Mine is Better Than Yours

 Religion doesn't make bigots. People are bigots and use religion to justify their ideology. ~ Reza Aslan

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/ideology.html

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/ideology.html

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/ideology.html

There are roughly 4,000 active religions in the world today. 

But the one I believe is the only true one.

Out of those religions, there are millions of denominations and sects and divisions. 

But the one I adhere to is the only one that gets it right.


Anything else, and, well, I wouldn't want to be you. 


You see, my god has told me personally that I'm on the right path, the true path. My god told me that you're doing it wrong. My god told me that all of those things you do, all of those things that I don't do, you're going to have to answer for them. My god told me what to drive, where to live, how to dress, where to work, what to eat, and even who I should vote for (that person believes in my god too, but not in the right way. Close enough for now though.). Because scripture be damned, my god needs to be forcefully involved in your life and government, whether you like it or not. It is the only way we're going to make it through this, it's the only way for you to be more like me.


There are 7 billion people on the planet, but I'm the only one that's got it figured out. If you have any hope at all, you need to be like me. You need to think like me, act like me, love what I love and hate what I hate. You need to follow the laws of my god like I do. Not all of the laws, mind you, just the ones god told me I had to follow. Which is good because I really don't like the laws that I don't have to follow. That's how awesome my god is. My god has allowed me to ignore some things that didn't really matter.


You see, my god has a plan. My god has it all worked out. For all of us. I'm not going to say that I know what it is specifically, but I definitely know that you don't know. I know because you aren't like me. 

You can't argue about what god wants because you don't listen like I do. I'm the best listener ever, because out of 7 billion people, I'm the only one that's got it right. And my god is so very mad at you people. 

You don't listen, so my god sends sickness and death and tragedy and destruction to teach us lessons. It's your fault that these things happen, not mine.



You'll note that I did not mention any specific god in the text above, there is no point in doing so. Those beliefs are not held by any single religious faction, but those ideas are common across most all of them. The idea that what I and I alone happen to be doing is the single right thing in all of the world is shared by most everyone. Even if you have no god or religion, you believe that you are correct in your ways. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing them. You may not be a fervent ideologist, but in some degree you will relate.

For 200,000 years, our modern form of humanity has trucked along, scratching out existence on a ball of dirt and water. Fire, flood, famine, disease, we have survived everything that has been thrown at us. Before that, millions of years ago, our ancestors survived all of that too. Arguably the greatest existential threat we have ever faces has been ourselves. We will fight and kill over almost anything, real or imagined.

So you have to ask yourself, are you so absolutely sure that out of all the people that have come and gone before you, and exist with you now, that you have it right and no one else does? And that you are so right that , for the good of everyone, you must do whatever is necessary to force a change to your way of thinking?

Or is it that you are so unsure that you have it right that bending the will of others is your only real means of validating your own ideology?

Or wouldn't it be better for everyone to live their own lives on their own terms, realizing that it's not always going to be a perfect mix with society at large, and that sometime we each must accommodate a dissenting opinion? Think about how many people there are in this world that are perfectly fine with you doing something that is contrary to what they do. Return that courtesy. We will all be better for it.