Friday, April 22, 2011

RELIGION IS...

Recently, I discovered Google Images.   Yeah, I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes...

So anyway, I typed in "Religion" on Google Images, and got some interesting results. Of course, the image at the left is interesting all by itself. According to this Google search, religion is the opiate of the masses, bullshit, fake, islam, man made, a smile on a dog, a joke, the root of all evil, a lie... and apparently, religion is also like Paul Rudd.

Clicking on that entry, the first website that came up was named http://www.picchore.com/, where it says:

Google says religion is like... Paul Rudd?

In case you didn’t see it, I had a little fun with Google’s suggest tool and a number of the world’s religions. Well, perhaps “fun” isn’t the best way to describe it.  Actually, it was pretty much bullshit.

But one thing jumped out at me that I wanted to give its own special post; that is Google’s suggestion for what we collectively believe religion to be.


According to Google, we not only consider religion to be the “opiate of the masses” and “a smile on a dog”, but we also consider it to be like Paul Rudd.  And I assume Google is talking about the actor.

Could that be true?  Could religion really be like Paul Rudd?

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Puzzling at first.  After all, what does Paul Rudd have to do with religion?  But as it turns out, this comparison came from the following quote ala the TV show, Community.
Shirley:  You think religion is stupid.
Jeff:  No, no.  to me, religion is like Paul Rudd.  I see the appeal and I would never take it away from anyone, but I would also never stand in line for it.

These days, I tend to agree with Jeff (played by actor Joel McHale of "The Soup").

And as far as I am concerned, religion is all those things listed above, and much more.

Since leaving Mormonism, I have come to the conclusion that organized religion is all about money and power, i.e. controlling people to gain power over them so they will give lots and lots of their money to the specified religion.  In reality, shouldn't religion be about helping people be better versions of themselves?  But no, that concept seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I think Abraham Lincoln had it right when he said, "When I do good, I feel good.  When I do bad, I feel bad.  That's my religion."

But unfortunately, all the goodness that religion should actually create seems to have gone off in strange directions... 

 

What people do and say in the name of RELIGION is truly mind-boggling.  The gap between what is preached and what is practiced has created a very wide chasm, and it seems to be widening even more with each passing day. 




So it all comes back to brainwashing, blind faith, doing what you're told, and following along like sheep and/or zombies with no independent thought, no individuality, and certainly no questioning.  At least, this applies to Mormonism.  And as far as I can tell, it also seems to apply to organized religion in general.

IMO, a very sad commentary.

1 comment:

Donna Banta said...

Good comparison, although I think Paul Rudd's way more appealing than religion. (Probably because I used to be Mormon.)