I've been trying to write a book entitled The Atheist Insurgency. Every time I think of a direction to take with it, someone else was already there. Atheism is all about the virtues of pure reason and the study of long-term consequences, rather than simply following the dictates of unsubstantiated Bronze-age mythology.
I witnessed a lot of effort in criticizing religion and debunking pseudo-science quackery. There is a lot of exposure to abusive religious power structures, and religion's inroads into secular politics and government. People have written about religion's direct connection to genocide, torture, institutionalized robbery and discrimination.
Everyone knows how religion has taken over holidays and traditions not their own, such as the Winter Solstice, Spring equinox, marriage, etc., and then attempts impose their own rules and exclude others. The Christians took over the Winter Solstice, called it Christmas and now they tell non-Christians they can't celebrate and they must say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." Then Christians have the gall to claim a "war on Christmas." or a "War on Easter" or the "Sanctity of marriage."
Countless complaints have been lodged against religion imposing itself on individual human rights to privacy, literacy, a decent and accurate scientific education, family planning, the freedom to choose what one does with one's own body, the freedom of consenting adults to do what ever they want as long is it has no negative consequences for others, the right to die and be buried with dignity.
Religious zealots use the power of their authority and the threat of eternal damnation to drain the estates of elderly congregates, sexually abuse children, philander emotionally vulnerable women. They have so much power that they can will other church members to enforce their dominance. They use their authority to impose political influence in violation of church-state separation, by such behavior as denying certain elected officials "Communion."
The behavior patterns of persistent repression of education, and the spread of false information indicates a Machiavellian type of collusion among private, public and religious sectors in our culture. There are whole sectors of industry that depend for their own survival, on the false information that religion has to offer. Abstinence-Only sex education results in the spread of disease and too many unwanted children that grow up to over-supply the workforce bringing down wages, fill prisons for slave labor, and create a need for food banks, homeless shelters, and charitable organizations that advertise a need for more food instead of a need for birth control.
I'm trying to piece together as much as I can and it's very slow going, but my biggest fear is that I will be reinventing the wheel, and someone else already came up with the idea for writing about all of this. If you know of something written already about this in one project, I would love to know about it. I could just link to it.
I may not need to write the book after all, if everyone understands that religion is a crime against humanity, dividing everyone into groups and pitting them against one-another, maybe they could just stop it. Just stop religion. You're only human after all.
