Welcome to RIP

This blog has come about because of two incidents in the space of three months where I was not only questioned about my beliefs but then also judged on those beliefs and told I was destined for hell because of them. The last time the question of divine judgement had come up was when my father was dying from leukaemia and the hypocrisy of family members we hardly heard from who were now interested not in his life, but in his afterlife angered me. It's not something I had experienced since high school when being on the wrong side of religious belief was just another thing that made me different to everyone else. 

If there is one thing I cannot tolerate, it is a bully. Criticising my beliefs and telling me I'm a sinner is no less bullying that the school girls who criticised the way I dressed and told me I was ugly. The only difference is that back then I was too scared to fight back. 

Evangelists may think they are coming from a position of care and concern about one's soul, but I find their behaviour disrespectful, insulting and offensive. Even those Christians I consider my friends and who respect my position will still press the issue with comments like ‘I hope you will keep an open mind’, 'you might change your mind in the future', 'I’ll pray for you' and 'I'm here if you want to ask questions'. It's like they assume that if you are not a Christian then you must be somehow feeble-minded, uneducated about the faith or unsure of your own mind and undecided. It's simply patronising. 

It might sound like I'm an atheist but I'm not. I'm not anti-God, I'm anti-religion. I believe in a higher power and I can see no point to religion - they all have so many common themes that I can't understand why they hate each other so much. To me all religions are merely different interpretations of the same divinity, so why bother follow any one in particular? Why do you need a religion at all? Religion only serves to divide people and breed hate, injustice and intolerance. Religion is a medieval institution that has no place in the modern world.