Staring at me every day is a couple of glaring missteps in the religious model. Hearsay and opinion are the driving force of modern faith, and you only need to know the key points. But the devil is in the details. The text is incomplete and the revelations too vague. The origins are muddied with folklore and fable, and mythology is mixed with faith and canonized doctrine overrun with philosophy. The TV preacher will say, “see how god has done this”. No, sir, you have done this! The world has rejected reasonable good sense to pursue charlatan promises about a half read book with a large comment section, while most of the text is kept hidden away from public knowledge
Imagine any philosopher, or physicist or anything deciding they had learned all they needed to know halfway through freshman year quitting before fully comprehending anything! Religion is a kid that just got his yellow belt and wants to show off his karate. He doesn’t know enough to know he doesn’t know enough. But like most faithfuls he will quit the lessons and go on doing roundhouses in front of his buddies. Theist have a bible. An incomplete book of fragments and copies mixed with myth and folklore and a little paganism just to make it friendly. You read through it with a few friends, hear their testimonies and Boom! That’s all you need to know to start preaching. And usually a lot less. This is the wisdom that creates a klan. That is a dangerous juncture to start wielding the sword of righteousness judgement. That is zeal without knowledge. The other side of the coin is the “rather be safe than sorry approach” of Pascal, which is actually a game of acquiesce. You lose your fight and thirst for knowledge when you accept something reluctantly without protest and just give in to it. Just because. They make it too easy. All you have to do accept the free gift. Have you ever gotten a free gift with no forms, no obligation, no strings? No brainer, right? Click here and give your life away along with thinking for yourself. But that’s the way it is. I guess anything worth doing is usually just too hard. And learning takes time.
The LDS system turns kids out to proselytize before they can say boo. But they’ve memorized the key points. They get you into the temple to make lifelong covenants, without even telling you what you will be promising. Then as a large reverent group full of family and friends all raise your hand and make the oaths. If you won’t do it, you stand to be dismissed in front of the group. Who does that? They have to agree before they know what they are agreeing too. Total bullshit. Should be illegal honestly. But that’s the way christianity works. Get everybody to buy into it before they have the knowledge.
These columns are approx 4 light years tall from the vantage point of the Hubble. Awesome!
TheCommonAtheist 
I was going to chide you for combining one of my favorite nebulae with such a sad post. But I was too busy fangirling (squeeeee…) 😉
OK, seriously now. Very on point post.
I actually had a (probably well meaning) uncle propose Pascal’s wager to me. I don’t think he appreciated my paraphrasing Granny Weatherwax.
You know, the part about: ” If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched ’em like a father and cared for ’em like a mother . . . well, you wouldn’t catch me sayin’ things like ‘there are two sides to every question’ and ‘we must respect other people’s beliefs.’ You wouldn’t find me just being gen’rally nice in the hope that it’d all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin’ sword.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have often said preachers are failed used car salesmen/ insurance salesmen who saw the light! Why in hell work so hard to sell something when people are clamoring to give their money to a preacher?
Great post. Love your insights.
Oh that nebula I have seen many times in my telescopes. It doesn’t look like a Hubble image through amateur instruments, but it is a good one to look at. If you have binoculars you can see it from a fairly reasonable dark location.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll check it out. We are in the mountains so nice and dark usually
LikeLike
I just checked, unfortunately it is low in the Eastern sky at around 6 AM. And it is moving into daylight. So it will be a couple of months I think before it becomes a good early evening target.
It is located just above the constellation Sagittarius. There is a ton of good objects in the area accessible with binoculars, it is looking towards our galactic center.
https://freestarcharts.com/messier-16
LikeLiked by 1 person
Right on. Now just have to wait for a non cloudy day! Thanks
LikeLike
LDS doesn’t acknowledge Jesus as divine so they are generally regarded as being outside mainline “Christianity”. Of course, the easy thing to do is just roll up all faiths into one gigantic ball, label it “religion” and toss it out.
Great picture of the Nebula though.
Personally, I think the Hubble telescope is a myth perpetrated by the government to extort tax money for the space program. They know we can’t possibly verify those pictures!
LikeLike
Not sure where you get your info but I was 50 years in the LDS and they definitely revere Jesus as divine. I know a lot of people say what you’ve said, but it’s not true. I got no dog in that fight any more but I try to stick with truth
LikeLiked by 1 person