accuser

Only you wouldn't like adorable, upbeat, synthy cute freezepop, you bitter old man xp.

This was a good read. Im sorry about your childhood friend.

Aw Nikki's my real name too (dont tell xp)

I dont think organized religion is particularly nefarious unless its used to serves a personal agendas. It fulfills, quite effectively a societal need, for order, and control that government or any worldly threats cant. Being a bit of a socialist, and not trusting much of the ignorant masses knowing whats best for themselves, unless they are lead by a code, I understand the need and benefit for it. It serves our culture in many important ways. None of which instilling a "ultimate truth" as much as hope, drive, ethics and responsibilities (by way of the greatest motivator, peer pressure and fear)

For me the most important thing I've ever gotten from Christianity was hope. While its important to be skeptical its hard to function to your full potential with out hope of some kind. Its just as improbable to believe you will find a "soul mate" as you will "go to heaven" but no one argues the first as much. We all need to lie to ourselves just a little if it helps you make it thought the day, as bleak as that sounds. People need to believe they will reach there dreams, they will be rewarded for hard work and ethical behavior, because for the most part, these are beliefs that are in there best interest regardless of the validity of what pushes them. Strong people learn to drive themselves based on pride, and work ethic, some of us need something a little more lofty to kick us in the right direction be it imaginary or not, its in societies best interest.

At the same time ignorant religion often cripples and scares people with innate "fringe" beliefs, ideas, and preferences. I remember when I was 16 and was being pursued by a girl (ironically also named Nikki) I had feelings for, I didnt give in for the longest time because I was raised christian and thought it was a sin. The entire time I was with her I felt guilt, sullying the memories of what should have been a sweet first love, not something to be made to feel dirty and forced to hide because of an oppressive self created god.

College is a really good time for intelligent discourse about religion and critical thinking free of stigma, and judgment. Sophomore year I took one of my favorite classes to date, "science of survival", it was about thinking critically with a intelligent skeptical mind. We touched on everything, from religion, to pseudo science, to new age, to homeopathy. At the end of the course I asked the professor, a self proclaimed skeptic, what he thought about god.

He said something that pretty much turned me from a then atheist (who wished she could still be a christian for hope alone despite the skeptic in her saying it was nonsensical) into an agnostic. He said that while he has a skeptical mind, he believes that the probability of humans to exist, to have evolved so, with so many potential obstacles, so many complex systems, even despite our own self destructiveness, that its only logical to believe that we are a "miracle" (a freak happenstance defying probability and explanation).

While god may not be kind, care about you as an individual, or be omnipotent, or even have a grand design, I believe there is a creator of human life, be it merely the spark that set forward motion to human life.

Although being a fan of foreskin, girl on girl action, and sodomy, I was never really a good christian.

Another teacher of mine in my aesthetics class brought up the collective unconscious, another thing that makes me believe in some kind of etherial one-ness despite the skeptic in me. How can so many people, across so many cultural, ethnic, religious groups all have so much of the same iconography, needs, origin stories, architypes, and how can we not be interconnected on a higher level then we allow ourselves to be.

This teacher, Professor Smith, has some out there self-serving beliefs you might find funny. He thinks that true artists, and the great aliens of society, are really more higher evolved creators, endowed with the ability to tap into the collective unconscious, to the very soul of what makes us human, and use it as a tool for communication. Then again he perverted Kant's theory of genius (which was that only truly independent thoughts free from evolution from other thoughts could be deemed as genius) by claiming that while newton wasnt a genius (since his ideas were lent from earlier ideas) that my profesor was a genuis because he worked on some of the first CG generated 3d printed sculptures (which is a evolution of ideas, not genius). Egos

I feel like I somehow got really off topic. Dammit.

Anyway like I was saying, freezepop rulez noob.