Alright, so I have been discussing the subject of religion with a friend for the past couple of days now.  Now I am against organized religion.  He is somewhat religious.  He can't seem to understand where I am coming from when I say that it is dangerous.  Never do I think that people should not be allowed the freedom to believe in whatever religion they chose.  My problem with it lies with people who use religion as a tool to manipulate people; and those who try and change government to conform to their religious views.

Our country is based on freedom, and included is the freedom of religion.  “Endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  But the catch is that we cannot deny others of their beliefs in the pursuit of our own.  Sadly this is the goal of many churches, and even if your church doesn’t…another does.  And too many people state their beliefs as fact.

There is a difference between my opinions, my views on religion in society and then my personal views of it.  I don’t think government or anyone has the right to tell anyone they are wrong or can’t believe something, which means that if a religion or simply a religious person are preaching against someone else’s beliefs then they ARE wrong and need to be STOP.  They are infringing upon another’s freedom.

So no I do not feel like I am intolerant of religious people, however if they think they are in the right by denying someone else’s freedom simply because it disagrees with their religious belief then I will not tolerate them.

Here is how I see it….

I am a 19 year old Agnostic living in the heart of the Midwest, a bible rich area with conservative mind-sets.  I decided to take some time and write out what I believe simply because of the confusion that is created when I try and make a statement regarding my beliefs.

I think it’s important to start with an explanation of what an Agnostic is, because it is a part that is often misunderstood.   According to “wordnetweb.princeton.edu” an Agnostic is:

S: (n) A person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)

This is very important to understand, I have no knowledge of a higher power and I do not dismiss the idea that it is possible.  Logic tells me to disbelieve, but I will not deny the possibility until I have factual evidence.   However, this is near impossible when discussing a high power that is constructed by opinion and interpretation.  From here on out it should be safe to consider (at that this time in my life) that my disagreement is with the actions of humans while under the influence of a societal institution such as religion.

Religion is ever evolving (lol evolution and religion…how ironic), what is accepted this era will certainly be mythology the next.  And still people will devote their lives to this form of social control.  It is an institution that even within itself couldn’t agree and therein separated.  Disagreement creates conflict and conflict quickly leads to violence.  I ran across this website that has a list of wars that were sparked by religion.   http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatz.htm#u  The author comments:

“Adding all the events listed here gives a very tentative total of 45 Million unnatural deaths during the 19th Century -- and I probably missed a lot.”

It’s hard for me to see religion as good when so many people have died because of it.  Granted it may have been created as a source of benevolence, but throughout history and especially in our modern world devoted to freedom (and the ability of self-destruction) it has become a great danger