Saturday, March 1, 2008

The Top Ten Dumbest Religions

10 Quakerism
While it is commonly associated with being another Christian spin-off religion, many people who identify as Quakers may also answer to the category of atheist or agnostic, or may also belong to some other religion. The reason this "religion" is much less stupid than both orthodox and protestant Christianity is because they have done away with any established church hierarchy and emphasized the personal relationship with "god." Whatever it may be that you experience that is 'god', it is ok with them.

You could potentially be identified as a Muslim, and consider yourself a Quaker if you kept your experiences and beliefs to yourself. I think we can quickly see that without a) a power structure in place to get involved in the dealings of money and authority, and b) a desire to assert your "one right way" upon other people, that such a religion would be far less destructive than most others.

They also do not regard the bible as the final truth and wisdom of god, but as maybe a small part of something greater.

The easiest thing to make fun of them about is plainness in speech and dress, etc. They think that plainness in dress is avoiding vanity which is going to, I don't know, take you off the godly path? They are onto something good there, and that is that we don't need to keep up with all the latest fashions, that consumer culture creates incredible waste, that we can make our own garments and wear the ones we have longer, and we can still look just fine doing it.
Of course, it can become a dogma like anything else, and I'm sure there are groups of Quakers who would judge outsiders only by the 'vanity' of their clothing.

All in all, I am not going to lose any sleep at night wondering if Quakers are trying to kill me for speaking against their religion. Now if they could just drop the label, save time by not worrying about the god concept at all, integrate with modernism and participate in changing our society towards their counter-consumer values, I would love them.



9 Jainism
Making fun of Jainism is a lot like making fun of retards - retards are perfectly nice, harmless, friendly, and can even do really kind nice things, but at the same time they make genuinely funny retarded faces and noises. It's not that you feel anything negative towards them at all, it’s just that they are retarded and it makes you laugh sometimes.

Jains value non-violence and self-responsibility in one's actions topmost, don’t believe in any omniscient being or creator, and they have a kickass logo. Not only are they commonly vegan, some Jains wear masks throughout their lives to kill less air-born germs and organisms they breathe in. They also sometimes limit their unnecessary steps on the earth or sleep only laying on their side so the least amount of their body's surface area contacts the ground which may kill microorganisms there. All of these exercises are practiced because of their idea that through maximum detachment and compassion you can come to fully understand the nature of your soul and be free from the cycle of rebirth into a world of misery.

In Jain belief, the universe was never created and will never cease to exist, and this is absolutely in line with the most modern of cosmological data and theories.

Clearly, if we woke up tomorrow with the whole word converted to Janism, much of our problems would be solved. A lot of their ideas have clear benefits for all of us to introduce into our lives, and their concept of karma, along with the Hindus' and the Buddhists', is at its heart a rephrasing of the golden rule that nearly all religious traditions have in some form.
What the Jains don't realize is that dogmatically living like this is a damned waste of time. I didn't go into the details here about how they have mountains of literature written through the centuries on philosophies of rebirth, the soul, discovering one's soul, and the 'science' of breaking all of known time into various ages that all have certain characteristics... (which seems completely trivial if the universe has no beginning or end?)

What about if instead of deeply studying these 6,000+ year old Indian terms and philosophies and arbitrary systematization of time and the futility of attaining MOKSHA, Jains instead focused their compassion for life on fighting mistreatment of animals, feeding Somali children, and stopping all war? That would be all too practical.

Don't get me wrong, a Jain is a friend of mine, I can tell you that much. But I would question that friend on why he spends a great deal of his life chasing the elusive "soul" and following irrelevant writings, rather than just focusing on compassion for life as a good value to have for sustaining life. That concept does not have to be read from any holy book to understand its truth.


8 Buddhism
So every time I meet someone new who learns about my religious-abolitionist beliefs, one of the first things fired back my way is, "WELL WHAT ABOUT BUDDHISM?? IT IS 100% GOOD, YOU CAN'T TALK SHIT ABOUT IT." All of the shit I may have to talk about Buddhism comes down to this: Look, no educated person is calling into question the real physical and mental benefits of meditation, and I don't question the fact that very interesting experiences and states of consciousness can be attained through various meditation practices, many of which science cannot currently explain. I also have great respect for people like Buddhists who greatly value self-responsibility in their actions and who try to live consciously... these aspects of the tenets of Buddhism are great. Absolutely do I wish that the whole world was Buddhist over its current given state, of course. In fact, it may be better off than if the world was all dogmatic atheists because being an atheist doesn't guarantee a person is a conscientious decision-maker.

So what is the problem with Buddhism? To claim that you: possess the highest knowledge in the world regarding things that nobody can know such as philosophies of reincarnation; that you have books that perfectly outline rules to best attain self-realization; or that you know of a book that contains the true answer to the purpose of our lives, is to live non-scientifically and to limit one's thinking. Why can't we take the ideas of responsibility, accountability, and understanding one's place in life through deep personal reflection from Buddhism, and leave the 227 rules of the rule book for monks behind?


7. Baha'i faith
All gods are actually the same god. All religions are actually the same one. All of mankind will one day realize this and one day be as all-understanding as those of the enlightened Baha'i faith. Since this one unitary god is unknowable and incomprehensible, we comprehend god through his/her/its manifestations on earth, including but not limited to: Muhammad, Jesus, and Buddha. What unmitigated bullshit.

