Well, go back 4000-5000 years and imagine a primitive culture that has barely discovered agriculture. Head back to the start of recorded history. Now imagine somebody (or a group of somebodies) that was far enough ahead mentally, and aware enough, to come up with an idea that would shock undeveloped people into not killing each other. A concept that would give people a general code to live by, and a set of repercussions depending on how you lived your life. Some way of grading you.

Unfortunately for us in the current age, many of these early teachings have been so resilient as to still exist. Not only exist, but they even have hyper-orthodox people still preaching them. For example, abstinence. I pity anybody that gets married before having sex. Maybe it works when there's just 4 females of age in your village... I don't know.

I never lived in a village.

I've been to Greenwich Village, but a lot of the people there can't get married in their state, so it's a moot point. Eh?

But to get back to my point about Easter, yes. Lent is stupid. I can't have meat on Fridays... but they don't count tuna! What is tuna, a vegetable?

Tuna is meat! I know that some of you folks dabble in vegetarianism, but tuna is meat. Fish is meat. Religious people play around with a lot of semantics... but the more time passes, the less sense it'll make... until it disappears entirely. There are 2 billion Christians, and 90,000 fucking scientologists, so it's not going anywhere.

And maybe it shouldn't. Lord knows that Alcoholics Anonymous has helped thousands of people turn from booze to God, and get hopelessly preachy to the point where you'd prefer they'd just take the bottle and go back to the bar. Seriously, I've met some born-agains that I could unload a shotgun into. We've all been there.

Not to say that I don't have any religious friends. I do know one man, of 28, in theater of all places, that is a devout Christian and he's one of the best people I know. That said, he leads by example... something that an alarming few modern religious people do. But I'm not from a school of thought that would say that you need an invisible man in the sky to be a good person. Jesus, for example, great man. Great, great man. He doesn't have to be divine to be great. Love thy neighbor...

His ideas were good. Yes, he was a very crafty magician that clearly tricked ultimately billions of people into thinking that he was holy... but his teachings are mostly very sound. The Ten Commandments as well, are generally very sound in today's society, if you cut the fat. Which is cutting it down to 2 really good Commandments, as George Carlin would say. God bless him, right?

My next question for you would be: why do people fear turning their backs on everything they were taught by Catholicism? By religion? By their parents? There's no shame in it.

Like I said, I was brought up in a Christian household. Ultra-conservative. My brother and I were even given home Bible lessons by my mother. It was to keep my brother and I on a specific path, towards Christianity, towards the right. Tradition. Not an entirely bad idea, as the school system has been going downhill forever...

I will forever stand by my religious education. My mother taught me the fundamentals, and it was a slow burn... but ultimately her choices led to my complete enlightenment.

Which was, and is, without religion. With a finger in the face of the people that would use such an immense, positive force as religion... as a boost to their personal interests. Tell me something...

Which city is often called the "City of Gold?" Huh? It's Vatican City.

The Pope lives as a sort of god himself, if you think about it. If that doesn't give people a heads up that something is wrong here, then I'm sorry.

So why don't you just follow your heart, and stop worrying about what other people think? Especially a parent! It's clear that they raise us to be strong individuals, capable of questioning authority... questioning the establishment. Not challenging it, but at least questioning it. Trying to better it in our own way.

Surely they would understand that abandoning certain outdated traditions, such as orthodox religion, is your way of telling them, "Hey Mom & Dad, you did a good job! I can think completely for myself, unlike the majority of the masses!" ... but no, they would probably grill you on it. As my parents do me. We love familiarity, that's why.

If you're fed tradition from the age of 4 and never question it, what else are you gonna believe? This goes back to my comments about reincarnation and the after-life; the first time is always the best. Everybody has their starting point, their era, and that era? It was the fucking best.

In 30 years, we'll be telling people how much better music was in the 80s and 90s. Because that's when a lot the readers here grew up. We'll shit all over the tunes of 2038, and a bevy of teenagers then will wonder how we can listen to our "old people" music. Which happens to be stuff like Radiohead and Tool. "It's too soft" they'll say, as kids today consider Led Zeppelin to be... even if it didn't get harder than Zep in 1972.

Now, religion, yes... think about a society. A large part of society that for thousands of years has been indoctrinated with the idea that... yes... the Earth was created in 7 days. And a man died after being mercilessly tortured and was back, alive, without a scratch save for holes in his hands and feet within 3 days. I guess if you believe the former, the latter makes a whole lot more sense.

That, or the plastic surgery in 33 A.D. was remarkably good.

How about Job? A man that already believed in the good lord, but yet had to witness his entire family brutally murdered by the very god he loved so much, just to prove that... there is a god. Yes, that's all they proved with that story. The overzealous authors of the Bible. Well hey, at least God repaid him over 10 times. Hey, I'd take a $10 million check for the lives of everybody I ever loved, no questions asked!

This all-loving, all-knowing, understanding God. Semantics. A lot of religious people try to say, "Well, not all of it is true. Back then, a day was a million years today."

How about this one? The Bible was written by people, just as Harry Potter was written by people. In fact, I could replace all of the names in the Bible with the names of Harry Potter characters, spout it as religious dialogue to a crowded room of Christians, and they'd consider me insane. "How can he possibly believe that Ron Weasley is our lord and savior?" I don't know, I just like to put a face to the name. Y'know? Maybe God is an invisible pink unicorn orbiting Saturn. I can see that just as well as I can see God.

Right?

It's a house of cards. A flimsy infrastructure that would take somebody a lifetime or two to pick up if it were to fall.

Could you imagine the repercussions if conclusive, undeniable, worldwide proof that there is no God, no Holy Trinity, no Jesus, no Allah, nothing... were to pop up?

Much like Heaven and Hell, it's something that really gets worse the more you think about it. Although we would come out of the other side much better off.

As if such a thing would happen in today's climate. Even after God could be all but completely disproved by anybody with a pencil, billions continue to believe.

Why? Simple reason. You should already know the answer.