Religion. One of the three topics that should never be raised in polite company! So here goes....

There is nothing wrong with having a religion but, to me, there are a lot of problems with dogma. Look through history and we find that religion is a 'source' of war, persecution and intolerance. Or is it? It might well be that it's humanity that is at fault in accepting religious dogma as fact. Behind every religious war there is someone or some group that are using religion to perpetrate crimes against their fellow humans.

Having spent more than 15-years in the USA, I saw this first hand. The USA proclaims that Church and State are separate yet you would hardly know it. When the President says God bless America you have to ask - hang on - why just America? What's so special about one country that God should bless it? And the USA is the home of some of the strangest sects - and apparently gullible people, in the world.

Religion in the US is taken far more seriously than European countries and I'd like to know why? Ordinary Americans believe some outrageous things because their religious groups tend to take the Bible literally. But it doesn't stop there. Some believe things that don't actually appear in the Bible like the 'Rapture'. This is whee on the day of reckoning, the saved are transported immediately and bodily to heaven leaving the rest of us to die in pilotless airplanes and driverless cars... The sheer egotistical nature of anyone who believes they will be raptured to my mind tells me they won't be!

Religion is playing its part in the current Presidential election too. White American's are shocked by Black America's preachers and their message. But you know, you should listen because, for many in this world, what is said in Obama's ex-church isn't too far away from the truth no matter how unpleasant that might be to stomach.

I long ago broke away from following dogma. God, if there is one, gave me a mind and a brain to use so I use it. And in doing so, I look at institutionalized religions and I see nonsense designed to control the masses and their behavior. I see non humanist intolerance like persecution of gays, Jews and non Christians - hell - even other Christians. I see dogmatic and old fashioned thinking designed to stop you from thinking FOR yourself. I see a set of religions with two equal and opposite Gods - God and Satan. If there is one God then surely Satan is simply an aspect of the one God that is beyond human comprehension? That'll have 'em writing in in droves...

Like I said. Nothing wrong with religion but dogma you can keep thanks and by the way, keep your religion TO YOURSELF. Nothing I like less than being evangelized by brainless morons.