Anyone who has taken five minutes to crack open the religious scripture of a faith outside of one's own will quickly realize nearly all faiths are incompatible with each other. If we assume the Baha'i premise that all religions are the same thing, which means that all of the differences that we observe in different faiths must necessarily be incorrect. Unfortunately, if we pull these components of claims of absolute correctness from various religions, their whole feeble framework utterly crumbles. So if all religions are the same, that means all religions as we know of them now, are wrong. If all religions are wrong, doesn't that remove religion and god entirely?

The remaining of their main tenets is to unite all of humanity. I know what you are thinking, "Come on man, are you seriously going to talk shit about someone for wanting to unite humanity?" YES. It's a noble cause, but it is horribly self-contradictory. Suppose as a Christian I just wanted to go on a mission to unite all of humanity —by making them convert to Christianity. Or a Muslim who wants nothing more than world peace and to unite humanity —by means of converting the world to Islam. Well the Baha'i faith is one step worse than these two examples, because at least the Christians and Muslims could actually achieve the goal of uniting humanity if they did actually convert everyone, whereas the Baha'i ideals are self-defeating. In granting all religions equal respect as all being valid but the same, you only nurture an environment of free religious tolerance, encouraging people to push whatever ridiculous beliefs about the nature of the divine that they wish into the public sphere. "atheist-moderates" are guilty of the same thing, insisting that while they believe there is no god, the theist has his right to believe and practice whatever he wants, turning the other cheek to schools which begin removing evolution and other sensitive subjects from their curriculums out of "respect."

In granting all religious beliefs a degree of validity, the Baha'i adherent is actually ensuring that his goal of global unity is never met. Peace is not possible so long as religious belief exists.


6. Sikhism
Let's start with what is cool... their god is really a monistic concept of god being everything and more all at once, non-gendered, incomprehensible by humans. If you are going to call something 'god', this is just about the only permissible concept you could do so with. You might as well be an atheist who just refers to the universe and the general flow of nature as "god", even sarcastically. The original teacher of the philosophy was purported to have taught, "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim", and probably, "there is no Sikhism," (but sikh just means something like 'student'). Sounds great so far! Now let’s pile on unnecessary complications and stupidity to make living life harder: like Hindus, they hold tight to the unfounded idea of reincarnation. Next, the founder insisted that as a student of knowledge, the only knowledge that was worth gaining was what you could learn through your guru or teacher, which of course was the founder himself to begin with. Freedom from the human condition can only be attained by devout devotion to god, and since god is intangible, salvation is only attained through your gurus, which of course have only been MEN in the disciplic line of gurus thus far. To be fair, there were some renowned Sikhs that fought for equality of women, opposed sati (bride-burning), and stood up to defend other groups like Hindus; at the same time there have been many militant Sikh groups. But the Bottom line is: why, as a "student" in a quest for the most knowledge, would you invite upon yourself the limitation of only learning your knowledge from one outlet. Why, also, create a new distinction for yourself as belonging to a religious group, which can only serve to create confrontation in disagreement?

5. Hinduism

Create a new religion in your head based on the following: It is not really a religion, and you can't exactly call it a way of life because there is no one way that specifically dictates how to be; there is a god or goddess for every day of the week, every year, every emotion, every color, and every geographic region; there is a god or goddess associated with every food or plant item and one for every working occupation; not only are there gods and goddesses for every world and overworld and underworld, there is a whole volume of texts that predate Christianity and perhaps Judaism by thousands of years systematizing and further systematizing our universe into abstract ages and sub universes and galaxies, all subdivided into further delineations of time and space.
Now for your made-up religion's structure, draw from a collection of texts that are among the oldest in the world written in one of the oldest known languages in the world, with authors unknown and the various texts relations to one another obscured. Then have various people through history focus on random selections from the mountainous volume of ancient scripts, and in turn, each write their own body of books with their own interpretations on these different topics. Have each of these authors be teachers of their particular method of interpretation throughout their lives, and their disciples spending their lives to become teachers, further interpreting on their master's work and further writing new volumes. All the while across these various branches, they find some obscure explanation about how they are really all one in the same, but paradoxically continue to live by their specific interpretations on bits and pieces of older traditions.

Now run an entire subcontinent on this system and let it propagate through 7,000 years and very little outside influence in the world other than a Muslim conquest on the upper half of the subcontinent. This is Hinduism. It is surprising to learn that the volumes of Hindu scripture through the ages were NOT the product of mind altering-drug trips. Given the facts about Hinduism, I would have ventured a guess that their culture since ancient times had revolved around LSD if I hadn't known better. Yet surprisingly, most Hindu theologies encourage a drug and alcohol free lifestyle to stay "clear-minded." It is so interesting because if you try to understand any one aspect of the clusterfuck that is Hinduism, I guarantee you will not be able to make heads or tails of it.



For instance, take one of the 300 million gods pictured here, Ganesha. Ganesha is a god of intellect and wisdom (I’m sure there are several other gods of wisdom) and has an elephant's head and four arms, traits that were vaguely influenced from various symbolisms of past idols and icons hundreds of years previously which have long since been forgotten. Of course! For fuck's sake, seriously go onto wikipedia and type in "mythological anecdotes of ganesha" and check out that article. It’s about three pages of text summarizing stories and traits attributed to this one god.

Now multiply that article times Hinduism’s self proclaimed "300 million gods" and that is not an exaggeration. There are literally stories just like that filling volumes of ancient texts about every one of their mythological gods.

