I am an atheist. I don’t believe in a ‘god’. I don’t believe in a heaven or a hell. I don’t believe that we need religion to force us to behave peacefully, justly, and honestly towards each other. John Lennon wrote ‘Imagine there’s no heaven’. Instead, I would like you to imagine a lot more than anything John said.

Imagine if we tore down the churches, the mosques, the temples and all the other places of worship, and used them to build houses for the poor and homeless instead. Wouldn’t the world be a better place?

Imagine if we made all the priests, monks, nuns, rabbis and other so-called holy people disrobe, leave their cloisters, and become productive members of society instead. We would have legions of mostly highly educated men (and some women) helping mankind, instead of hiding their lives away. They would have to face life, instead of spending their lives preparing to die. Fear drives these people. They need to overcome their fear and learn to live every day, dare I say it, like it is their last day. One day, it will be their last day. Will they be able to look back on their lives when that day comes and be proud of the life they have lived? Will they be able to say that they have helped others become better people? Hiding behind robes and walls does not make them better people, does it? We have all heard of the priests who sodomized children. The terrorists use religion as their excuse to murder thousands of people. But the terrorists are misfits who cannot face their lives. They prefer to die, and selfishly take many other people with them. Do any of these people, holy people or terrorists, deserve our admiration or support?

Imagine if we stopped wasting papeSr and ink printing holy books and used the materials to print children’s educational books to teach rational thought instead of superstition. Those books would teach children how to question ideas and learn to think for themselves. We could even employ the disrobed holy people to teach from those books. As a result, they would feel so much better because they would be helping prepare the next generation to make a useful contribution to the world and their fellow man. Isn’t that something to aspire to?

Imagine if we stopped classifying people by their religion, or their race, and started looking at them as human beings instead. We would see that they have the same dreams, aspirations and needs as we do. We all have to eat. We all want to love and be loved. We all love our children dearly. None of us would feel hatred if we could only see each other as people. Have you ever looked closely at the people of other religions you have been vilifying? What do you see?

Imagine if we stopped praying for things in the hope that a ‘supreme being’ might actually care what we want. Who can honestly prove that prayer works? Let’s be realistic here. If you were to set up an experiment to have millions of, say, Christians around the world join in prayer at the same time to stop the terrorists, do you really think those prayers would work? Of course not! Instead, it would be far more productive to sit down together and examine what is causing the problem and then work out a solution rationally. You can apply this principal to anything in your life. Your boss is considering a promotion in the company? Will praying help you get it? Or would you be better off thinking about how to impress the boss? If you think about what your boss needs and expects from you, and then you gratify his expectation, you will increase your chances many time over. Prayer can’t do that. I know where I would bet my money, don’t you?

Imagine if you saved your money instead of giving it to religions. Most divorces result from financial problems in one way or another. That money could help provide a better education for your children. It could provide a security cushion for you and your family so that you are happier together. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does make it easier to achieve your goals, and that is how you can be happier. The money you give to your religion merely helps enslave people to one way of thinking. Wouldn’t you rather be free and happy?

Imagine if you were to start thinking for yourself, instead of quoting verses from books written by men hundreds or even thousands of years ago. What do those men have to do with our modern world? Did they have the knowledge we take for granted today? Even the most rabid religionist knows that the world is round. How? It has been proved by scientists. What is the point of forbidding people to eat certain kinds of food, such as pork or beef, simply because some ignorant ‘holy man’ a long time ago said you shouldn’t eat them? Actually, the ban on eating pork, or butchering animals to Muslim halal or Jewish kosher standards made sense when they had no refrigerators. Draining the blood ensured that the meat would stay fresher longer. Their ban on eating certain type of seafood made sense for the same reason. But it makes absolutely no sense these days, does it? Religious leaders turned the ban into a weapon to control their followers. Instead of saying, “That doesn’t make sense any more”, you continue to blindly follow the old ways, instead of thinking rationally and making decisions based on common sense. Why not free your mind, body and soul instead?

Imagine if world leaders were to stop using religion as an excuse to grab and hold onto power. We all know that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So why do we continue to let unbalanced men hungry for power who cannot think rationally lead us into wars that destroy lives and cause so much misery? How could anyone capable of thinking rationally continue to believe in any religion in this day and age?

If you were thinking rationally, religion would not make any sense at all. Instead of quoting from the Bible, the Koran, or any other ‘holy’ text, you would be thinking rationally. You would be thinking for yourself. You would not blindly follow rules set by someone from thousands of years ago with a fraction of our knowledge of the world. You would care about your fellow man, instead of trying to classify or demonize them because they don’t think the same as you. Wouldn’t that make more sense?

Any rational man, looking at religion, can see that religious thought is ‘wrong thought’. It robs you of the power to make rational decisions. Instead of looking for rational, humanist solutions to problems you continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. It blinds you to the beauty and love that exists in the world today. Only rational thought, and a belief in mankind, can turn our world into a paradise NOW. Do you really want to live your life trying to fulfill unrealistic expectations set by religion in the hope you will go to a ‘better place’ after you die? What about the here and now? Doesn’t it make so much better sense to work to achieve paradise today? To make your life, and the lives of everyone around you, better?

Isn’t it time we stopped the cycle and resolved to turn our world into a better place instead? If enough of us start thinking like this we can do it. But you have to want to do it. No one else, especially ‘god’, ‘allah’ or any other deity, will do it for you.

The hippies back in the 1960’s said, “What if they gave a war and nobody went?”

I ask you, “What if you gave up religion and started living your life for today instead?”

No one has ever come back from the dead. Not even Jesus, despite what is written in the Bible. No one has ever come back and told us they actually saw god or the devil when they died. It just doesn’t happen. We only get this life. Let’s make it a good life. Believe in yourself…not in some mythical deity no one has ever seen. Give up religion and become a thinking, rational human being instead. It’s only common sense, isn’t it?

Marc Holt