Welcome to Gaia! ::

We got forced in 1-7th grade to go to church quite often. I got banned from there after yelling "My gods, this is ******** boring! Someone please shoot me now!"(in Norwegian) in the middle of some christmas thing. They're apparently very touchy about how you should act when in church.

I don't necessarily hate any religion... (Save for ones that are devoted to the spreading of stupidity, hate, and the like IRL). Christianity is one that I just didn't understand anymore. First it was "Just 'cause." Then, I started to develop a thinking process...

Hm.

Christianity is a tricky one. On the one hand, it's the one I understand most, so I can criticise it more easily, but on the other...

I mean, good things have, in the past, come out of religion; sure, a lot of evil and hatred as well, but there has been some good. The question is whether religion brought that good, or if it was merely the vehicle for that expression.

Throughout history, religions such as xianity have been used to do things like repress women - as men were in control, they were attempting to ensure that their wives would be faithful so that any children were guaranteed to be theirs; hence no education, the veil, etc. This change from the worship of the mother-goddess to the paternal god can be seen pretty much across the world - eg. the slaying of Pythos by Apollo, and the turning over of her shrine by the mother goddess Gaia to him. So, that's one bad thing religion has done. But, it shows that - more often then not - for example, in the case of the crusades, religion is being used to justify what people wish to do.

A good thing? Let us take England in the dark ages; a time when wars broke out frequently. The church there kept learning alive - if limited to it's monks and priests, and in latin so that the common man could not read it anyway - as well as proving an influence in holding society together - a good thing.

So religion is not necessarily bad in itself; it's what is done with it that is bad. In xianity, following the bible, say, you can interpret it any way you wish. Interpret it literally? Fine. You'll need to follow all 613 rules of the Torah, including not touching a woman on her cycle, or anywhere that woman has been, stoning adulterers to death - whatever. Interpret it less literally? Which bits are metaphorical? How do you decide? Religion like this is malleable to our own beliefs, and can be used to justify them; we decide first, then justify. Fundies in the states? Justify their culture with the bible. Scary, scary people.

It's impossible to prove the truth of a religion, but you can't prove that it's wrong, either - proving a negative is almost impossible. Think of Dawkin's solar teapot.

Ps. Mother Teresa? Real b***h.

Mmkay, now I've had my little rant, let's move on. Religion is not a good topic to discuss :'3

How about... monkeys? I like monkeys.

I stopped reading at "Hm."

O.o Koala?

EW! IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING I FOUND IN A MOUSETRAP IN THE BASEMENT!!!

Weehee! Monkeys!