If you were to survey India today, you can still find the entire gamut of gods being individually worshipped by individuals or maybe whole communities who focus on one god of choice.
Hinduism is absolutely insane, it is just batty. Now that that has been established, lets highlight why it is so high on this list at only number 5:
central to all those wildly varying branches of Hinduism, are some key tenets of karma, non-violence, and detachment from material "sense-gratification" as they call it. These concepts which go back into their ancient texts are the foundations that Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism were born of out of Hinduism. If you take karma in the non-spiritual sense, these are really great values to live by. By detachment from sense-gratification they mean asserting the idea in your life that you are not what you wear, you are not what latest ipod you have, and you are not your job title, there is more to you as a person. These are actually great values, and unlike Jainism or Buddhism which may lean towards full renunciation of life and going off to live in a cave, a majority of Hinduism teaches that you should in fact have a job and provide for your family, but be conscious that the material things don't make you who you are.

There is great knowledge to be had there, and the crucial step is recognizing there is no reason we can't read this knowledge from a Hindu book and exercise it in our own lives, but disregard the idea of all the ages, multiple worlds, and millions of gods with their random detailed stories. Hinduism earns fifth on this list because there are violent strains within Hinduism, Hindus still live with a very much real caste system, and much of the Indian landscape is still in economic, environmental, and humanitarian ruin.

To end on a good note, all of that engrained systematization has been raising generations of great electrical engineers, technicians, mathematicians, programmers, assemblers of microprocessors, and tech support agents for DELL. We don't do those things in America anymore because we are just waiting to be raptured up to heaven by Jesus H. Christ.

4. Judaism

Astrong case can be made that Judaism should actually be the number one most retarded religion if one focuses on history and the permeating negative effects the world has felt because of Judaic traditions, but I am giving Jews the benefit of the doubt and weighing more on the side of evaluating what their religion is today.

You see, if you go back I don’t know, 5,000 years before Jesus, (no one is exactly sure exactly when Judaism-proper actually surfaced into something distinctly new), 'religious' traditions in the middle east were as varied as the number of villages in different regions. There was every spectrum of belief as you moved between every geographic area, and these pre-Judaism religions of the land from what we know were very much in common with the ancient religions we see across the entire rest of the world: polytheistic, worshipping idols, thinking of all varieties of religious practice as essentially the same thing and therefore respecting other idols and cultures as equal to an extent... You see this monistic/deistic/polytheistic/tolerant approach in ancient Hinduism, pre-Judaic Greek mythology, and various native traditions of north and South America.

And then came a drastic new way of thinking that is first credited to the Jews: They came up with this new idea that there was strictly one god, and to call him anything else but god or to suggest that he had many equal deities which were all god was completely wrong and blasphemous. In addition, they inflicted upon themselves a ban on any form of idol worship and all kinds of stigmas surrounding diet, sexuality, pleasure and so on.
If this sounds familiar it is because it was from these corrupt foundations that Christianity and Islam were laid, maintaining much of these stigmas and strict monotheism.
Had we not ever invented this idea of strict monotheism with the Jews, perhaps this religious arrogance of "I am right you are wrong and I will kill for it" never would have evolved into its present form, since we don't find that in any other traditions before Judaism. (Correct me if I’m wrong, I haven't learned of any.)

Perhaps had we only kept all of the pagan traditions of all the lands and never been introduced to the madness of monotheism we could have evolved socially together as the world got smaller in the industrial age, and may have been perfectly armed to realize that these ancient traditions about god were silly.

But thanks to Judaism we have a handful of these religions now that insist that they possess a book that god wrote and that their way can be the only right way, and we have been well on down the road of the annihilation of mankind ever since.

That is the devastating historic stupidity. Then there are any number of tenets of the religion even as it stands today that are thirsty for criticism: the racist ideal that god chose "your people" over everyone else in the world, that god himself promised you certain real estate in his role as 'omniscient real estate broker' (Sam Harris), the completely arbitrary food purity laws, and the scarily anti-progressive and anti-outsider Hassidic/conservative groups. Judaism is weak, and to grant it one bit of respect since it claims exclusive truth one has to also respect any other tradition which asserts its exclusive truth. With all of them contradictory to one another in their mutual exclusivity, that means they can't all be right. The only stance a sane person can take is to not respect any of them as anything legitimate.

3. Christianity
Clocking in at number 3 I place Christianity. You will notice that Mormonism is number 2, but in reality Christianity is number 2 and I would include Mormonism in with that as well as Catholicism and so on. In this case I wanted to make a special slot for Mormonism at number 2 just to highlight its extra laughability.

But I really don't think that Christianity being charged as the second or third most retarded religion ever needs much of an explanation at all. You've got your crusades which mind you was many different wars waged across hundreds of years. You’ve got your inquisition. You’ve got your Salem witch trials. You’ve got your puritans sailing over and slaughtering the natives because it was their god-granted destiny, you've got anti-abortionists; you've got your Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons and Ted Haggards.

You’ve got money schemes and pedophilia engrained within the traditions. You’ve got children home schooled on nearly nothing but creationism and the bible (see jesuscamp).
You’ve got the endless guilt, shame, confusion, and self-hatred that are instilled generation after generation in Christian youth who are lectured against the evils of sex, masturbation, and basically any other religion or tradition that is not like theirs in any way.

2. Mormonism

like Sam Harris says, you take Christianity’s already absurd belief system and sprinkle in a bunch of unthinkably stupid things in on top and you've got Mormonism.
For starters Mormons, you want us to believe that an ordinary white man was visited by an angel and received the words of god, of which all evidence god purposefully destroyed afterwards, but you want us to reject the IDENTICAL story of the Arabian Muhammad? The story of the foundation of Islam is perfectly equated with the story of the creation of Mormonism as far as their level of likelihood or evidence of historic fact.

