pope raise one word of protest? Did any Christian church or Christian country actually do anything to stop them? Did the Christian God that the poor Ethiopians pray to do anything to save them? Did even the same Christian God the Italians pray to deliver the land to them without a fight? No, the men with the strongest arms won in that war as they have in all other wars.

Why must people still remain befuddled and think that their gods control their fates when they see Christian nations murdering other Christian inhabitants of the world; each praying to the same God of "love and good will" to permit them to get their neighbors by the throat so they can slit it?

The Hindus have their gods, Buddha, Krishna, Siva, and a thousand others. Each one is supposed to be a protector of some class or group. Murder, misery, early death, depravity, oppression, serfdom and starvation are the daily lot of the Hindus, the most religious people on earth. The Christian Englishmen with money to buy rulers and guns and bombs to kill protectors told the religious Hindus what to do.

And so it has been from time immemorial, the strong oppressed the weak. The stronger, selfish races murdered those with less strength. The oppressors and aggressive fighters inherited the earth and control it today. Gods of clay, wood, brass, gold, and iron, gods of imagination such as the Christian, Mohammedan, and other gods have been prayed to in vain for ages by gullible fools, by priests, preachers, and rulers.[The case against religion].

"DIVINE ANCIENT WISDOM" FROM GARUDA PURAN;
HOW JEWELS AND OTHER PRECIOUS STONES ORIGINATED ? 
Sutji, once narrated the following tale to the assembled sages which sheds light on the origin of jewels and other precious stones -

' During ancient times there lived a mighty demon named Bala. Although he had defeated the deities and driven them out 

from the heaven, yet he had assured them that he would extend fullest cooperation and support in any yagya performed by deities in future. All the deities planned to perform a 'Yagya' in order to regain their lost kingdom. They made all the necessary preparations for the Yagya but were unable to find a person who could offer himself as a 'sacrificial being'- a ritual without which any yagya is incomplete.'

'Seeing no other option, the worried deities took refuge of 'Balasur' and requested him to offer himself for sacrifice so that the yagya could be accomplished without any hitch. Balasur was bound by his promise so he agreed. This way, the deities were able to accomplish their yagya. But, a strange event coincided with the death of Balasur, which surprised even the deities. The virtuous deed of offering himself as a sacrificial being in the yagya ceremony had amazingly transformed Balasur's corpse into jewels. Deities tried to carry the 'Jewel-body' through the aerial route towards a safer place, but it was fragmented into countless pieces due to the impact of ferocious speed of the wind it had to negotiate. These pieces scattered all over the places- ocean, rivers, Mountains, Forests, etc. In course of time these places got transformed into countless mines of jewels and precious stones such as Vajra (diamond), Muktamani, Indraneel, Sphatik, Prawal, Pushparag and many more.

 PAUL  KURTZ

December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012

Paul Kurtz, American skeptic, founder of modern secular-humanist movement and philosopher, passed away on 20 October 2012. He was 86 years old. He was Honorary Associate of Rationalist International and also Honorary Associate of Rationalist Association(formerly RPA) of UK .  In 1999 Kurtz received International Humanist Award by the IHEU, and in 2000 he received International Rationalist Award by the Rationalist International.

He authored 50 books and nearly 800 articles. Many of his books have been translated into over 60 languages. They include The Transcendental Temptation, Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism, The Courage to Become, and Multi-Secularism: A New Agenda. His published bibliography of writings from 1952 to 2003 runs over 79 pages.

Paul Kurtz was largely responsible for the secularization of humanism. Before Kurtz embraced the term “secular humanism," which had received wide publicity through fundamentalist Christians in the 1980s, humanism was more widely perceived as a religion (or a pseudo-religion that did not include the supernatural. This can be seen in the first article of the original Humanist Manifesto which refers to "Religious Humanists" and by Charles and Clara Potter's influential 1930 book Humanism: A New Religion.

In 1969, Kurtz founded the publishing house Prometheus Books. He was also the founder and past chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)), the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry. On May 18, 2010, he resigned from all these positions. .

He was editor in chief of Free Inquiry magazine, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism. He was co-president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Humanist Laureate, Honorary Associate of Rationalist International, president of the International Academy of Humanism and Honorary Associate of Rationalist Association (formerly Rationalist Press Association) of UK.

