Good evening and welcome back to my lair.

Let’s have a discussion about religions, shall we? I firmly believe that if we all studied the various religious beliefs, we would reach a better understanding; there would be less ignorance, less intolerance, and therefore more peace.

Tonight I was watching a program on the History Channel called Jesus: The Lost 40 Days. You know, those days between the resurrection and the ascension of the man the Apostles called the Son of God. The Bible tells us little more than Jesus made a handful or so of appearances after the resurrection to the ascension into Heaven.

As interested as I am in the scriptures of various religions, this program didn’t have much to offer me other than a 3-D interpretation of a graphic designer who had studied the Shroud of Turin (the cloth alleged to have covered Jesus after the crucifixion) and used his computer skills to bring forth his interpretation of what Jesus looked like. Interesting, but not groundbreaking by any means.

I’m excited because I received a package from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’ve always been fascinated by what people call the Mormon Church. The official church, not any of those off-shoots we all read or hear about. Those lovely people sent me copies of their scripture books: The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines & Covenants, and their edition of the Holy Bible.

Such things fascinate me. Like the interpretation of sangreal. San greal or sang real. The Holy Grail. Is it a vessel that was used to captured and store the blood of Jesus during the crucifixion or is it a vessel containing the holy blood as in a child to continue the bloodline? So many interpretations.

Who can say what is fiction or fact when so many millennia have passed?

Take for instance The Mahabharata, one of two ancient Sanskrit epics from India, which contains the Bhagavad Gita the sacred text of the Hindu religion (the other being The Ramayana.) It is approximately 9-10 times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined and features descriptions of epic air battles complete with huge ships and gods and more.

What’s very intriguing, and you have to love the History Channel, is that scientists have actually pinpointed some of the sites of these alleged battles from The Mahabharata. It seems that more radiation than is usually found in nature is present at these sites. Quite interesting, indeed.

Knowing the half-life of radioactivity, or how low it will take to decay, and knowing the time-frame of the alleged air battles of The Mahabharata, these scientists have speculated that for this amount of radioactivity to be present at these sites, the initial amount would have to have been on the same level as Fat Man and Little Boy, the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. It does make you wonder.

I’ve also been reading The Urantia Book. This 2,097 page book consists of 196 (197 if you count Paper 0, the Foreword) Papers that were channeled from Celestial Beings in the years between 1933 and its publication in 1955. Urantia is the name given to Earth by these Celestial Beings. The purpose of The Urantia Book is to inform people of the true nature of Divinity, the structure of the universe, and much more. I highly recommend reading it because it does serve to give you a whole new perspective, whether or not you share its beliefs.

Religion is sacred, personal. To use it as a basis for hatred or ignorance is profane. People make fun of different religions, or spread misinformation as fact because they are too lazy to research the truth—it’s much more convenient to believe everything you read on the internet.

Take for instance Scientology, which is my personal choice for religion. I have so many people asking me about things they have read on the internet or have seen and heard on television. I don’t know whether to laugh at the preposterousness or be sad at the level of ignorance. Ninety-nine percent of what is on television and the internet is misinformation, people passing along rumor, speculation, or downright falsehood as carved in stone fact. People are usually too lazy to find out the truth for themselves; they’d much rather pass along a juicy tidbit that’s “the truth.”

But then again, why would anyone be interested in religion unless it’s an expose on sexual abuse, physical or psychological abuse, embezzlement, murder, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

Shameful. It truly is when you consider religion is a lovely concept, useful in the betterment of one’s self. It’s when fanatics and those who bow before the god of ignorance use religion as a weapon of hatred, of destruction, to say which religions are not worthy, which people are less than human, which acts are justified no matter how horrific.

One of my personal favorites is the whole “Gay Marriage” issue. I love to hear people chanting about “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” or “The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman.” Such lovely demonstrations of ignorance at its highest levels. I say this because Biblical definitions have no bearing on legal definitions. After all, did our forefathers not quite specifically spell out a little thing called separation of church and state?

How difficult is that concept to grasp? Seriously, it simply means no religious tenets will be used as the basis for law.

And I can hear some idiot now asking, “What about ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and murder being against the law?” Well, killing people is just bad, you dumb ass, and we frown upon that legally but not because of religion necessarily.

The people who love to chant about our great country being founded upon good Christian beliefs need to watch a History Channel documentary. Our forefathers founded this country so any and all religions could be practiced without fear of governmental sanction, so one religious belief was not held above any others, so the government would not govern according to any specific religious belief. These are the same forefathers, many of whom were Freemasons, who openly practiced astrology and divination (not because they were Freemasons or not, but simply because many of them practiced astrology, numerology, and a few other –ologies), consulted the stars and the like when making decisions. It’s all there for us to see for ourselves, if we possess the desire to know the truth.

Do I believe we should have prayer in school? No. Not unless it’s a time of silence when we can pray to whichever god we want or just mentally write our grocery list if we choose. Should we have Bible study in school? No. Not unless we have Torah study, Koran study, The Urantia Book study, Bhagavad Gita study….you get my point, or at least I hope you do. There’s no way we could teach every religious belief in school, so why should we be able to pick and choose which ones we’ll teach about?

But by the same token, should we turn off the microphone when a student is giving a graduation speech or acceptance speech or the like and mention God or Ganesh or Greta Garbo? No, we should not. It’s called religious tolerance. You don’t have to share the beliefs of the speech giver, but you should have enough respect for your own religious beliefs and those of the speaker to not shut off the microphone. I certainly don’t like being preached at, but I’m secure enough in my own religious beliefs that my foundations won’t crack and crumble if someone publicly thanks their god or goddess of choice.

Now that I have ranted for over a thousand words, I feel I can come to a close and say, let’s all have a little more faith in ourselves if nothing else and be good to each other.

And of course…

Nighty-nightmares, all you sexy people out there in the dark.