Two common fallacies that religious people appeal to are that the large number of their adherents and the length of time their belief has sustained make their religion true. Ex: "if its 2,000 years old and a quarter of the world still believe in it, it must be true!" Well, on these accounts, Islam is more "true" than Mormonism. Muhammad was getting revelations halfway through the 7th century, while Joseph Smith "received" his new vaguely Christian revelations in the early 19th! Islam claims over 21% of the world's sheep, I mean followers, while I'd be surprised if Mormonism was followed by 1%.
YOU LOSE, DIPSHITS. GOLDEN PLATES MY ASS.

We have yet to find a single archaeological record of any massive human civilizations in North America that predate Jesus, or of a great battle of immense proportions that was purportedly fought in North America in which tens of thousands perished on the battlefield.
I haven't even addressed aspects of their beliefs that are harmful and retarded, and I’m too pissed off for having to think about Mormons for this long so I’m just going to stop here.

1. Islam
Is this a surprise to anyone? Can you find anyone in an industrialized society that disagrees? Look, start with a ridiculous ancient Jewish religion that was around thousands of years before Christ, then take Christ’s further perversion of the established tradition into the Christians' whole weird thing, then take 7th century Arabian Bedouin tribal blood-feudal culture and have one of its members invent a new religion to gain power, all at once trying to appeal to both of the other two ridiculous traditions and incorporating the ancient desert disregard for human life, and you get Islam. Many Islamic countries have basically stayed at a cultural intellectual standstill since that invention in the 600's AD.

While it is debatable who has been responsible for the MOST religious killings in all of history between Christians and Muslims, I am going to argue that 1) the Christians had been at it 600 years longer 2) the Christians stopped endorsing it a long time ago 3) Muslim attacks nature on the side of being more brutal, barbaric, and misdirected. They aren’t just openly waging a declared battle against Christians, Jews, and nonbelievers, blowing up churches with missile strikes; they are blowing themselves up all over the place idiotically killing men, women, and children of their own kind. I don't know the statistics for a fact, but I would be willing to guess some Muslim Americans peacefully working in the trade center on September 11th 2001 were killed amidst the senseless killing. The crimes perpetrated by Islam are absolutely senseless and bloodthirsty. The religion is violent oppressive trash through and through. Its followers even kill each other through sectarian violence, with much collateral civilian death as a part of the endless fighting.

1300 years of Islam have many Islamic societies war-torn and in destitute poverty, its citizens hungry, exceedingly xenophobic and uneducated; where Islam is practiced there is a vacuum of human rights.

That anyone still speaks of Islam with any inclination of apology or kindness in this day is a sick joke. We cannot have intellectual honesty or global unification until we together address the problem of Islam for the sickness to the world that it is. Their children need to saved from rape, murder, and brainwashing, their women need to be liberated, their bloodthirsty grown men indoctrinated with the violent Koran all their lives - well, that’s the hard part. Not if, but WHEN it comes to the world vs. Islam, it will have to be addressed.

-GD

46 comments:

NS said...

[[Freedom from the human condition can only be attained by devout devotion to god, and since god is intangible, salvation is only attained through your gurus, which of course have only been MEN in the disciplic line of gurus thus far.]]

My friend you got it wrong here atleast.

Guru of a Sikh is not a human.

Its the 'Shabad Guru', which is the sound manifestation of the light embodiment God.

This makes all the difference.

Unknown said...

Great job but no scientolgy? I guess its not a major religion.. People are so damn stupid its nice to hear a little commen sense.. Thankyou for allowing me to not completley give up on the human race. :-)

NS said...

Major/Minor is usually termed according to numbers of people 'claiming' to belong to a religion. In that sense, Sikhism is 5th or 6th largest.

But it doesn't matter how many of pupils go attend physics lectures, not all are physicists. Similarly, not all who claim to be one of those, actually care to know what it is all about. Except 'liking' it, much the same way one 'likes' a Facebook post of a friend.

Kirk said...

How did you leave Scientology off the list? I mean, I don't consider it a religion as much as a scam, but it does get religious status a lot of places.

Anonymous said...

one issue. how did you get to islam being the number one killer of people. I'd think it would go
1 Christianity
2 judaism/islam
3 mayan religion (other religions don't seem to play such a direct role in promoting violence; consider hinduism which is racist and oprresive with its caste system but not overtly violent)

and in terms of brutality, lets not forget the holocaust which introduced the world to the most extreme form of brutality ever seen and was carried out by nazi's with sufficient links to Christianity. i really don't think its fair that the west tries to make islam like the worst religion just because they committed their atrocities so long ago, most people have forgotten. while islam is probably the worst religion now, lets keep some historical perspective.

Debapam said...

