Higher Powers... Thoughts on religion... I sincerely think it ridiculous to go to a building every Sunday to pay homage to images I don't know or feel any connection to. I cannot justify worshipping a religion. Logically, it just all doesn't make sense. Most of the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and had to be translated from the old languages to the new... passed down by word of mouth. I cannot take such a book word for word, but as a piece of culture and history, I can appreciate it. I also cannot understand why one must go to a musty old building every week to believe in something higher and more beautiful than oneself. I also think that it's wrong to force someone to go (like many parents, fortunately not mine (who share my agnostic/atheist leanings)) when they'd obtain much more enjoyment from lying in bed until late just watching the sunlight play on the ceiling. It seems like a lie to do such a thing.... and it makes it worse, because it is in essence a lie to your own heart if you'd much prefer to be doing something else.

In general, I just think that believing in such abstract ideas such as a higher being or love is necessary for many in life. Human beings are by nature dreamers, and when the unknown scares us (death, for example) we find something to reassure us (the promise of an afterlife). So having such beliefs is understandable to me... basing a whole bureaucratic structure on it, however, diminishes it for people... seems to take all the beauty from it. Not only that but it closes up our minds to all possibilities. I I'd like to think of something higher than myself, but I don't want to define it as a big guy with long white hair and flowing robes...

The idea of religion and belief has turned, it seems to be, into something that is used to scare people instead of give people hope... perhaps it still gives some hope, but the majority believe because they were taught to believe or they feel that they 'should'. Most seem to be afraid of going to hell, and thus do good things because of this fear. That's fine with me... train people to be good like dogs, if you'd like. But I'd prefer to think that I am a good person because I just am... that is my nature, that is who I am... I am not good because I feel that I have to be or that I'm afraid of roasting in eternal fire with some little devils poking me with pitchforks to see if I'm well-done.

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