Imagine No Heaven and No Religion Too

Why do they burn flags over cartoons? Why do they protest violently? What upsets them? And most of all why is religion often tied to terrorism? More interestingly, why is suicide used as a weapon for religious causes? And what's the big deal about pork?

Most religions are not used for their philosophies and most individuals (who follow religion) are not intelligent enough (and plain old mentally lazy) to grasp the concepts of the philosophy of a religion. This is too deep and complicated for the masses and we can not expect the descendants of animals to think so highly. The truth is that there are a large number of uneducated, unintelligent people on this planet, probably larger than what scientists and politicians will tell you (and politicians are proven ignorant grunting human failures in terms of intelligence). Nobody wants to say that a lot of the reason human existence is miserable is because the knowledge accrued over the years of human civilization are passed down through writing and ideas, but that nobody processes or understands these ideas on a worldwide basis. Most of these ideas never make it into the minds of most humans, they are taught just the skills to survive in their culture.
For example, lets imagine that the world is wiped out and miraculously a few humans survive and slowly re-populate the earth. Thousands of years later they stumble on the New York Public library with most its works intact. The humans that could decipher these old works would have access to ideas, thoughts, memories and most of all experience on how the world works, allowing them to rapidly make inventions and change the world. Of course, they may find out the properties of fire, lets say, on their own, but at a much slower pace. Most humans on this planet, have not found the New York Public Library yet. Though I must mention that not everything you read is right either. Such as prior scientific hypotheses proved incorrect over time, like spontaneous recoumbustion or Oprah Winfrey's book list.
Ideas and experience do not serve our various institutions, its easier to keep the masses dumb and a few of us partially enlightened or shall I say rationally educated. That is why religious texts are not written deeply, often they use symbolism and basic stories to make simple points, obscuring the higher ideas for the more serious minds. It is this basic imagery and attempt to capture or appeal to the masses that makes religion the Britney Spears or Robbie Williams of life. They take away craft and knowledge and turn into silly little clowns that get moral points across.
So read the old testament and you have your imagery of fires, floods, locusts, the devil, arks, wars, love, death, etc. Read Thomas Aquinas and he's like a good early Floyd album, tight mind- opening stuff, but not played much on the Christian reading stations....
But let us delve into organized religion and trace it to suicidal bombings and demystify what Time, NY Times, and your local channel four reporter just can't understand. And No, Irma with the big fat saggy tits, white sweat shirt, American flag pins, this blog is not for you.

Religions first step is to restrict your mind. They want you to read only one book and one book only. In the modern global economy of political correctedness religious institutions will let you peak at other books, but tell you anything you see, hear or read, that's not from your religious text or preacher is bullshit anyways (this is for the poor bastard that accidentally picks up Darwin's Origin of Species at the dental office while waiting for a root canal). Even religions with multiple books can be restrictive as you only read these particular multiple books. Their books are supposed to tell you how to live, what to do, explain where you come from and where you are going. Why even live, if its all right there for you? (Hint hint: this is a subtle reason for suicide, as the religion has provided you with a reason to being born and a reason and time as to when you die, what's the ultimate sacrifice for god but murder, and if god has a wonderful heaven, why not murder as many as possible and then take yourself to collect your dues.)
Once they have got your mind closed to other ideas then the next step is to stop you thinking for yourself. Of course religions often have served a cultural purpose of establishing a societies rules and customs. Yes, religion is big on love and family in general, but they always stress that it is your personal soul. They identify the individual and the individuals' relationship with god and/or gods. It's also the individual who sins and the individual who redeems in many western religions. The family and love is often just another thing you do to avoid hell, e.g. god said have eight kids. This does not make you a good father, but a redneck with eight starving kids and two orphaned pick up trucks on your lawn, with a pile of food stamps and a meth lab in the kitchen.
With any organized unit, besides the text, and the individuals relationship with god, you have to have a leader. You need someone to keep the group cohesive, run the show, and help the idiot interpret or get the points of these books. The bible and Koran spiritually are books you should take home and help you form your relationship with a god, however, the books leave plenty of room for organizing. As I mentioned earlier, the text itself is hierarchical, simple ideas and metaphors masking more complex ideas. Low to the high is imbedded in any religion, and hence builds right into its structure. Whether it be a witch doctor, king, or pope, you have the top and the bottom.
Relgion with its focus on the individual, does make sure that the individual is not totally out there with god on their own. The religious person is not just with their own followers, but is out there converting others and making it a group thing. This is not god's work, but years and years of biological evolution. Humans beings are social animals, and we can't just draw pentagrams in our rooms while listening to Morrissey, that's for a Goth and another blog. No, humans have to share and be in groups, but groups would be disorganized and random, without purpose, unless they were hierarchal and set up. This requires leaders, and levels, hence your evangelist or priest. You join the group, you get told what to do, or you move up in the ranks to tell others what to do. The absense of self is what sociologists observe in groups, or as Durkheim looked at, not feeling a part of something makes you outside of it, hence suicide crying for help.
You are to think with others and most of all you can not understand these books, so you have a leader or preacher to tell you what's in them. This person will pick out things randomly from the book and sort of remind you, through repetition, sometimes involving ritual or singing, to help you memorize and only think of this book. Finally, the leader or priest or Inman will simply tell you what to do, like the leader of a cult. It is the very power of leaders that is the second dangerous cause of suicide bombings. Have your laws laid out in the text, shape the individual, have the individual join a group, present hierarchy, tell them what to do within all this frame work and claim this all stems from god, having ridden the persons mind of any clear thoughts, through ritual repetition and limiting other views or texts.

Governments have been sending kids off to fight for their problems for years. Religions are no different, people with agendas get into power situations and instead of waving a flag of nationalism for a president or ideal, they wave a holy text and say god wants you to kill. Of course the Osama Bin Laden's of the world never quite go out and pop themselves, they get others to do it.
Its often at random these rules and most people never quite follow the whole book, I often think secretly most religious people have neither the intelligence nor patience to read an entire book all the way through and understand it, let alone simple ones like the bible and Koran. Of course the philosophy of a religion is there and could be quite complex, like the trilogy of god in modern Catholicism, but for most they skim that part and go right to the anti-gay stuff.
Once you have your mind closed, have someone to tell you what to do, and start group thinking, you are now ready to lose your individuality. Most religions help this along by telling you how to dress and how to look, either shave your head, grow beards, bundle up in clothes, this way you can look a like relatively speaking, just enough to feel you are one with the team and lose your sense of self.
The next step is critical, this is where they get you to hate the world, hate pleasure, and hate people who are obviously not in the group. I want to look at these three points individually because it is here where you will see why terrorism exists. I will do this in Part II.