Reading your article was not frustrating. You seem to be fairly liberal in your arguments. But my friend little knowledge is worse than no knowledge. Read about the philosophies and basic tenets of religions which you criticise first then think critically. It is perfectly natural to have issues with the huge number of gods and iconography in the major strand of Hinduism. But think how they each are human embodiments of ideas, and since man most easily relates to an icon rather than the void (it is difficult to picture the void with the minds eye) therefore these multiple icons and gods are to some extent justified too. my comment would be too long if I talk about the logical flaws of your blog. What you are talking about in relation to most religions here is but the gradual distortion the root ideas face in the hands of mystery mongers and godmen. look for the root. take Hinduism for example, it is in fact not even a proper religion. it is rather a meshing of multiple practices and philosophies. some of which are really profound. think of the nirguna brahman or the om or the shiva linga or the ardhanaariswara or the kali (even now looked upon as a sign of the primitive nature of hindus) admittedly any religion or for that matter any social construct is but an organised attempt at controlling human beings. but there are some gems in practices of Hinduism, islam, budhhism, Jainism, Sikhism.... some of your statements seem rather influenced by mainstream perceptions about religion and the orient. finally I would say that it is a tough job to write on stuff like religion I understand the perpetual threat of incurring the wrath of blind adherents but as a person who has rarely accepted ideas without questioning Let me tell you that even logic has its limits and hence is not the panacea for the blind. Since reading your blog one sees more a desire to know than thwart (You have been restrained, understanding, perceptive inyour statements) therefore if you are interested in comprehending more I would advice you to read the yoga sutras of patanjali and a bit of the Upanishads, and compare them with the similar trends in Taoism budhhism Jainism Sufism ... you will find a pattern. this pattern should be deeply studied. You read them, study them, then you write something again be it negative or positive atleast it would be more informed and something closer to infallible. The comment turn out rather huge I see :/ But I could not restrain myself :)

Unknown said...

Well, you must have some nerve to post something like this. Most of these religions are popular and time-tested. It is insulting to a lot of people. I was expecting newer and more comical religions like pastafarianism, or Scientology, not religions like Buddhism, or Judaism.It is somewhat racist the way you include Islam at the top off the list. While some extremists are responsible for the attack on the WTC, that gives no one the right to blame the whole thing on the entire population of Islam. And I can agree that christianity has had its ups and downs ove time but if you actually understand its creation, it will make more sense. It seems to me that you have little knowledge on this topic. I agree with Dirk Kuyt on that one.

Anonymous said...

@Alec: How is it 'racist' to list Islam as the dumbest religion? They're automatically excluded from the possibility of being the number 1 spot because they are mostly non European? You're just being mindlessly politically correct. Most of the higher ranking less dumb religions are practiced almost exclusively by Asians. Islam isn't a race and Middle Easterners and North Africans, though generally a bit swarthier than most Europeans are still Caucasian.

Anonymous said...

Don't be so smug and condescending. I would agree there are some gems on some of the Eastern traditions, and if you read more careful you'd see the author acknowledges this. Unfortunately these gems are invariably buried deep in excrement and obfuscated by silly superstitions and dogma.

Your suggestion that there are "gems" in Islam, but not Christianity, is I suspect borne more of political correctness than a sincere respect for the religion. I personally regard the Abrahamic faiths as largely devoid of gems. They for the most part just declare that there is a big bad vengeful god watching so you better do as this book says or else.

The eastern traditions do have genuinely interesting notions of the "mysterious unity of existence" and such, but again, it's presented in a very confused manner and hopelessly tangled in superstitious silliness. In any event any thing worth noting on eastern traditions can be found without the supernatural baggage and other BS in the better writings of Western philosophers and from modern day insights from the physical sciences.

Moreover, westerners tend to romanticize Eastern traditions and describe them as being more profound and rational than they are. The Buddhism of the Western academic is pretty interesting but would be largely unrecognizable to Buddha (or extant Eastern practitioners of Buddhism). The aspects of 'Eastern' traditions so often revered by Westerners are more often than not projections of Western scholars more than anything genuinely eastern. Western academics tend to "Hellenicize" Eastern philosophy.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bingus said...

all the religions you put on here are true.. they are very dumb... except for christianity. this being the mostly criticized.. I mean think about it. Nobody pays attention, or cares about hinduism, Buddhism or anything like that, because they all already know its wrong, and most just don't want to waste time fighting about it. But SOO many people care and fight about christianity so hard, trying to make everybody against christianity. Thats because the devil doesnt bother with all the wrong religions, because he already knows they are wrong also, but he knows christianity is the one, or else why would he try so hard to get people to quit christianity. You can say all the false stuff you want, but nothing will change it.

Richard Ostmann said...

Entertaining article, and yes when it comes down to it (in our deepest logical thoughts) so many religions are crazy and we know it. Its laughable at times, did God create man in his own image, or man create God in his/her own image? I have nothing negative to say, because I get the flow of this article, the comedy, the sarcasm and all. Scientology is a registered mainstream religion and should be up there and Buddhism pushed off to the end or out completely since its more a philosophy and people only tend to misconstrued it a bit. The Dali Lama said himself Buddhism is always changing and more about self realization. as far as the top 3 go, I think people don't really read those books word for word, because if they did they would see the most insane,contradicting,women hating and incoherent words ever put down in the history of mankind...

thanks
and may the "true" creator of the universe bless us all

Rabbit said...

Honey please... If you don't believe in Christianity think about this. Posted by annonymous. Why Jesus? Look throughout the major world religions and you'll find that Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius and Moses all identified themselves as teachers or prophets. None of them ever claimed to be equal to God. Surprisingly, Jesus did. That is what sets Jesus apart from all the others. He said God exists and you're looking at him. Though he talked about his Father in heaven, it was not from the position of separation, but of very close union, unique to all humankind. Jesus said that anyone who had seen Him had seen the Father, anyone who believed in him, believed in the Father.

He said, "I am the light of the world, he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."14 He claimed attributes belonging only to God: to be able to forgive people of their sin, free them from habits of sin, give people a more abundant life and give them eternal life in heaven. Unlike other teachers who focused people on their words, Jesus pointed people to himself. He did not say, "follow my words and you will find truth." He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me."15 Just please read while I explain.
With God, I have true joy most of the time, ALL of the time. Even if you don't think there is just some God with a FATHER that CREATED THIS EARTH, think about it again. God IS LOVE! HE IS JOY! PEACE! HE COULD BE A BEST FRIEND DREAM COME TRUE!!! Why would you deny that, and what proof do you have to deny it? How do idiots know monkeys were forming into humans. How can you prove evolution is real. THEY EVEN FOUND ARMOR AND SPEARS IN THE RED SEA, (IN THE BIBLE IN MOSES) get your facts people. Because I just burned you, oh snap. Got ice for that? Don't think so. SO whoever made this blog and put CHRISTIANITY IN THIRD PLACE, better think about that again.

