[OPINIONS+RANTS]

"There will never be world peace as long as religion exists."

I don't believe in god and I hate people forcing their beliefs on me. I do believe in a higher power though, just not the Bible and all that Christian stuff. In my opinion most religious people are hypocrites, and religion [used as a safety net] causes too many problems in the world. I think it's a better idea to worship nature rather than a person, or supreme being. I do believe in psychic abilities, fate, astral projection, astrology, life on other planets and ghosts.

I like to keep an open mind about these things. In saying that, some people may call me hypocritical as I choose to keep an open mind about the paranormal yet dismiss religion and the idea of god. My reasons for this? I don't see the point in living your life by a book that was supposedly written hundreds of years ago, denying yourself things which are pleasurable (the idea of committing a sin, living by the 10 Commandments), and 'doing god's work'. To be perfectly honest, I hate Christianity. Most religious people are narrow-minded bigots who try to ban everything they think is blasphemous or abnormal, degrades 'society's moral values' or which doesn't agree with their idea of what the world is like. It seems the most religious people who try to 'save other people's souls' are the ones who are most corrupt. For example, what about the numerous Catholic priests who have been convicted for abusing children? If that's not wrong, evil, a sin or whatever, then I don't know what is. It is in human nature to look out for number one, kill, survive and differentiate between good and evil. So who are these people to tell us that what we choose to do with our lives is wrong? I believe that whatever makes you and others feel good, is good, and what causes hurt and pain is wrong.

Many people use the argument "what evidence is there to suggest that god doesn't exist?", but I say what evidence is there to suggest that he does exist? None, that's what. Yes, people can [and do] choose what they want to believe, but I think the real problems start when religious people refuse to accept other people's opinions or try to convert them to their way of thinking. I've had first hand experience of this through a Religious Education teacher. From the start of her teaching my class she made me feel abnormal for not believing what the majority believed. In second year [age 12/13], we had to write an essay on whether we believed Jesus had healed people or not, and because I didn't, I wrote that Jesus was probably a psychopath who had most likely escaped from the local asylum and that his disciples were just mindless followers brainwashed by his cult. Not what the teacher wanted to read, but it's what I thought [and still think], and since nobody else had any evidence to prove that he did heal people, I thought my argument was perfectly logical and acceptable as my own opinion. However, my RE teacher told me that was an 'immature approach' to the question. Basically, you could believe whatever you wanted, as long as it was the same as her. This woman is still teaching today, despite telling her classes of the voices of god she 'heard' - there's a name for this condition of hearing voices, and it's called schizophrenia. I rest my case.