I'm not going to post links to all the things that made me think about the state of religious affairs in the world today. You know all about the prisons and the videos on web sites and what not. No need to spread the disgust. I just wanted to take the time to reiterate my stance. God exists with or without human beings fucking up their own lives. Seriously. We're a tiny blue dot in the outer reaches of an obscure arm of a non-descript galaxy. If I were the only person alive on this planet, I would still have a personal, spiritual relationship with that higher being. All of a sudden, if more people show up and they build a building, I have to go to a building and listen to someone else to validate my personal relationship?

"Hamburgers are good."

"You say that, but you don't go to In-N-Out every Sunday at 11:30. Unless you start going to The Church of Hamburger, you're really an infidel and you'll go to Burger Hell."

"Is that where the Burger King lives?"

Religion exists because humans are confused as to what the absolute truths are. This is where religions differ. I, for instance, believe in the absolute truth preached by John Lennon: All you need is love. Beyond that, I'm just going to play it by ear. Some Christian fundamentalists believe that male masturbation is bad. Oops. Islamic fundamentalists say that non-believers should be killed. That sucks. Jewish fundamentalists rejoice at the murder of Rabin. Chill out. I respectfully disagree with all of them, but in fairness, that's because I'm pitting myself against a set of extremes in the effort to make my version of an extreme quite moderate in comparison.

All you need is love. Love is all you need.