Unknown said...

The fact that jesus claimed he was equivalent to god should win him number 1 position in the list above.......u need to understand one thing about prophets or religious gurus....They came ....They saw ....They conquered. ...n in some cases they got themselves killed also ;)

Moji said...

May be Islam can be considered the most brutal religion but the dumbest religion is absolutely the CHRISTIANITY. From the viewpoint of an outsider almost all stories related to this religion is like from fable. This trinity business for instance. Nobody understands it really. Ancient Christians had big problems to actually difine the three beings in one person. There were many different sects with their own interpretation. That's why you have a big science inside this religion called: Christology. You do not have a similar situation in any other religion. Isn't it ridiculous? You have to work a lot, study in decades to understand who the Christ was! And at the end except your own church no any other Christian give a shit about your work and call you an infidel. Jesus walking on water? Come on, why? What big humanity he solved by walking on water? Dying and waking up again? No my vote will never change: Chritianity!

Unknown said...

This made me feel better. After reading all the attention Islam, Christianity, and Judaism get from the "mainstream media" it is nice to finally see someone talking about Jainism.

viki said...

Two minute silence for those people calling their religion as only true religion....hahhaa

Yats" Yathartha Singh" said...

This is to all Indians who felt hurt after reading this no-logic debate.........
Please know how to respect the religion which gave you everything from the Pythagoras to the Astronomy that is the Hinduism and if you have any problem with Hinduism then you rascal,bullshit personality may go to hell. Ganesha was a very learned person. So you Mr.Intelligent please tell us the right way.(Only if you know!!!:0). And please the person who finds fault in others is himself a dumb. And if you have read the Holy book of Hindu then you will understand that who is LOL!!!That is you.Abusing us. Have you ever looked at yourself. Talking about religion. Have you ever been to a mosque ever been to a gurudwara ever to a Hindu temple. Never right. First research about these religions then we will debate and see. Bye bye.......

Anonymous said...

Their is no distinction between a Muslim/Jew/Christian black or white we are judged solely by our actions and heart (profit muhhamed)

Anonymous said...

Also eating pork is against Christianity yet Christians believe god changed his mind? Muslims committing the violence? Muslim genocides by ISIS Burma Israel? Confused how their is a final solution on Muslims yet their terrorist?

Anonymous said...

For Islam you typed "got a surprise??"
For me answer is no...I knew this from very beginning of the list......"Empty vessel sounds much" you whoever has posted the critical comments on divinity of the very truest religions.....Hinduism,Buddhism,Shikhism,Jainism is just like an empty vessel...bro/sis don't be in the linguistic trap of fake Hindus who are nothing but frauds...In fact these religions which I have pointed out shouldn't be even in the list....What to say about Islam...The founder is itself misguided and untrained yogi...who believed only in his own fanatics and only had spread great lies and delusions....I think it is the will of the lord of this universe that Islam should remain in this world....He had created Islam for delusioning and making some souls horrible ignorant and tie them to worldly attachments of women(lust) and gold(greed) and forceful convertions(jihad).....They live in delusion and illusions and in lower planes of consciousness....they are called muslims....I don't hate muslims because I consider them as poor lower Asteral beings with animal consciousness in divine human body......They are the sufferer and deprived from the true knowledge,true freedom,true divinity,true liberty,true self,true consciousness and are just religiously intolerant wrath with menacing ignorance and hatred filled in their soul....
The main culprit is Muhhmad who started violence and hatred in name of God and divinity and these poor beings are still following him blindly.....
Hatred and religious intolerance is the greatest evidence of it's hypocrisy....

May Lord Jessus,Lord Buddha,Lord Shankaracharya may show you the right path of truth,non-violence,tolerance,mercy and divinity...May true knowledge come to you and you all realise that your religion itself is the reason of your moral and spiritual degradation.....

May lord have mercy on you to bring you out of delusions....



HARI OMM....HARI OMM....OMM TAT SAT....BUDDHAM SARANAM GACHAYAMI...AMEN...

Unknown said...

Everyone's got a lot to say, it seems. As for me, the only thing which comes to mind is that religion itself is an extremely stupid concept and all forms of religion are automatically nonsensical. The idea of a god existing is silly and was created as a form of idol for people to worship to and self-comfort as a group.

Anonymous said...

you are all totally taking this way to far! its a damn joke! believe what you want! who really cares! quit arguing over a blog!

Anonymous said...

And, 如意ボウ YOU ARE ASIAN YOU HAVE NO ROOM TO SPEAK! your country's government is "silly"

Unknown said...

if you are talking about religion then you must study the religion not the social media or any type of media reports. if you are talking about Islam then must read what Islam really says.. for that i can help you also and you can read Quran.
if you really want to know about religion then read its teachings not the people .because people is not the religion, they only follow so how much someone follow the teachings that really dnt tell you what religion is actually.....

ktk said...

Sorry, Christianity is easily the nuttiest religion. The big guy made tiny robots that would disobey him, and when they did, he had to punish their descendants for eternity, except to avoid doing that he split into three parts and had the robots kill one of his parts (but not really), which pleased him, so he forgave the robots for disobeying him to begin with.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

you are an ignorant prick that doesn't read past the surface of what he is told. I'd be surprised to find out if you had more than one source or did any research at all

Anonymous said...

