Exploration and Understanding

Hi all,

Had a fairly insightful day into the minds and experiences of other people. I guess people are becoming more reflective now that it's coming to the final few days of Sixth Form.

I chatted with my form tutor (one of the two) this morning about his gap year. He just happened to have a photo album of it in the classroom, I presumed he kept it there for showing students like myself. He went to Australia for three months, stopping off in Los Angeles and Hawaii on the way there, 5 days in each area. Even though he only had a few photographs, it was enough to capture the main events that happened. Makes me want to go out and experience the world even more, actually. There were a few photographs he took of Ayer's Rock. Quite amazing actually, even though they were taken back in (what looked like) the late 80's / early 90's. It's reassuring that you can still get great images and capture all the good times even with a fairly average camera. Now of course with digital cameras you can view the image you've just taken, rather than having to wait until the photographs are developed in a shop from the roll of film. I'm hoping to take loads of decent photographs in Uganda, and even on the way there and back. For me, the excitement starts as soon as I walk on the plane. I love a good window seat.

Later on in the day, during lunchtime and my free period, I had a (calm) discussion with my friends about religion. Needless to say, on the spectrum of religion, I was probably on the 'most extreme side' of Atheism out of all the people present, but at the same time I wasn't the only non-religious person present. Instead of venting my own opinions, I tried my best to ask questions that uncover the true thoughts of religious people. All people suffer with a degree of difficulty in explaining their thoughts - as in, you know your thoughts well, but find it difficult to explain it to another person so that they can understand where you're coming from. It's also interesting to know how much a person thinks about their beliefs, and their reaction to your own interpretation of it. One example was when I asked about someone's reason to believe that when it comes to Judgement by God, only their group of a couple of hundred or so people will be saved and delivered to Heaven. They seemed to think for a second, then say 'well, if people have lived their lives according to the Bible, then of course they will be saved'. This of course suggests that not everyone in every denomination necessarily abides by their denomination's set beliefs, otherwise the person I was speaking to would have no reason to be a part of a separate Church, a few hundred people in number. Obviously there must be some sort of incentive for people to abide by their own separate denominations. It's quite amazing how people don't pick up on the fact that you can actually 'create' your own religion by simply stating that 'actually, I believe that everyone will go to Heaven, regardless of how they've lived their lives'. But of course, humans are naturally more selective and hard-going on themselves to do that, as has been indoctrinated.

Until next time.

Rapture (nothing to do with Bioshock)

Hi all,

I guess it was inevitable that I'd be blogging about this whole speculation about the second coming of Jesus or Judgement Day or whatever you'd like to call it.

According to an 89-year old (I don't know why his age is relevant) American Christian Radio broadcaster, Harold Camping, brimstone and fire would start to sweep across the world on this date (if you haven't heard about it already), earthquakes would start in each timezone at 6pm. Well, as I'm typing this, the clock is reading 18:28. I guess I'll just keep holding my breath until 7pm. Lol.

It'd be unfair to bludgeon the whole of religion for this idiotic prediction, and to be honest I think I've exhausted my Unholy Cannon of Arguments for a while. I don't like constantly disagreeing with people, but as an Atheist it's almost a daily occurrence for me. I keep my mouth shut in most situations, hence my need to vent my opinions in other forms.

I'm gonna have to leave this post shorter than most. Again, apologies if you were offended.

See y'all in Hell! (said Harold Camping)

Until next time.

Religion: A Touchy Subject

Hi all,

I'm quite enjoying the blog sessions now. Kinda lets me extract my thoughts and allows me to reflect on what I've been doing.

I may have mentioned this already, but I'm an Atheist. To class myself as an Atheist does not mean that I believe in particular things. It merely means that I do not believe in any form of a deity. Many people seem to think of atheism in terms of a religion; that all atheists believe in the big bang, and all atheists live in the same way etc. Perhaps it is merely our human instinct to classify people so bluntly and with such ignorance. Perhaps it's for the better, especially when dealing with large groups of people. Everyone thinks differently, so for one person to control many people, they need a way in which they can understand people on their own level; a way of summarising, for if they were to consider each person individually then they'd be hesitating on decisions for decades.

I guess I've been a proclaimed atheist for about a year now. Not to say that I was religious at any point prior in my life. I've been brought up in a Catholic Primary and Secondary School and to a Catholic Family. I'm lucky (in my opinion) that neither my family nor my schooling has shoved religion down my throat at a young age. I think that children are most susceptible to doing as they are told, and that is the danger with teaching religion to be practised. Learning about religion is absolutely acceptable - heck, I know that I'll be teaching my children about all kinds of religion, if their education facilities fail to. You see, I've been taught these things, and received the sacrament of Baptism and Holy Communion, but never actually BELIEVED in anything related to a greater entity being benevolent and omnipresent and so forth. It's actually quite embarrassing when I look back on myself performing these rituals. I only did it because I was a child following what everyone else around me were doing.

After having debates with people from other faiths, including Hinduism, Islam and non-Catholic Christian denominations, I'm always stunned by people's stubbornness to believe in ideas that they cannot explain to me rationally. It's like they don't understand why they 'believe' the ideas themselves. They just accept these ideas. Of the religions who base beliefs on texts written down, I cannot to this day (and perhaps never will) fathom why people believe almost blindly to what is in those texts. When I asked one of my classmates why his Hindu beliefs told him that he should stay away from eating garlic and/or onions, his own response really interested me. He looked bemused as he stated that he didn't know, and said he'd go and look it up. I looked it up, and apparently it's because it creates a sense of negativity in the mind, and dullness in the mood. Well, at least there's a reason, albeit an odd one.

I guess in part, the reason why most people defend their religion is because they want to maintain their own dignity, even if they know that in their rationality, their 'beliefs' are highly unjustified. But hey, that's just an Atheist's point of view. And for those of you that are religious: all Atheists think the same don't they?

Until next time.