Are you a devout christian? Do you follow the word of the bible? Do you believe in a higher power? Good for you if you do, and good for you if you don't.
Whatever your preference is on religion is of no consequence to me. I believe that you can follow whatever it is that tickles your fancy. I do not however, like it when it is pushed into my face.
If you believe in something so passionately that you will aggressively try to get people to follow your beliefs then I think it has gone to far. If your belief makes you a better person then that is great and others might be inspired to follow you after seeing how happy you are.
My first and foremost problem with religion is that they all have an underlying basis of fear tied to them, if you don't do these certain things you will not be allowed into heaven, or Jannah or paradise or whatever. If you go against the word of whichever god or deity you will be sent down to hell, samsara, the bordo, whatever.
I think that if you follow a religion only because you have a fear of not being accepted into heaven or being sent to hell then you are following these religions for the wrong reasons. If I were told by a religious group that by strapping on a vest filled with C4 and then running into a crowd of people (even if they were bad people) that I would be welcomed into that gods kingdom with open arms. I would say that is not the god I want to follow and not the kingdom in which I want to stay.
Of course I don't believe that is in any bible, Quran, or any other biblical publication. Somebody twisted the narrative in these books so that they could influence others to do their nefarious deeds for them. This has been happening throughout history since man learned to read and write. Using religion as a weapon is as old as the religion itself.
Another issue I have is with the current publications out there, I am sure they are incorrect because all of them have been rewritten numerous times over the centuries. The first person that decided to write stories about these men revered as gods probably didn't spell some words right and embellished their stories a bit, as more and more people started following these books someone decided to rewrite it so it was easier to read and in the process lost some of the translation. The Romans rewrote the bible so that it catered to their needs, such as sodomizing children, so it was acceptable in their society. Who knows what else they changed and what got removed. After that era it got rewrote again, and has been rewritten over and over to this day.
I like the idea of being good to your fellow man and woman, teaching morals, and showing us all how to be the best person we can be. Religion has a way of being abused and misused and should be written in a way that is impossible for misinterpretation, that way no one can turn it into a weapon. Then again, something might be lost in the translation.
I am not a believer in the almighty, but if I were I would say that he gave you life, and in that life he gave you your own choices to make, your own path to follow, how you live it is up to you, everything we need in this world is right at our fingertips, and its up to us to figure out how to use them. Once you have been given life, that is all you will be given, no amount of praying or worshiping will be answered. It's your life, you have to figure out your own problems.
This article is based solely on my opinion.
Scott Goerz
