After reading a little bit more on deism and Thomas Paine's " The Age of Reason", i figured it was time for me as well to express my thoughts on religion, faith, and lifestyle. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and a right to place their faith where ever they see fit. For centuries that faith had been placed in 5 major religions, and with fair reasoning. Each of these religions contain a morale code each believer must abide by in order to transcend above all else. While some follow these rules loosely, others follow these god given rules with extreme sensitivity and strictness because all else would be considered heresy. Not all of these rules are bad, but i find them rather restricting.

I come from a long line of devout catholics and christians that have always been devoted to the church. I for some time identified as a evangelist christian with an extreme faith for the Almighty and the church. I went by what my pastor and the ten commandments told me what to do. And that didn’t mean the way i lived was bad, it was fairly honest, but eventually i would begin to question my faith when all of my prayers seemed to go unanswered. I found myself wondering if i was doing something wrong, perhaps i wasn’t engaged enough in the church enough. At one point it dawned on me that my prayers weren’t answered because there was no one to answer them. I brought this curiosity to my older brother and he filled me in on the idea of there being no higher being, no higher power. After that i realized that what he said was true, or at least to me, i mean if there was an Almighty, why would he allow so much cruelty and evil in a world that he made. Things like this made the Almighty seem evil to me. A portion of “The Age of Reason” perfectly summarized it as the word of god to more of the word of a demon. And i don’t mean to ridicule or argue the word, i just mean to say that when one takes a step back from what really happens in the word, it's hard to go back.

After that the church became redundant and pointless to me, even if i despised the church, my mom would force me to go. I would sit and watch as hundreds of people shouted and cried in praise to what seemed to be an empty space. It made me cringe to see people pour their hearts into prayers with empty answers. Since then i've engaged  in many arguments regarding the power or existence of the Almighty, i've seen the church as a waste of time for me, but for those that truly believe in the Almighty i don’t think its a waste of their time.

Now i don’t identify with any form of religion or anti-religion. There's just too much to take in, too much to restrict, and too much to judge. At this point i just live my life as it is, with my own decisions and morales. Odd enough i regularly attend church with my devout mother and sister, but mainly out of respect for them. At the end i guess i don’t care where a person decides to place their faith in, just as long as they are a decent person with good morales.