Personal Essay

This is going to be a personal essay on religion. I will try to refrain from being overly passionate, or offensive.

Religion

To begin, I want to start off by saying that although I personally do not agree with religion, and in fact cannot tolerate the thought of it, I do respect others, and their religious choices. I don't usually get involved with religious debates, or even express my thoughts on it openly. I don't mean to offend anyone, nor do I wish to push my religious views on anyone. 

Now, in a nutshell, to me religion is simply an escape used by humans to avoid scary unknowns. We don't understand death and usually fear it, to escape this fear we create a land where everything is perfect, and all of our loved ones are there, and we live for eternity in peaceful happiness. See how that works? There are many other aspects of religion that do this for many other aspects of life that have long been unknown and feared. We use religion as a source of hope, a reason for being a good person (though in actuality it causes more hypocrisy than anything), and even lays out a very definite list of morals. At times religion can be helpful, it can help people work through bereavement, it can act as a source of inspiration, and help motivate naturally greedy humans to be kind and give as needed. Christianity, specifically, touches on a moral code for people to follow, a source of good hope, as well as strikes fear in the hearts of sinners. 

Though these may be useful for people, I still personally view religion as an escape for the ignorant. Once you accept religion as a truth, you end the search for knowledge, and the ever shifting basis as to which moral develop is constructed and changed. I feel as though religion hides the  truth of the universe from it's followers, though this may not be true. From my point of view, religion is about as useful as astrology (which most people also believe in for whatever reason), and scriptures should be seen as more of a long collective of tall tales, and myths with simple morals and themes rather than an exact representation of life, since this is often the way many other scriptures of past religions are viewed. This also raises the point that throughout history there are repeating themes within religions, that are usually copied from one theology to another. Yet, followers of each individual religion see that their beliefs are the one and only truths, when just about every aspect has been copied from some religion in the past.
To end this, I believe that if you follow a religion that perhaps you should look at it, for at least a little bit, as a teaching of a better life, rather than a guiding light for every second of every waking hour of your day. Also, think about why you actually believe in what you do, because if it isn't because you as an individual have studied up on the religion and all aspects of it, then maybe you should rethink your following, and read further into it, beyond the cherry picking, and strict interpretations heard in the media, and from priests, rabbis, or whatever it be that you have been swayed by. I can respect a personal choice to believe by knowledge, but being ignorant to your religion, and ranting on and on about your beliefs that, in reality, you know nothing about, is nothing to be proud of, nor does it shine well on your beliefs.

I hope that for those of you who managed to keep an open mind about your beliefs, and read through all of this, that you will at least, on your own read into your belief, and build a more solid ground for why you believe what you do. I am an atheist, but because I have studied multiple religions and have made a personal choice. I also hope that I haven't overly offended anyone.