Watched "Religulous" by Bill Maher today. Thank humanity for people with the ingenuity to realize the fatal fallacy of believing in a religion. If only everyone had the ingenuity to get above religion. The fate of humanity may depend on it.
Religion may have helped us in the past get to where we are, but maybe "where we are" could be farther along, in terms of technology and human progress, if we never came up with religion. There must have been some compelling reason for peoples to come up with religions, though, if so many civilizations independent of each other created them. One of these reasons could quite possibly be the inferiority complex and a relinquishing of responsibility for taking care of the earth-- living with the idea that there is some body higher than us in power that watches the earth, and takes care of it. After all, how could we humans take responsibility when we have such animal tendencies, and when we are so imperfect?
And since there is so much which we humans do not control, how can we have the highest power? We can't control completely how the lands were formed, and how the winds blow, and what living beings inhabit the earth. Does that mean that there is some conscious being or beings that DO control that? And does the fact that we humans are imperfect necessitate that we should not be the ones who take responsibility for the fate of this planet?
No, and no. We'd like to think that whatever controls the world on the highest scale is a perfect being or collection of such. Well, too bad. The world isn't perfect. There is no such thing as perfection, so quit making up the idea that there is. All we have is us. And all we can do is try to be the best we can be, and take care of the earth the best we can...which we aren't. We aren't because we don't realize that we are the only ones who can take responsibility for the earth and keeping it strong. And we don't realize this because we have this inferiority complex which leads us to tenuously assume that there is some power above us that controls what we can't. But what we don't control is controlled, not by another being, but by the laws of science. It's chemistry, physics, and biology, manifested.

Watch the Youtube video "Fast Food Theology" by TheAmazingAtheist. It's amazing because of its ingenuity and truth.

"Religulous" brings to light a lot of ridiculous facets of religion and many more indications of the fallacy of religion. My only rant about the movie is that it was too much of Bill Maher being a smartass and not enough facts. Whenever a person would try to speak to him, he would interrupt to insert some snide comment or question. I was thinking, "DAMNIT, BILL, JUST LET THE GUY FINISH!" when he was interviewing someone.

According to "Religulous," 16% of Americans claim to not be affiliated with any religion whatsoever. I am proud of the height of that number, but I am disappointed that it isn't higher. Life without religion is the life of a person who is strong enough to have one's own values, who is undaunted by skepticism nor by some overwhelming power that is beyond your control, who has no need to try and redeem oneself for fear of being sent to hell, who strives to good for the earth and its people and not just to save one's own ass, and who refuses to settle for anything other than what can be physically perceived firsthand. Or you can also be a terrible person with little to no morals, but that's another story. I bet there are people who truly believe that a person without God can only be a terrible person with little to no morals. But those would fall into the category of "closed-minded dupes with an IQ on the low end of the scale."
Don't let religion hold you back. And for the most part, it doesn't. I am honestly depressed and have little faith in humanity when I meet anyone who does not give the theory of evolution the recognition it deserves. Compared to evolution, creationism is a fairy tale. Can you honestly believe that the human race was created because a snake talked a woman into eating an apple? Did you ever see evidence of a world being created when you ate an apple? Did you ever see a FUCKING TALKING SNAKE? Did you ever notice that you have a tailbone even though you have no tail? Did you ever take a look at part of the fossil record? Did you know pandas have thumbs? Do you know what atavisms or vestigial structures are? Do you notice the similarities in skeletal structures in mammals, or reptiles, or any other classification of animals? Take a good look at both sides before you make a decision.