Thoughts on God, Religion, Theology, and Pancakes

It's been over a week since I posted anything on here. I was afraid this might happen. Things flowed so easily during the break. I always had something interesting to say (at least to me it was interesting). Now that the semester has started I haven't had time to focus on the outside world long enough to develop any writing ideas. I hate writing about myself and my own life, I'm a self-conscious blogger, and I hate to bore people.

Unfortunately for you it's 4:45 AM on a Friday morning and I'm bored, so I'm going to talk about myself here for a lil bit.

In particular I'm going to talk about my thoughts on religion. Yeah, that sounds like fun. Probably wont sound like a good idea a few hours from now, but why not go nuts?

So here goes...

I'm not religious, but organized religion fascinates me. I'm not spiritual, but I'm intrigued by spirituality. I'm not Christian, I'm not Jewish, I'm not really a Deist in the way it's commonly thought of, I'm not anything really. However I have nothing against those that are religious. My closest friends and some of the most important people in my life are devoutly religious, and that's just fine with me, it's part of who they are, they are intelligent, loving, and genuinely good people, if religion helped them get to where they are today then cool beans. At the same time I have a few (and I emphasize, a few, as in two or three) friends that subscribe to the sort of belief that worries me. They are ardently zealous and unquestioning in their faith. It's the unquestioning part that worries me. Us humantypes are built for asking questions, and suspending rational thought and honest inquiry in favor of zombie-like obedience and mindless zealotry is headslap stupid and creates an environment that breeds extremism, which is never a good thing no matter what it involves. You shouldn't check your brain at the door when you enter a chapel or open a book, quite the opposite in my opinion. Question everything I say. You'll be better off for it. Some of my more devout friends are also some of the most brilliant people I know of, and they involve every ounce of their intellect when it comes to their religous studies, and they are that much better off for it.

I'm now starting to realize that a non-religous person trying to give advice on how to best be religious is stupid. Mind-numbingly stupid.

I'm not religous, but I'm ready and willing to admit that I don't know what the answer is. That doesn't mean I don't believe in anything though. I believe in truth, honesty, and generally not being a douchebag. I believe there is only one sin: stealing, and I believe that any other "sin" you can think of is derived from theft (yeah, I got that from Kite Runner, but you have to admit that was a sweet movie). When I do something nice for somebody else, it makes me feel good about myself, I don't think you have to subscribe to any particular theology to realize that, it just makes sense. I don't go to church, I don't pray, but I try to live my life day to day as a good person, if death is the end then I'm okay with that. Kindness is an end unto itself. It makes me happy now and if it earns me points in any potential afterlife then sweet deal.

The further I get into this lil monologue the more I realize it's impossible for me to get my arms around this topic. It would take hours for me to explain my ideas on religion in a way that I feel would keep people from hating me, so for now I'm going to throw in the towell and go to sleep. Maybe I'll take it up again the next time I'm awake in the predawn hours and need to kill time.