As a member of the American Humanist Association, he contributed to the writing of Humanist Manifesto. He was a former editor of The Humanist, 1967-1978. The asteroid (6629) Kurtz was named in his honor.

Kurtz used the publicity generated by fundamentalist preachers to grow the membership of the Council for Secular Humanism, as well as strip the religious aspects found in the earlier humanist movement.

He founded the Center for Inquiry in 1991. There are now some 40 Centers and Communities worldwide, including in Los Angeles, Washington, New York City, London, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Moscow, Beijing, Hyderabad, Toronto, Dakar, Buenos Aires and Kathmandu. Following his resignation from the Center for Inquiry, Paul Kurtz launched the Institute for Science and Human Values as a separate entity.

Kurtz was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for Social Research

Kurtz was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Sara Lasser and Martin Kurtz. Kurtz received his bachelor's degree from New York University, and the Master's degree and Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University. Kurtz was left-wing in his youth, but has said that serving in the United States Army in World War II taught him the dangers of ideology. He saw the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps after they were liberated, and became disillusioned with Communism when he encountered Russian slave laborers who had been taken to Nazi Germany by force but refused to return to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.

MYTH ABOUT "ORIGINAL SIN";
WHY SUPPOSEDLY BENEVOLENT CHRISTIAN GOD WAS AGAINST HUMAN INHERENT QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE ???
"...He made the first man out of dust and called him Adam...The god placed Adam in a beautiful garden called Eden,filled with trees whose fruit Adam was encouraged to eat-with one exception. The forbidden tree was the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil' and the god left Adam in no

 doubt that he must never eat its fruit.The god then realized that Adam might be lonely all by himself and wanted to do something about it...The god made all the animals as Adam's helpers,then decided that there was still something missing:a women!So he gave Adam a general anesthesia,cut him open ,removed one rib and stitched him up again. Then he grew a women from the rib,rather as you grow a flower from a cutting. He named her Eve and presented her to Adam as his wife.Unfortunately there was a wicked snake ,who approached Eve and persuaded her to give Adam the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve ate the fruit and promptly acquired the knowledge that they were naked.This embarrassed them, and they made themselves aprons out of fig leaves..When the god noticed this,he was furious with them for eating the fruit and acquiring knowledge-losing their innocence,i suppose. He threw them out of the garden and condemned them and all their descendants to a life of hardship and pain. To this day ,the story of Adam's and Eve's terrible disobedience is still taken seriously by many people under the name of "original sin" ..and share this guilt".
[Richard Dawkins;The magic of reality-how we know what's really true,page 34-35]

The Insipid Myth of Original Sin
Few Religionist traditions are more patently offensive than the myth of Original Sin and its dogmatic progeny, the myth of fallen humanity. What is our Original Sin? What is our great, intractable failing? What was our deep vileness that was so abhorrent that a SINGLE human's action would be sufficient to condemn our entire species for all eternity?

Our inherent quest for knowledge. Our curiosity. Our desire to understand. God creates us with an inherent longing for knowledge and understanding and then damns our ENTIRE species because ONE human had the temerity to act on what God instilled within him? That is deranged.

Words cannot describe the despicable inversion this insipid myth works. Our inherent desire to understand, our curiosity, our unquenchable thirst to know is our single greatest asset. It is our most beautiful attribute. It is what makes us truly human and separates us from every single other organism that has ever swam, wriggled, crawled or walked across this planet. We are the creature that asks why. No other creature on this planet has ever looked up at the sky and asked why or how. No other creature on this planet has ever attempted to understand itself or its environment.

Our inherent desire to understand is our most powerful evolutionary adaptation. Understanding it is what allowed us to tame fire, to hunt, to anticipate the seasons, to grow crops, to form societies, to form tribes and nations. Understanding and knowledge are what drive technology, what enables expansion and it is understanding that drives our most basic emotional desires. Understanding is the ultimate human achievement. It is what humans aspire to in all things whether we recognize it or not. From the first moments of human consciousness, it is the quest for understanding that has propelled us forward as both individuals and as a species.

