Actor Brian Cox gave a harsh critique of religion in a recent interview, arguing it has contributed to human “stupidity” and society’s problems.
He said religion has sold people a false narrative and led to horrors like the Holocaust and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Gaza.
“Human beings are so [expletive] up, basically… because they’re so stupid,” he said.
“It’s all about this notion of God, the idea that there’s a God that takes care of us all. There’s no such thing, doesn’t happen, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about us, and we don’t examine ourselves nearly enough. We don’t look at who we are. We’re always looking outside of ourselves, instead of looking inside ourselves,” he said.
Cox claimed religion prevents self-examination and shields people from their role in issues, instead focusing outwardly on God.
He described the Bible as propaganda and criticized its creation story of Adam and Eve for promoting a patriarchal view of women.
Cox argued humanity has not evolved enough to look inwardly at problems rather than relying on religion, and that theater is a truer expression of humanity than religion.
“Because it starts with the idea that Adam’s rib – you know that [from] Adam’s rib, this woman was created, and they’ll believe it because they’re stupid enough.”
“It is not the truth, it’s a mythology,” he said. “We’ve created that idea of God, and we’ve created it as a control issue, and it’s also a patriarchal issue… and it’s essentially patriarchal – we haven’t given enough scope to the matriarchy.”
“It’s people dealing with… those false gods we create for ourselves and the notion of the word God anyway, is a conceit. It’s a terrible conceit that we don’t really acknowledge.”
