Dinosaurs ate my Dogma: A Disclaimer on Religion

This is just a little disclaimer to go along with the temporal lobe visions article and the 21st century spontaneous generation article. The disclaimer is that we here at The Bow and Grimace aren't atheists, and we aren't hostile to an idea of God, whether it be Christian, Islamic, or Zoroastrian.

On top of that, we don't believe that science is contrary to religion, which is the point from which most of our sardonic language concerning religion is found. If there is a God that created the universe, then the closest study of Him should be science, and the laws of nature should be our model for religion. It’s easy to see how so many laws of religion correlate with laws of nature (that includes human nature). There is a distinct order/organization of things, and that’s why breaking that harmony by smiting, coveting, etc. is bad.

We are cleary, though, doubters of specific doctrines—such as Christianity, but so were some of Jesus’ disciples and members of his family. Again, keep in mind we are not CONTRE these doctrines, though we may have a specific distaste for the way some people choose to translate the fundamental texts of these denominations.

Here are some important questions:

• Either we have the idea of the word "just" completely wrong, or God is not just, no?
• How is it just to create a race, to give them the "choice" to follow you, but condemn them to hell for not being your disciples? Is that really a choice? Who would actually choose hell?
• Why aren't we all given an equal chance to understand the demands of God in the first place?
• Why is it that two people can read the same text and extrapolate two completely different meanings from the texts?
• Many would say we just don’t have faith, but can someone be convinced to truly have faith in something he doesn’t believe in? (Which, by the way, is what you believe if you believe if you want to use government to make laws prohibiting things forbidden in your religion).
  

We also acknowledge that most people don’t even choose their religion. On the other hand, they are born into it. How many Christians really studied other religions before making the rational choice of, “That sounds good. I’ll have that”? Or how many Saudis (in a country where conversion to Christianity, or any other religion, is punishable by death) choose to be Muslim? It is this fact that lead to the quote, “I contend that we are all atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

Those just being the tip of the iceberg, we must also clarify that we are also completely against the idea that religions are bad and/or corrupt. Whether good is done in the name of Jesus, Yahweh, Bono, or chemical chance, it is still good. We believe that the image as presented by the media of religion (all of them) and the people who participate therein is not an accurate portrait. Take for example the Vietnamese soldier Sen. McCain spoke of recently.

We believe in God, but if anything we believe there is truth in almost every religion’s teachings. If one looks at the big picture, they’re not all that different. The point is always the same.

We believe in God, we just don’t know what to call him.

Bill Hicks always sums it up best. Note, however, we're not as bitter as Bill Hicks. In fact, we hope that nobody is as bitter as Bill Hicks. Just listen to his talk about dinosaurs (VERY explicit and offensive, yet funny, content).