Irrationality of Religion

The Official GOD Frequently Asked Questions

The story below highlights how weak and stupid we humans can be (and for the greater part, ARE!). How can we bring to an end such pathetic weakness? Education? Definitely! And of course self-empowerment and self-respect. The realisation that WE are in charge of our lives, and NOT some crazy mysterious forces!

Letters to God found dumped off New Jersey coast

Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby's father marry her).

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (AP)
3 Nov 2006

The letters -- about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister -- ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened.

The minister died two years ago at 79. How the letters, some dating to 1973, wound up bobbing in the surf is a mystery.

"There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who was fishing last month with his son when he spotted a flowered plastic shopping bag and waded out to retrieve it.

"This is just a hint of what really happens. How many letters like this all over the world aren't being opened or answered?"

Many of the letters were addressed to the Rev. Grady Cooper, though many more simply said "Altar." According to the text of several of them, they were intended to be placed on a church's altar and prayed over by the minister, the congregation or both.

Some were neatly written in script on white-lined paper, others in a feverish scrawl on tattered scraps of parchment or note cards. Many were crinkled from being in the water and then dried out after Lacovara fished them out of the sea.

A dog-eared business card inside one of the letters identified Cooper as associate pastor of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Jersey City. A woman who answered the phone at the church office confirmed Cooper once was a minister there, and had died nearly two years ago. The current pastor did not return several calls from The Associated Press over the past few days.

Other documents in the bag, including bank statements and canceled checks, also listed Cooper's name and an address for him in Jersey City. A death certificate issued in 2004 for a Grady Cooper lists the same address as those on the bank documents and some of the letters.

His wife, Frances, whose name also showed up on some of the letters at the same address, died in 2000, according to Hudson County records.

No one answered the door last week at the address where Cooper once lived, and a neighbor said he did not recall anyone by that name. Attempts to locate Cooper's relatives were unsuccessful.

Lacovara speculated that someone cleaning out Cooper's home found the letters and threw them on the beach in Atlantic City, about 100 miles from Jersey City.

"I guess rather than just throw them in the garbage, maybe they thought they'd set them out to sea to bless these people," he said. "So they made a trip to Atlantic City, maybe went to a casino, and put the letters in the water."

The letters, wrapped in several smaller brown paper bags inside the larger plastic bag, did not appear to have been in the water too long, Lacovara said, though about half were too badly damaged to be legible.
Humorous and heartbreaking

He opened a few with his son, Rocky, on the beach. The first few were humorous.

"I'm still praying to hit the lottery twice: first the $50,000," one man wrote. "Than after some changes have taken place let me hit the millionaire."

Another asked God to make a certain someone "leave me alone and stay off my back," while still another asks God to calm a woman who "call the Internal Revenue on me."

One woman complained that her husband always talks about sex, and another writer anonymously dropped a dime to God on someone cheating on his wife, complete with dates, times and locations.

But those, Lacovara soon found, were the exception.

Many more were written by anguished spouses, children or widows, pouring out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were using drugs, gambling or cheating on them.

One man wrote from prison, saying he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A woman wrote that her boyfriend was now closing the door to her daughter's bedroom each night when it used to stay open, and wondered why.

A teenager poured out her heart on yellow-lined paper in the curlicue pencil handwriting of a schoolgirl, begging God to forgive her and asking for a second chance.

"Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels," she wrote. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the mistake I made."

One unwed mother wrote that her baby was due in four weeks, and asked God to make the father fall in love with her and marry her so the child would have a father.

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon: He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay.
 

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March 23rd 2005

A while back Number 80 said that religion was to be tolerated, but respect was out of the question. Now even the tolerance is looking endangered. This feeling has been triggered by no one thing in particular but is a consequence of the steady day-by-day, drip-drip assault by religious fantasists on everything we have gained in the last 300 years. They are doing their damnedest to snuff out the Enlightenment.

What right has a self-righteous, celibate, middle-aged man, his head stuffed full of impossible nonsense, have to dictate what is admissible in a sex education class? What is it with religion and sex? Why does God keep poking his nose into people's genitalia? It's downright weird. What right does some misogynist mullah, his head stuffed full of slightly different impossible nonsense, have to dictate to women what to wear because he and his bearded followers cannot restrain their lust at the sight of a well-turned ankle. Leave the women alone and go have a cold shower you are the problem, not they.

There has been a deal too much tolerance in the name of inclusivity and multiculturalism. If someone is talking irrational crap they need to be told so, regardless of whether they wear a clerical collar, a mitre or any of the other badges and odd costumes that identify many religionists. If a group of bigots decides to foist its tight-assed views on the rest of the community as to what is deemed acceptable in movies, the theatre, or in print, they should be told to shove it, in no uncertain terms. Just because someone harbours an assortment of irrational and contradictory beliefs between their ears does not mean they are necessarily worthy of a hearing. Let them explain on their own behalf and not keep claiming holy endorsement for their own particular hang-ups, prejudices and phobias.

Governments such as Tony Blair's should stop soliciting the opinions of these unrepresentative know-alls on legislation, for the chances are they actually know even less than the average politician. Anyone who claims certain knowledge of the mind of a supernatural being does not need respect they need psychiatric help to stand on their own two feet and stop appealing to a dubious authority to give weight to what are no more than personal opinions. Just because you believe that there is something beyond the physical world which is all our instruments and senses can detect it does not make you special in any way. If anything, you are to be pitied for being unable to appreciate our amazing Universe without your religious crutch.

A single image of countless galaxies captured by the Hubble conveys more awe and mystery than any Iron Age tribal god, even if these days the old boy is tricked out as the universal creator. Irrational beliefs are not admirable, they are a threat to the future of humankind and the rest of the biosphere. You only have one life, this is not a rehearsal, there is no heaven with angels serenading, nor is there a paradise with 72 willing virgins waiting to reward acts of murder. No one is getting raptured out of here, you are not "chosen." Deluded, perhaps, but not chosen. You do not need the promise of a reward after death to live a good and kind life nor do you need threats of hellfire. Sympathy for others, charity and kindness are possible without religion the so-called Golden Rule is not solely a religious command; it is a humane way of living, common to many cultures. No one religion or faith has the answers, in fact none of them have, and the sooner we realize that we are all in this together, groping our way towards a better life for everyone on this planet and not just a chosen few, the better for humankind and the creatures with whom we share this planet.

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.