What's Religion ?

Ok I am going to get a little personal here and i think you are going to need an open mind for this one... (this is coming from a guy at the center of the earth, so take it with a grain of salt)

Religion is a very personal and subjectivet thing -- the reason we have so many different sects and subclasses of the various religions is that almost everyone has a varied opinion on how we should live (our systems of morals, and where we will ultimately end up at the 'end of the day')

The place a lot of religions begin with is the concept of a god or gods as creator beings. I can understand that -- but really to ME it doesn't matter too much at all either way. I take my cue on that attitude from the animals who couldn't care less about where they came from. Believe what you want about a creator -- it doesn't change a thing at all -- whatever the reason , we are HERE now. That is good enough for me.

Morality is where things tend to get fuzzy. What is moral or immoral or Amoral for that matter? I think this is what makes people start crusades and jihads because "those guys over there" are disrespectful of "the guys over here" or of OUR god figure -- since we are RIGHT and JUST people, we simply MUST have God on our side to smite the infidels because that's what 'god' would WANT us to do, right?

So it all begins (and has been going for at LEAST 2000 years.)

As I said, the elusive "God-figure" doesn't even enter my thought processes very often at all -- although I DO have a bit of an unconventional view on how to define what "God" is, and that is: the order of the universe and the experience of the moment to moment Is IT.

That's IT.

That's what God is.

No more No less -- there IS a balance of everything, or else the universe would either blow apart or implode on itself and the fact that it doesn't is proof of a God or higher power to ME (your own mileage may vary.)

Whether that force cares about us making stupid or illogical choices, or just being pricks to each other in our day to day lives is probably not of any importance to anyone other than ourselves and to the people we encounter everyday. I think eating fish on Friday or choosing not to eat bacon probably won't help you gain any higher level of understanding of anything other than your own self control and discipline (which is GENERALLY a very positive thing.) So knock yourself out -- I however like Ham and I eat fish sometimes, (just for the taste, what day I do it isn't really a major concern for me.)  

I'll continue on this topic another time and delve into my own beliefs a bit more in depth for anyone bored enough to be interested on ANOTHER day.