Religion is bad, m'kay?

Many christians wonder why some atheists are so fervently against christians.
Live and let live.

Well not quite... there are numerous reasons that people should be wary of false premises that lead to bad conclusions, and eventually bad acts. It is our responsibility to prevent these people from hurting people or our planet. Religion, as I have tried to argue has very false premises. Faith is a big one. Also trying to convince people it exists, through scientific evidence (these conclusions using the evidence tends to be ill-supported) is another false premise to believe. But what are the real reasons I fight christianity? And please note many of my christian friends do not believe in any of these, but I am speaking of a world-wide Christian population.

Well lets look at some real-world situations where faith has directly hurt or changed something for the worse. I will leave if up to the reader to decide if said action should be called immoral.

Stem cell research is in large part prevented from religious doctrine. Thousands of people could be potentially helped by the utilization of human embryos. Pro-life groups, together with christian organizations have rallied, lobbied and acted to prevent the utilization of stem cells to for therapy (because their belief that a human embryo has the exact same value as a living-breathing human’s life). Stem cells would help thousands of people. Religious thought is preventing people from receiving stem cell treatment.

Religious doctrine requires the denial of evolution in schools. Commonly held theories about the origin of our species, natural systems of change and astronomical observations are constantly being hampered, harassed, and slowed by religious organizations and people whom doubt fact on false premises. Religious groups deny factual science to the detriment of our societies public awareness, scientific funding/support and public thought on any number of levels.

President Bush and many other horrible politicians (MANY democrats included) are supported by people of faith. Good political theory, and sound judgement takes a back-seat to ideology and faith when elections occur. Many otherwise promising candidates are hampered by the religious one-issue voters (whom otherwise would be voting based on their analysis of character and policy). Religion supports one-issue political candidates to the detriment of our effective democratic political landscape.

Homosexual men and women are seen as sinners in the eyes of religious people. Equal rights are denied by the majority of religious people, and in so are denying equal civil liberties to fellow humans. This conclusion is almost never based in statistical evidence or social science, instead their decisions are often based entirely in the biblical view of homosexuality. Homosexuals people are denied equal civil rights because of religious support of intolerance.
Shall I go on?

Environmental damage (among other world-issues) is viewed by many fundamentalist Christians as unimportant due to the biblical prophecy of the end of the world. If this world is temporary, they thereby have less-reason to ensure its sustained existence. Religious people often do not recognize the significance of living sustainable to the detriment of our planet.
Religious faith supports a passive acceptance of any number of other topics. Such passive acceptance of what otherwise would be challenged issues are meeting less and less intellectual and logical criticism. Politicians, businesses and religious groups are utilizing this same ideology of blind-faith to forward their often immoral practices to an often imbecilic public. Religious faith supports blind-acceptance, and many bad people utilize this to their advantage (the catholic church was once the richest and most powerful entity in all the world).

Many historical events corroborate the present position of religion being an evil. Throughout human history one can see thousands upon thousands of times religion was utilized as a method of evil. General examples include the crusades, the treatment of Jews, the inquisitions, and various Holy Wars. In addition on should note the indirect deaths attributable to religious superstition or thinking. Thousands of scientists and thinkers were hampered, persecuted and stopped by various religious groups throughout history. Imagine if scientists could have found a cure to the black plague, or if slavery was condemned in the bible, or if the spanish never defined what a heretic was (as perhaps would have saved thousands and millions of native americans). Many of these historical events have reverberations to present day, and many contemporary happenings echo of this evil influence to this day.

And that is only the very tip of the horrible iceberg that is potentially sinking our ship.