Any religion that claims that the universe didn't begin is intuitively false. If it went on forever ago, all of the heat in the world would be evenly distributed, and all of the stars would have burned out forever ago (Isn't infinity fun?). As for Islam, Muhammed was using many fables in his teachings, posing them as divine revalation. I can't bear to talk about Scientology, it's too stupid. Look it up on Wikipedia and go to the "Body and thetan" section. Look up the reports from previous believers that shudder that they used to believe that Scientology is real. @ktk, you said that God made robots that would disobey him. He didn't. Satan, or Lucifer the Fallen Angel, ruined the garden of Eden for Adam and Eve. God always was 3 parts, that are all one being, as shown by John 1:1-2 " In the begining was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the begining. " (Emphasis added) And it didn't please God that the people killed his son, in fact, heaven "turned away" when Jesus was dying. It was something that God had to do to save us. Sorry this is so long.

Chiller1977 said...

All religions are stupid and anybody who believes in supernatural beings such as: Santa Claus, Easter bunny, God, or the tooth faerie, are very primitive and dull minded. Get a grip on reality, lol. We live, we die, we rot. Religion was created to control people to give them hope and a reason to follow laws set by other men. If you have blind faith in anything, you are fucking stupid. Simple fact: the higher your IQ, the less likely you are to believe in a god.

Chiller1977 said...

Stars are born and die every day. Solar systems die with stars. We are spiraling towards the sun. Everything has a beginning and end

Chiller1977 said...

That's not true. One does not have to study something that is mythical. Religion changes to suit the followers. Religion changed when they started discovering dinosaurs. Recently Catholicism changed to support alien life. It's just a money factory now that feeds off of people's fear.

Unknown said...

Yes mate I agree with you Islam is the worst and yet the fastest growing religion in the world, see I am a Muslim by choice and proud of it. But honestly there is so much to learn in Islam that I myself cannot judge few aspects of it. Since you mentioned violence explicitly, I will tell you: The second conquest of Jerusalem by Salah Uddin (AS) not a single civilian was harmed, the same Christians had killed lakhs of Muslims in Jerusalem, but he forgave them all. Muslims ruled India for 500 years still Hindus survived and currently are 80% of the Indian population, had Muslims been driven to the same culture no Hinduism would have survived, look at America it became a super power in 1940 and has since been exterminating Muslims and poor Africans in large quantities, wait till there is no oil in middle east they will come for water and other resources that is pure greed, for us Muslims greed is a sin, Muslims did not do that. Entire Europe by rules by the ottoman caliphate and still Vatican survived, because Muslims are taught your religion to you and their to them, there is no compulsion in religion, (from the Quran)Some Muslims like in every religion may be fanatics however I can assure you of one thing, Muslims are not scared of death, you know why because they know this lie is a gift, the world is a test and do not take anything for granted, they know someone gave them this life Allah, for atheist your parents, you did not get born on your own, so if someone insults your parents would you not fight, would you not risk everything, or you have no gratitude left in you due to your easy upbringing. True Muslims do not consider the worldly possessions important they just believe in good deeds, and nothing is more better than standing up to injustice, saving one's family, defending the rights to the weak, defending the sisters and mothers, so maybe they get excited and fall into traps, from your article I can guess you are between 18-25 years and still in dilemma, you can read how the situation in middle east was created, how many Americans agree that twin tower attacks were carried out by USA themselves to invade IRAQ for OIL, what is the importance of OIL in this world economy, and how invading the middle east has caused economic relief to America. who created money, and who decides the value of currency, why are some countries poor and others are rich, I guess you haven't started working yet and hence so much concerned about religious beliefs, beliefs don't guide humans my friend, hunger does and when there is enough food, emotions drive us. just like you, you are being emotional over people dying however people will die and that is the truth, what they did in their lives is all that matters, so rather than blaming religion, pick up a gun or a pen and go to middle east fight against the fanatics, because sitting and sobbing and blaming religion will not change the world, this world is run by money and guns, that is the truth, it is not run by religion, religion is the strength for the weak that gives them hope and promise of life in the next world, Do not make fun of someone's faith as some have faith that is all they have....

Unknown said...

