religion, the zealots may want to move on....
The extremely religious are gods joke on the sane members of society. now im not bashing on religious poeple, so my friends who are religious dojnt be offended. however when in ingles (the supermarket) some woman is yelling at daughter that she has get a nice dress for easter because she "wont have her daughter looking like hussy on the jesus's birthday", (wow. Wrong holiday, congratulations! )my patience wears thin. now i have no problem with religious people even if they are extremely religious, its the ones that dont necessarily know what they are talking about, or that try to force it on other people. Religion is supposed to be a personal thing, dont shove it in my face. and just to get it out of the way ill rant about religion in general. Quit trying to tell people what religion is right. One cannot be told what to believe. Unless one truly searches their soul and finds that they completely agree with a certain religion, they should not say that they are that religion. And all you parents need to stop trying to force religion on your children. All it does is piss them off, and make them reject the religion all together. Instead of trying to tell your children what to believe why not provide them with the means to figure out what they really believe. Ideally children should be exposed to as many religions as possible. when one sees the similarities and common myths/legends to all religions one can form a personal idea/belief as to what is true, while maintaining the core beliefs of right and wrong that all (or nearly all) religions have. Obviously one should not expose children to things like satanism just because of the potential psychological effects of religions based on depravity, and the rejection of instinctual ideas. i don not consider satanism a true religion as it is really just a rejection of christianity based on christianity's beliefs. when children in one place are exposed to only one type of religion it leads to weakly held beliefs that can be easily twisted, or it leads to beliefs based on ingorance, or a lack of thought, and beliefs that can be easily twisted to purposes of evil (eg muslim extremists, hindu mobs killing muslims, americans killing abortion doctors and bombing clinics etc, etc, etc.). If, however, ones beliefs are put to the test of actual thought, and comparisons with other religions, the beliefs of that person will become stronger and more personalized. personally i think that all religions have aspects of the ultimate truth in them, however i also believe that it is impossible for human beings to comprehend the ultimate truth (aka what god is, afterlife etc.) i believe that there is a god, but i dont think we can begin to imagine what he/she/it is like. i believe that death is not the end, but again i dont think we can imagine whatthe afterlife is like. This is why i have severe problems with institutionalized religions. they try to force their beliefs upon you, most of them say that if you dont believe them you are going to hell (christianity, in its many forms, does this along with islam, judaeism, and many other religions) and herd people into categories so that they can be led for diferent purposes very easily. How else could a set of ideas convince people to kill thousands of innocent people? Look at the crusades, the bombings of abortion clinics that killed innocent bystanders,the raids by hindu mobs on islamic villages, religious extremism, etc,etc,etc, institutionalized religion is the greatest cause of evil the human race has ever seen, and it is only getting worse