Alright, now it's been a while since I've bashed religion; however, the last time I did so--looking back at my posts from previous years--I was far less articulate and inherently biased on my stance on religion. So given that, I want to pose some serious questions for thought.

First off, before I reignite my stance on religion, I want to ask, perhaps, the most important question of this entire post. Can someone be truly religious without assuming a fundamentalist approach to religious belief? By that I mean, is it possible for people to be "religious" in the "true" sense without accepting a literal interpretation of religious scripture?

I think it's a fairly important question to ask oneself. The main arguments surrounding religion aren't the ideologies and concepts surrounding good will and earnestness. It mostly has to do with literally interpreting every word in scripture--in essence--as if it were the word of "God".

For example, it has been proven, scientifically, that homosexuality is genetic. I am not going to argue whether it is a genetic disease--for reference, I don't believe it is--but I will argue its importance and the cause for its reluctance in society. The whole notion about homosexuality being wrong has been extrapolated from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't know much about the story but suffice to say, many people base their current beliefs on the interpretations of this story passed down from previous generations.

The main problem that I have with this--and there are many problems, believe me--is that despite there being almost conclusive evidence of homosexuality being genetic, people refute it because they assume their interpretations--or rather the ones they've been indoctrinated with--to be the word of God.

The fact is--and it cannot be disputed without theology--scriptures are man made. There is no scientific evidence in scripture; there are just stories and tales. I was watching religulous again, for the umpteenth time, and Bill Maher made an excellent point. If people were fed stories from the bible simultaneously with fairy tale stories from a young age without being indoctrinated, how many people would be able to tell the difference when they grew to the age of reason? That's not verbatim, but it's close enough.

The fact is, for anything to improve, it needs to be questioned. It needs to be filtered for its flaws and reprocessed until it becomes better. This process, in essence, should be never ending since life changes radically from generation to generation. The thing is, it is clearly the work of mankind. That doesn't mean it's inherently bad/evil, it just means that it is prone to mistakes. If we never learnt from our mistakes, we would never improve. The sooner people accept that religion is not the word of god, but simply a representation of mankind's beliefs, the sooner we can fix it and still salvage some purity from it for all.

I've spoken to a few co-workers who claim to be quite religious--both are Catholic--and go to church at least once a week. They both support Gay marriage; they have a different (more reasonable) approach to religion and they wouldn't dare use theology to argue their beliefs. They agree with science and despite everything, believe mostly in what the bible preaches. I believe it shows great courage to withstand the pressures of conventional religious belief and still be able to make up ones own mind on what is right and wrong about religion.

The reason I bring those two up is because they simply reaffirm my own beliefs that it is possible to be religious without interpreting scripture as irrefutable evidence.

On that note, I think Thunderf00t is one of the most brilliant people on youtube. He's a fucking genius and easily the most articulate and eloquent of people I've ever heard on the net.

That being said, Creationism and intelligent design is a complete load of shit and anyone with any experience in science will understand that.

Have a nice day.