some thoughts on religion

I just finished watching the first half of the god delusion. its an interesting movie written and starring a devout atheist.

I've never been able to categorically call myself an atheist. Tops i am a defacto-atheist. I feel that it is entirely possible that there are parts of existance that are beyond our perception, but the fact that they are beyond our perception means that we should focus on what we can see to be real and spend less time speculating about what maybe outside the realm of our understanding. I can understand the romanticism of it, and i sometimes think what could be out there that i can't percieve. But i realize what not being able to percieve it means, and within a few minutes i move on.

excuse the punctuation, rambing and mis-spellings. i have gotten into the carlo rossi.

in terms of my religious experiences, i was brought up roman catholic. i went to st. theresa's in good old north agawam. my mom and grandparents went to this church, and so it was a family tradition. it has since closed like many catholic churches, and i'm guessing some type of russian church will take it over. so it goes. thank you kurt vonnegut. i will foreve use that term now.

i think i stopped truly believing in god when i stopped believing in the easter bunny and santa claus. i remember in second-grade ccd they thought i would end up being a priest. hah.

i kind of had a born-again era when i was 15, shortly after my father passed away. i ended up going to a catholic youth retreat when in the summer of 2001 in attleboro. there was a shrine there. and tents. and a lot of kind of inspirational music. i remember feeling very holy after that. i think i even brought home a bible and started reading it. i remember there was this deacon on the trip. A nice fellow with a moustache that was trying to help me out with my confusion. i remember talking to him on the bus ride home. i remembered talking to him about my doubts about the existance of a god. but i remember the comradery(not spelled right). i think that is what i got out of it. it felt like i was a part of something. plus there were a decent amount of girls on the trip that were gorgeous. and i was 15.

i would have to say the feeling of being close to god lasted about 3 weeks. then i started my first punk band. so it goes.

i kind of had a revalation when i moved back home last fall. i had watched a series of videos that made me feel a certain way about the world. the feeling lasted about a month. a lot of my consistancy lasts about a month. though the resonance of that experience has stayed with me.

in terms of the movie, the main idea i got out of watching that movie is that the main problem in the world is ignorance, both voluntary and involuntary. like i said earlier, there may be things outside of our ability to sense or understand, but these things should not trump things that we can see actually exist. I feel uncomfortable electnig leaders that believe in fundamentalist christianity. I believe that a decent amount of the presidents in the past have faked being overly christian because it is the only way to get elected.

Clinton was probably as religious as i am, and reagan probably didnt remember his own name but had charisma. That being said i dont feel comfortable having politicians believing that god talks to them, or that the world is 10,000 years old, or that it prophesy that there will be a last large war. the latter scares me the most.