Religion

My Grandad's a vicar, I attended a church school but still I've never really been drawn to religion. I've always struggled to understand how it answered any questions or made sense to anyone; to me it always posed more questions than it ever answered, overtime I have come to realise this is mainly down to the way I think. I have the perfect definition of an engineer's brain, thus I cannot just except that something exists or works just because it does, I need to be able to see how it works to understand and accept it. This is something religion doesn't offer it relies heavily on trust and accepting traditions, rituals and ancient writings.

Another gripe of mine is how do you know you have the right one? With all the religions in the world not everyone can have it right, so this must mean at least a fairly large chunk of the world is praying to the wrong god(s). Now if God he does exist could take this one of two ways, either God would just be happy all the people who had been praying to the wrong one where at least praying and forgive them, or he'd be incredibly pissed about it and make them pay! Needless to say the idea of pissing off a God doesn't appeal to me.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying religion is false or wrong, it gives a great number of people a great sense of purpose and a place to turn for support and hope at times of need. In my eyes anything that can provide people help like this is not a bad thing. But most if not all wars and conflicts I can think of have been religiously motivated or have separate religious factions fighting against one another. To me this poses the question of "Would there be so much bloodshed in the world if we didn't have religion or only had the one religion?"

The Joneses

Over the past week it has amazed me how even a close friend can feel the need to compete. It’s not even like the competition is in the one discipline, it’s very much ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ in every respect; it’s important that their house is in a better location, bigger garden, better parking, etc. But also their relationship must be deemed more important and stable, hence the rushing down the aisle. Being a petty kind of bloke I’d expect this all to bother me, however I feel I may just be starting to grow up, reason being I just think it’s funny!

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter in what a great location a house is, or how big it is etc, I feel it has more to do with enjoying it. This to me would mean having the time to be in it and enjoy it, also have the friends to invite round and enjoy it is also a must. Not spending 7 days a week working to pay for it, then not having the time to enjoy it or keep up with the social circuit. Plus rushing down the aisle is doomed to fail, everyone knows that! However it does mean an engagement party, stag do, and wedding reception which in turn will require large amounts of beer and merriment to be had.

What do you know apparently it does bother me; that his house has a bigger garden and is in a nicer location. Thank god! I’m obviously not as grown up and boring as I first thought!