Collaborators

Barbie - The Bips
Barbie is bassplayer in The Bips from the Netherlands. She's a new breed of punk who's writes as well as she plays. I only picked 4 of her columns as she has more on her bands site so check em out, the music is just as potent.

Religion Is A Crime
Who invented such a thing as religion? If I knew him and if that was possible, I would ask him if it made him happy to see all the misery caused by people under the influence of religion. One good reason for creating a `supreme being' is the insecurity and ignorance of people. I can't blame people creating gods in the old days, because they didn't had the knowledge about meteorological phenomenons, but I definitely can't understand people in 2001 that need gods. I think people need a god to hide their insecurity, they want to look selfconscious and therefore use something that doesn't exist. So strange in a world where development and freedom of speech are cherished, but none of those things in religion!
Also extremely annoying about religion is that you can't hide from it. Everywhere you come, doesn't matter if you're interested or not, you're always confronted with it. Tons of rules, icons, interpretations of one and the same thing. That's why we started to count from the year 0, while people exist thousands of years before. That's why people believe in Jesus, a guy born from a women that didn't have sex at all. Maybe someone like Jesus actually lived, someone who said people should behave well and social, instead of killing each other about a few hectares of land. You can say some sort of super-anarchist, especially for that time, someone who thought a little more about things. People obviously didn't understand that, so they made the whole story up. And just as important�.people weren't that good writers in those times, so I consider the bible nothing more than an exciting story, told from parents to children. The story itself isn't so bad after all but religion on the other hand is abused for 1000 of years to control and frighten the hell out of people.
I don't know that much about religion but one thing I do know: be good for others is one of the spearheads. I like that, that's good, but why are there so many victims fallen by religious disagreements if being social is so important? It's a fact that due to the variety of ideas about religion, people are oppressed, harrassed and even murdered, all over this world. I know this sounds very hard for the soft-hearted but it's a truism. Religion should make you happy (at least that's said), but it's hard to imagine people get happy by forcing something upon others.
O no sorry!, the will of god it's called! Well, I don't think god's will implies: that the pope (one of god's chief ambassadors on earth) forbids people in Africa to use condoms so they fuck themselves dead; or that god's will implies that women should wrap themselves in 10 layers of clothing so men don't get tempted; that women that have been raped don't get an abortion; that people blow themselves into the air, killing other people, so they get eternal fame (what about that if you're dead, huh?).
` No no', everybody with a little common sense will say: `ofcourse god doesn't want THAT!' Okay maybe I'm the dighead then but if that isn't the will of god why do so many people submit to those rules? Rules, made up by earthly religious leaders (not by god!), rules not rejected by followers, rules accepted by those followers, rules followers agree with without thinking. I think that's utterly narrow-minded, humiliating and absolutely disastrous for human rights. Let's make my self clear: I do not condemn any specific religion, I condemn ALL kinds of religion! I wouldn't go that far to say that a world without religion is a world without misery but I know one thing: it would be a good start!
� 2001-Barbie L.L.