Just found this draft...forgot to post it silly me

I'm just trolling around blogs and have come across someone who has a similar opinion about religion. He has even got a quote on his blog (not sure if it's his or someone elses...haven't checked) which says "Religion: Never had it. Never will". Brilliant.

Perhaps I should create a quote along the lines of "Religion: Had it. Wish I hadn't. Glad I haven't got it now".

Having said that. While wandering around his blog and references to some books, decided to look for reviews to a book I asked my daughter to buy me for Xmas, "The God Delusion".

I was immediately drawn to the book because of the content. After reading the back cover, I thought it'd be worth a look.

I've read some reviews and discovered that opinions are divided on both the content (as you'd expect), but more importantly, how it has been written. Here is the list of reviewers. As you can see, 3 rate it highly, 1 rates it badly and the others don't bother to even give it a rating.

I have read all of the reviews, (not the book yet) and on the basis of what others say have formed the opinion that while I have my strong opinions on religion for the reasons based in my life experiences, others also do exactly the same thing.

I'm sure this book has been written for the purposes of stirring the pot on the subject.

This means that religious people have faith in their beliefs about religion and the same is true for those without a belief in religion. Although one blogger refers to it as trust, since faith can be described as "something which cannot be objectively defined", part of what Wikipedia describes it as.

When we, that is humans, coming from the point of view of not being divided by this question about religion say "I'll be so much happier when..." or " When I have.....I'll be happy" or "If only..." it's a bit sad really.

Those of us without religion say it about things we want which are frequently, but not always materialistic in nature, those with religion are saying it about some point in the future when they will be judged, go to heaven, be free of sin or whatever they claim to believe is the place that is better than the place they are in now. This is also equally sad.

How about considering this. What if we all looked to live in the here and now. It's all we ever have. We can't be in the future or past. We can make plans for the future and take steps now towards that point, or consider what has happened in the past in relation to decisions made today, but ultimately, we can only live in the immediate moment in time that exists, now and now and now and now etc.

How about if we then combined that with being aware of the now so that we can better appreciate the present.

Yes, I have read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle some time ago and the suggestions came from there, but I think all of this could be deeper than even that, and no, I'm not going to be stupid enough to believe that I have a new solution to anything or I can change the mind of others who have a different view, but what if we did do that.

Here's my thoughts for what they're worth

Any belief or faith in anything is filtered through our process of growing up and the influences of a variety of people and experiences and because we each have our own influences which correspond with other peoples influences then there has to be some correlation along the way.

If a new idea or thought has had little exposure to the general population then influence is limited. If an idea or thought has been in existence for a very long time then influence will be wider.

You may be familiar with the concept of "chinese whispers", probably known by other names around the world, which has been proven to be factual. A statement or other spoken form of information is passed from one person to another and invariably, the story will be slightly different over a period of times and if the story is complex, may bear no resemblance to the original thread.

My trust in belief in the non-existence of God and the dogma attached to it, in part, is formed by this proven method of mis-information. It's re-enforced by the fact that several centuries ago, history claims that literacy wasn't common, so stories would have been passed verbally and applying the "chinese whispers" thinking, then until literacy became more prevelant, surely when it was eventually written, the stories were taken to be fact and the content being touted as such would have been far from accurate in relation to the original tales.

Of course this is a simplistic approach. It's also a personal point of view, but one that is as valid as any other regardless of which point of belief it comes from. Terry Eagleton of the London Review Bookshop (one of the reviewers) proves this.
A religious academic, using "proof" that "God" created everything out of love.

How the fuck does he know. He doesn't. It's opinion based on the fact that he has more education than others may have. Exactly the same as my opinion. I don't know either, but I am just as certain of what I "know" and I reserve the right to trust in that opinion.

Something else I've decided, as have others. To spend so much time processing and posting thoughts or even comments to posts seems to continue the whole idea of religion. If I truly am to hold the belief that religion is just so much garbage, then I must stop giving it life through my comments.

I don't need to prove anything, I need only hold the belief, trust, opinion or whatever and let everything else wash over me. It is not that important to me.