What’s So Bad About Religion?

From An Apostate's Chapel:

The first problem that I have with religious beliefs is that [...] acting on the basis of false beliefs can lead to ill-conceived, even harmful, behavior and decisions.

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The second problem I have with religious belief is that believers do not live in vacuums. Their religious beliefs are not always private and those beliefs do affect others [...] in numerous ways.

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The third problem I have with religious beliefs is the persistent entreaty that I respect religious beliefs simply because they are religious.

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Believer bitter over 'prosperity' preachings

(From the Associated Press via CNN.COM) -- The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.

And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Florida, area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.

Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.

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This "53-year-old accountant" is old enough to know better, schooled in the skills of financial accounting, yet somehow gullible enough to buy into this kind of scam? It's difficult to be very sympathetic to her plight. Nobody forced her squander her money on this nonsense.