I was insufferable enough when I was just an atheist. But in the last few years, it’s gotten worse.

I’ve decided: Theism itself is the problem. The superstition, magical thinking and manipulation will kill us all.

I’ve heard the arguments from “moderate atheists”, humanists, agnostics and the spiritual: “religion does some good. They do some charity, they build community and whatever gets you through the night and doesn’t hurt others is OK.”

But that’s bullshit.

The charity they do doesn’t come close to the taxes they avoid. Charity to a church is just fundraising and recruiting. It’s usually a bandaid that could never address the underlying issues of poverty – by design. If they fix poverty, why would we need the churches?

Religious communities have become little more than political rallies. The preachers rail from their pulpits to turn part of the Putin Puppet’s agenda into a theocracy. There’s no legitimate reason for the abortion debate beyond religion. The preachers and evangelicals turn a blind eye to the threats of dictatorship (ignored election results) in exchange for judges that come straight out of the madrasas disguised as Catholic Universities. Bill Barr and Judge Amy Comes Barrett are tied to Notre Dame law school.

Hanging onto that shred of hope that some magical being will eventually punish the wicked and reward the good is tempting. But it’s a fucked up death cult that prevents people from acting here and now.

It leaves them open to “faith” as a way to see the world. But faith didn’t bring humans science or logic or reason. In fact they destroyed those things and threw us into the Dark Ages for more than 1000 years. Science, logic and reason are the only things that will save us from the “Acts of God” like pandemics, asteroids or each other.

Faith only pits us against our fellow man. If not caused by, almost all wars are fueled by religion. Why else do we pray before the battle and then over the dead when it is done.

What personally pushed me over the edge was a brief conversation a few years ago with now a former friend. (We didn’t part over politics or religion — but it didn’t help).

He was of the evangelical ilk all the way to talking in tongues and the devil walks among us. But around me, he tried to be reasonable.

He didn’t “believe” in climate change. First of all it’s not something to “believe in.” The facts are clear – the climate is changing. It’s just a question of cause.

Maybe you could debate that it’s not human caused. Maybe you could point to sunspots or climate history. Maybe you have never been in a greenhouse?

But he ended the conversation like this:

“I know you are going to laugh at me for this,” he said. “But I really believe in the end, God wouldn’t do that to us. If it gets too bad, he will save us.”

He’s right. I did laugh.

Tell that to the people in California watching their towns burn down. Tell that to the people in Soloman Islands or the Maldives who are watching their countries being swallowed by the sea.

But don’t tell that shit to me. Every form of that magical thinking is why people refuse to wear masks and have “faith” that Covid-19 is a hoax. It’s no accident that evangelicals favor Trump by 85 percent. It’s the root cause for their belief of him as a savior.

Christianity also inhibits efforts to reduce racism. Almost all White Christians believe there is no systematic racism in American or as Judge Roberts so famously said — “our country has changed.”

Sure, you can point to some change, but ask George Floyd’s family — there’s a long way to go.

Some will point to preachers being involved in civil rights, marches for freedom and help for migrants trapped in cages. But they do that despite what their books and beliefs say — not because of them. The Bible supports racist beliefs and says nothing but good things about slavery. The phrase “chosen people” alone is a race-based system.

Don’t even get me started on sex and repression. It’s the only way to explain the high suicide rate among Mormons. We all know it helps turns priests into pedophiles.

Looking to the words of illiterate goat herders from the Iron Age is no way to improve the human condition 21 centuries later. We know what works. The scientific method, reason, logic, education and a literate public empowered to make decisions. Religion and theism are just in the way. They block our path to improvement in a vein hope for a pipe dream of salvation.

It’s not the “Good News” — it’s the original “Fake News.”

If humans want to survive this hostile world and universe as a species, it’s not enough to not be a theist — we have to be anti-theist.