Come and get it while you can.

I love Christian folk, I really do. My best friend is a die-hard Christian. But sometimes they can really be a naive little bunch. I generalize of course, and I do not let a few bad seeds spoil the whole lot (Amber you're the epitome of what a good Christian is, I have so much respect for you). So to be honest, here's my main problem with religion - it takes too much rationalization, as with anything taken on faith. Faith for the sake of comforting spirituality, I'm fine with. Faith for the sake of discovering the truth, problems! Too bad its so hard to separate the two.

But I digress, because perhaps I'm the one with the problem. I view the religious thought process as being the quintessence of bad thinking, but who is to say this is such a bad thing? Yes, I prefer the mind to be unrestricted from doctrine, I would very much like to see the thoughts of society expand beyond the confines of dogmatic parameters and religious constrictions, beyond this childish fear of sin and divine punishment, and if we could only release this vice clamping down on the intellect of America, the world at that, I believe we would be living in a much better place. But maybe I put too much emphasis on good, clear, non-fallacious thinking for the sake of nothing. For example, I have this horrible habit of mentally pointing out other people's logical fallacies. Yes I know I'm so gay, I'll be sitting somewhere listening to someone talk and think to myself, "Yeap, he just committed an ad hominem fallacy. That boy must be fishing cuz he just pulled up a red herring! Geez way to scare the crows away with that strawman argument" har har! It's horrible really.

(I'm a nerd)

But as far as rationalizing goes, one thing that really makes me angry is when people turn correlations into causations, otherwise known as the post hoc fallacy (nerd). For example, I was talking to my friend the other day, I said, "yeah man, I used to goto Church for the hell of it. All my friends would go so i figured why not, plus it made my mom happy and I didn't want her to know I was an atheist. But you know what, as boring as it was, just seeing all my friends worshipping and being happy made me happy. I'd go home happy". He replied, "Ya know what? That was God you felt".

Excuse me? His response disturbed me but I very calmly said, "Can't I simply feel happy? I was feeling happy at my own birthday party, it was nice being surrounded by friends and seeing them have a good time. I felt happy at church for the very same reasons. Could it not be the slightest bit possible that you are confusing your emotions and mistaking them for God or the Holy Spirit simply because you are in a religious setting? Afterall, if you weren't in a religious setting you're just as capable of experiencing the joy you felt at mass, the only difference being that in a religious context, you're more opt to proclaim your emotional high as being directly inspired by God. Shit, what about those monks who meditate, they feel indescribable joy, a peace with the world, serenity beyond words, the mind is entirely capable of manifesting these feelings you may mistake for "God" I also added, "And don't tell me what I felt you motherfucker". It's all love between us.

His reply, "But God is responsible for our emotions"

My nerdy thought: Circular reasoning. He takes God as implicit and therefore responsible for everything, including our emotions.
My nerdy response: "Don't avoid the question bitch, and don't make me get into evolution." Beating around the bush... I can't stand it when people beat around the bush!

Another thing that disturbs me is how so many religious people seem to think that morality is rooted in religion. Morality is a plane and religion hijacked it. I'm bitter about this. What a fucked up wretched bunch of creatures we must be if the only thing preventing us from killing and raping each other is a fear of hell. And it really doesn't help people's outlooks on society much when the Bible says we're a bunch of dirty evil sinners from birth. It's a matter of focus, because we're also a beautiful, compassionate, loving union of beings who are capable of doing so much good, and that's what I prefer to focus on, despite people's stupidities.

And some of the shit the Bible says. Oh my, how can God be so jealous, despotic, sexist, and prone to murderous bouts of anger? Is it just me, or does anybody else get the feeling that Jesus came to save us from his Dad? But it's the typical Christian rationalization that sets me off, "God created us all, he has done so much for us, who is anybody to judge God for what he does?". I call this a case of Beaten Wife Syndrome (BWS). Sticking up for the abuser. I can judge, because as George Carlin says, "I have just as much authority as the Pope, just not as many people who believe it".

I’d prefer a world without organized religion, but that will never happen, so all that I ask is for people to extract a little bit more spirituality and a little bit less “truth” from religion. I mean really, lets update the times people. We're slaves to organization and structure, but lets not get so lazy as to affiliate ourselves with such intellectual convenience. We're only relinquishing what we revere most - our ability to think freely, to adhere to what has already been thought for us. I guess somewhere along the road towards fulfillment, we lost sight of our innocent intentions; we became sidetracked as our journey for meaning and purpose gave way to faith-based claims of truth that has pitted man against man for centuries. This wasn't the point of religion, but it has become the point. So I guess I'm forced to ask, what ever happened to that concept called spirituality? I guess it dissapeared when we were foolish enough to extract these so-called perennial truths from religion in the place of spiritual fullfillment. I guess it all shot to hell, when we started to consider faith as a viable means to obtain that oh so precious truth.