When you call America a superpower is it because of their religious belief, they do everything against Christianity, you call them rich because they have money, how did they get money, GUNS my friend, big fucking guns, . why does America promote atheism, because then no religion will tell them what is right and what is wrong, American constitution with all its fault becomes the universal religion, poor people do not question the mighty and keep burning the midnight oil in poverty. Religion as per Islam is a guidance to survive this world and make it a better place for us to pass into the hereafter, Islam is a practical religion which does not say someone slaps you show him the other cheek, no one should slap or provoke anyone, if someone slaps you slap him back hard so that he might not slap someone else. Islam was not spread by violence it was spread by peace and the behavior of companions of the holy prophet (PBUH) if sword was so effective in converting people whole of Middle East would be Christian by now you see. Rather than suffering why not convert and save our life. If they were scared and converted to Islam in the time of prophet (PBUH) they could reconvert now as they are scared again. They loved what Islam thought and are dying but not leaving it.
You may not believe in hereafter but I do believe in it, because if Hitler killed 6 million people what is the punishment that he may get on this world, may be death sentence, however you cannot kill him 6 million times and give justice to 6 million families, no mate never. So there has to be a hell. Similarly I believe your parents are religious and sacrificed a lot of their youth, experiences and hard work to raise you as a person, and you turned ungrateful and make fun of their beliefs, so now who will reward your parents for their hard work and sacrifice, there has to be a heaven. What is your father had thrown you into a trashcan in Sudan and you were eaten by aids infected monkeys and spent your life as a gay infected crack whore, would you be blaming religion for that as well you would be begging god for death and you wouldn't get that as well. Your life is too easy so you do not see what belief is. Be thankful do good deeds, don't be selfish or greedy, make your experiences, but do not follow wrong experiences because they bring sorrow to you and others. You would like to have one night stands would you like your mother/wife/girlfriend to do it. (It looks good in American movies, it is bad for everyone involved brings pain and nothing else and by the time you realize it is too late)You would like to take drugs would you like you father to sell drugs. You see religion and religious books tell us the way to live in this world without hurting others and getting accounted for. So they are important to everyone. You should read some yourself. I have not mentioned about other religions as I believe all religions teach good things people do not read their texts and follow violence and wrong behavior. Islamic fanatics have no knowledge of QURAN, Hindu fundamentalist have never read veds or puranas. Every civilization from beginning of time was sent a messenger and a book, over time people became greedy and changed the books. Quran came in as the last book from ALLAH (SWAT) and has not been changed in its form till date. So I follow QURAN and ISLAM which teaches us to be a better human every day and there is no better deed than helping others and being of service to the society as a whole.
Holy QURAN says: There is no compulsion is religion, your religion to you, theirs to them.

Unknown said...

The best way to comment. . . . .. please do not read this page. . Just don't read. That's all .god is there and he loves us all ..and we chose different ways to worship him . . But once we imagine everyone worshiping in the same way . . And heaven comes down and glory fills our souls. Do not spoil ur mind with this page.

Ringtone Rave said...

What is believable is the Big Bang = 13.8 Billon Years ago - and confirmed by all scientific studies. Also the Morphic resonance we see in beautiful evolution of nature, art animals etc.
Most Religions assume 5k years since creation which is ludicrous to any intelligent person.
Jesus had some great humanist points like equality, kindness, humility etc.(Vs Roman Brutality) + Heavenly promises going forward in the sky.. so no worries if things are grim today..
But Christianity is weird - especially the semi-cannibalistic Eucharist ritual at the core.
Maybe it's a way for people to believe they are becoming godlike by symbolically consuming his pretend body/blood?
Happily Sports like Soccer and Tennis are our new religions - much more fun and no need for weird religios concepts - simply group emotions. + replaces Wars which relions have encouraged .

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Unknown said...

Why the hell are you talking about this to begin with, Let Them Believe in religions as they do, whats it gonna do to you? Im a muslim but i dont care about other religions because they go their way and i go mine, people who dont have religions also can be left alone as it is their personal preference, insulting religion and the people is stupid, and the only thing "Dumb" in this post is you for posting something like this, You should respect peoples opinions as long as it dosent affect you in any way, So Stupid to talk about it in such disrespect to the point where literally no one believes it, also, Some religions may have some dumb rules i cant mention any names, but you should just respect them and leave them be, they havent done anything to you so leave them all, also your way of judgement was seriously unfair, first of all, Religions like christianity and Islam cant be judged for the peoples actions, no one is perfect and not everyone in christianity or Islam does that, only people who are sociopaths or have brain problems, and the buddhism people are the same, So just learn to appreciate people's religions and beliefs, even those who dont believe in gods, and as for your judgement, If you arent gonna talk about the religon itself and just gonna talk about the people of it, You can go kill yourself. Peace

Unknown said...

Finally, someone bashes Islam. As an ex-muslim, I'm fed up with people viewing Islam through a rosy tinted lens. Islam really is a brutal and nonsensical religion. Sometimes, I get harassed not only by butt-hurt muslims angry at me being an infidel, but also white non-muslims who call me racist and stupid for 'oppressing islam'.

Ignore the other people who are sending you senseless and hatefilled paragraphs, they've been indoctrinated, and that breaks down their ability to think rationally. Your work is good.

Unknown said...

Oh also, @chiller1977, the reason people believe in religion is due to indoctrination. Indoctrination breaks down the ability to think rationally. It is possible to redevelop that ability. But, until that ability is redeveloped, they'll be stupid and naive.

No-one is immune to indoctrination from a young age like the world religions do. It's really horrible, it's child abuse to force a religion on impressionable young children!

Unknown said...

Oh also, it would have been great if you included how many religions contain genital mutilation, urgh.

Kenny said...

God is real. There is a lot of evidence. Atheists are fucking stupid!

Unknown said...

Islam is the fastest and best religion in the world, it can tell time, there are some versus int the Qur'an that say, there will be people stronger than you but you will defeat them, how do you know i did not make this up? Qur'an is very peaceful but the western media views that as the opposite, so if you see the Muslims beat Israel, no one is going to be surprised

Srinivasan - bean farmer said...

I pray to God let there be no religion. It seems Religion or Chinese will kill humanity before any Asteroid hit earth.

pbanik said...

Xtianity should be #1, and Mormonism is basically a subset of Christianity. Islam has killed a fraction of the total body count of Christianity.

NeterAafertiÅasarEm-Hatap999 said...

First one must fully comprehend what and where does religion stem from etymologically speaking the word religion stems from the Latin word;relegare which just means a binding of a culture,honestly all I have to say is man/women,know Thy self because the reality in fact actuality is that only you can save yourself no matter what your preception,belief or acknowledgment of infallible actual facts may be,the fact of the matter remains is you are your own savior point blank.