Grendel's Opinions

Religious Opinions

Then there's my beliefs. No, I'm not part of any organized religion, don't intend on it either. For me, my beliefs go as far as the Deity that I believe in, an no further. I don't mind the occasional person who is genuinly curious and wants to know for a better understaning. I do mind however, the ones who try to push thier beliefs down my throat in an effort to "save" my soul for their Diety. Please, if I wanted ultimate salvation, I'd blow my happy head off to save me from humanity. Call me an idealist, or what have you, but I don't think I'll have to go that far, at least I have some hope for humanity. Here's the way I see it. There's some 6+ billion people on this planet, with some 6+ billion different idea's, beliefs, so on and so forth. Now, everybody's got a different idea as to what their Deity looks like. White, black, long hair, short hair, fat, skinny, scaily (whoops, that's mine there), but you get the point whether you want to admit it or not, and I know some of you are denying it. Now check this. In my opinion, each face we hold of our Diety is just one face of the same Diety. And for those that didn't understand that one, say there's one Diety and only one. Now, give that Diety one face for each individual, that's some 6+ billion faces for that one Diety. Ultimately, it doeson't matter. God, Allah, Buddah, the Void of Nirvana, call 'em what you like, the Deity (or Deities, your opinion) know that we're here. Explain to me why I should go out and try to "save" people in the name of my Deity when he already knows about me and everybody else?

Anyway, moving right along. The way I figure it, humans have been on this planet for way too long to be this stupid. Think about it for a moment. Granted, while we didn't know it for a good long time, it was inevitable that OUR great big planet would get small. We've got cellular communications, the World Wide Web (and that should say how small the planet's gotten, for those who continue to be blind, deaf and dumb)satellites, etc, etc, etc. Need I go on with more sample's? Didn't think so. Check it in this point of view. The Earth is one big, multi-room apartment, and we're the residents. hehehe. Didn't consider that one did you, or if you did, you didn't voice it. I don't know about most people, but I've lived in several apartments with other people, roommates. Interesting concept, I know.

Now, in one of those places I've lived, I had a roommate that I'm friends with, but had the occasional argument with. Take a wild guess as to what happened. Whoops a little slow there. Nothing happened. I argues my points, he argued his, we lived in peace. Sure, we bugged each other, but that's what friends do. On top of that, we learned from each other. Beliefs (oooooh, there's that word again), technology, opinions and a few other thing. I don't agree with him on everything, I do have my own opinions, but I respect his opniions and beliefs, and his ability to defend them. His ability to bug the blazes out of me with history lessons (and yes, I call them lessons) thrills him to no end, and while I do find them annoying from time to time, I have picked up bits of information here and there. The point to all this is simple. We humans have lived on this planet for too long to keep up the way we are. Isn't it about time we started to truely get together and learn from each other? Learning builds knowledge, which in turn builds understanding (or at least it should).

Now, back to the whole religion thing. Oh where to start, where to start, I just don't know that one. Welp, let's start with this and see where my train of thought wanders with it. There's Christianity, Taoism, Buddism, Paganism and a whole boat load of more. Some religions claim that their's is the only one true one. I'll be nice and not say which one, since we all know what it is. Some, like mine, are all about the way of life, and how to live a good life. I'm not talking about through wealth either (for those that are greedy), though it does help to have money, gotta pay those bills and get food.

My opinion on religion, especially organized religion, is that the texts they have were written by mortal men. I'll take the best know expample of this, the Holy Bible (your choice on what version, I know of three). Now, originally, Moses recieved the Ten Commandments from God, it's still that way and it's a beside the point because I'm not going to dispute it. The Bible's been around for what, two thousand years? Let's take a look at everything that's happened in that time. Wars, changes in languages (translations) and who knows what else. I'm not a historian so I can't tell you what all there is. We'll skip the wars part bgecause we know that the victors write the history. We'll scope out translations, though. If i remember correctly, the Bible originally started out in the Hebrew language. Now somewhere down the line of time, it changed over to Latin, this entails translation. We should all know that when translating one language to another, nothing fits absolutely perfect. Here comes the mortal part. Can you take a wild guess as to who does the translating? Got it in one! I'd give you a prize, but I'm perpetually broke. Mortal men translated the texts. Here's the fun part. Mortal man translating one language to another, and it's not a perfect one for that matter. Who'da thought?!? Ever wonder why humanity has the religious problems it has? There's the answer. When people are in power, they like to change things either to keep them in power or to go with tthe time, or even both.

A Continuation??

Now, kids, let's take a look at it from a different angle, again Christianity (it's the only religion with any degree of familiarity, so don't think think I'm slamming on Christian's). "Love thine enemy." If this is one of the teaching of Christianity, then why is there all this persecution of Non-Christians?? I don't remember when, where or what version, but there's "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Ummmm, yeah, riiight. Seems to me personally, that was a convienent addition during the "Middle Ages", the "Dark Ages", call it what you want, for those time when it was active hunting season for witches to kill. Then there's my all time favorite, "Thou shalt not kill." Can we say, witch burnings? What? You want me to back up for something? Oh yeah, versions of the Bible, sure. Yeah, we've got our act together, how many different versions of the Bible are there? Some unity. Here's an opinion of mine that'll really upset most Christians, especially the sensitive types (not that I'm trying to delibrately do so). The Devil, aka-Satan, is just some poor schmuck that's used as a scape-goat because of mankind's failing in self-control and morality just because we've got thing thing called, FREE WILL. I remember, years ago, some people were put on trial for murder. Their defence? "The Devil made me do it". Give me a break (and I most assuredly don't mean breaking my bones), that's a poor excuse for having a free will but not exercising self-control and morality. As a human, the one thing I've got that can never be taken away is free will. The choices are mine and mine alone. I also have morales and sel-control. Don't see me going out raping women, robbing banks (or anything else for that matter), or even killing people for the fun of it. I will admit that I've been tempted to rob a bank, I'm in debt and always broke what do you expect. The fact of the matter is that I'm too lazy. It takes too much effort for those kinds of shenanegans (old terminology, sue me, you get the point). And as for killing someone, there's only one person I hate enough to want to kill, and he's currently drinking himself into a grave, so why waste the energy when he's killing himself already.

The Others