Imagine the situation:

You're a caveman, you're extremely stupid and ignorant. You know absolutely nothing about anything outside the realm of the senses. You have very little idea what you are, or how you came to be.
Because you can't discover anything yet, due to your lack of understanding and lack of knowledge, you use your imagination to fill in all the gaps that you are too primitive to allow science to fill. Through your lack of understanding, lack of knowledge, lack of technology and lack of education, you imagine the idea of a thing called "God."

At first, the idea of "god" and "religion" seem harmless and perfectly reasonable, but over time, people appear to be getting violent and hateful in the name of religion, many people started to get purposelessly sacrificed, thousands were killed because of their religion in events such as the holocaust; war breaks out; planes are flown into buildings.

After all the pain and suffering it has caused, I personally think that it's about time to put religion to bed. As Friedrich Nietzsche once said "God is dead".

Atheism and science

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that there have been loads of great scientists who follow a religion of some sort. But although I have little proof, I recon about 90% of the worlds greatest scientists including: Nye, Einstein and Hawking, all have one thing in common, "Atheism"

Einstein once said "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." Could it be that without religion holding him back, Einstein was able to discover anything he wanted, say what he wanted, and think what he wanted, without fear of hell, of judgment. His mind was opened by wonder, not closed by belief.

As well as Einstein, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" is also an atheist (well he's actually an agnostic but he's not religious) and he once said "The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It’s not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs." By saying this, he is encouraging children to be free thinkers and question the religious beliefs that their parents may (although probably won't) enforce on them.

Family Guy

One of my favorite episodes of Family Guy is without a doubt "Road to the Multiverse." In this episode, Stewie and Brian visit a universe in which Christianity never existed. In this universe, they have loads of things that the regular Family Guy universe simply doesn’t; flying cars, floating houses, hot Meg. As well as being laugh till it hurts hilarious, the clip might actually be on to something.

Throughout the centuries, Christianity has bullied some of the greatest scientists of all time, slowing them down from their great discoveries. Galileo was put under house arrest for discovering a fact that went against the bible and the church. Just imagine, if he wasn't put under house arrest, what could that man have discovered. I suppose we'll never know.

Darwin, although not actually punished, had his revolutionary book The Origin of Species looked down upon by the Church of England. I often wonder, what would the world be like if religion had never existed? Perhaps that would make a good episode of Family Guy.

Conclusion

And so, to cut a long story short -- religion may or may not have originally started to make the world a better and more peaceful place. It may have even started so that we could fill in the gaps (in our knowledge and understanding) that today science can fill in for us.

But personally, I think it's time to stop believing in silly stories. I think that it's time to stop believing in imaginary friends. I think that it's time to stop harming others in the name of our imaginary friends. Lets put religion to bed now, and allow science to take us into the future, to help the entire human race, to help the planet, and to allow every single one of us to fulfill our full potential.

Photo Credits: @tomh