Understanding is so powerful because it is through understanding and through attempting to understand that we appreciate the beauty, utility and power of the world and people around us. It is understanding that under girds our emotional response to the amazing and often mystifying world around us. Through understanding that we can grow to love this world and one another. Understanding breeds excitement, it breeds joy, it breeds excitement, appreciation, and contentment. If you ever doubt this proposition, simply watch a child, or new lovers. Witness the way in which both are suffused with the joy and excitement of a multitude of new understandings and are filled with life because of it. For what is love other than our feeble, flawed and often unsuccessful attempts to understand the mind and heart of another? What is hate other than our failure or inability to understand the minds and hearts of others or our disappointment that what we thought we understood was an illusion?

The myth of Original Sin is so pernicious and vile because it takes our greatest and most beautiful asset, our desire to understand, and inverts it as our fatal flaw. It debases and denigrates our most precious attribute and uses that to foist onto us the myth of humanity as a fallen, debased, despicable creature. This inversion is unspeakably awful in that it warps and twists the single greatest factor in our advancement and progress as a species and turns it into a weapon against us. We are fallen, wretched, unworthy NOT because of what we do, but because of what we are, because of our inherent desire to understand.

RELIGION AND SCHIZOPHRENIA ! 
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder characterized by a difficulty in recognizing reality, regulating emotional responses, thinking in a clear and logical manner, and behaving in a socially accepted manner. It is unclear what causes schizophrenia at this time, but it seems that genetics play a heavy r

ole, as individuals with a family history are far more likely to suffer from schizophrenia. The disorder can be triggered and exacerbated by social and environmental factors, with episodes becoming more apparent in periods of high stress. Symptoms usually appear around the onset of early adulthood. It is rare for a child to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, in part because of the difficulty in establishing what erroneous thoughts and beliefs can be attributed to childhood development and which thoughts and believes can be attributed to schizophrenia. With medication (usually anti psychotics) and therapy, schizophrenics can live successful, productive lives.
Religious delusions
One of the most commonly reported varieties of delusions from those with schizophrenia are religious delusions. A delusion is a thought or belief that holds no basis in reality, yet the sufferer staunchly believes it to be true, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. A religious delusion has an overtly religious nature to it, often involving hearing the voice of God, feeling commanded by God, being possessed by demons, and other unrealistic phenomenon. These delusions occasionally become violent, ending in the death of the sufferer and/or another individual(s). Though rare, cases of this nature have been reported in the past. It can be difficult to place blame in such instances, especially if the perpetrator has not yet been diagnosed with schizophrenia. These individuals do not have an actual desire to cause harm outside of the disorder, but because of the nature of schizophrenia, they are largely powerless to control it. With proper medication and treatment, however, a schizophrenia patient will quickly return to a socially acceptable level of behavior.
Although religious delusions are a commonplace phenomenon in schizophrenic patients, religious delusions are not unique to schizophrenics alone; rather, it is entirely possible for an otherwise healthy individual to experience such a delusion separate from any mental disorder. Similarly, a schizophrenic can experience a delusion void of religious content whatsoever. For instance, a paranoid schizophrenic may incorrectly believe that a government agency is pursuing them. An example of religious delusion without schizophrenia would be churchgoers speaking in tongues or feeling the "hand of God" upon them. Another example is Jerusalem syndrome, a phenomenon in which visitors to Jerusalem are overcome with religious fervor and psychosis, oftentimes believing that they themselves are the Messiah; however, evidence to support the claim of such a syndrome is limited, and it is not listed in any edition of the DSM.
Schizophrenia and religious delusions

The relationship between religion and schizophrenia is of particular interest to psychologists because of the similarities between religious experiences and schizophrenic episodes; religious experiences often involve auditory and/or visual hallucinations, and schizophrenics commonly report similar hallucinations, along with a variety of delusions and faulty beliefs. A common report from those with schizophrenia is some kind of a religious delusion - that is, they believe they are divine beings, God is talking to them, they are possessed by demons, etc. In a study of schizophrenia patients that had been previously admitted to a hospital, 24% had had religious delusions. Because of the inherent similarities between religious belief and schizophrenia, it has led some researchers to question whether schizophrenia leads an individual to become more religious, or if intense religiosity leads to schizophrenia.