religion - death

when i was a kid my parents made sure i was brought up with full alter boy privileges to believe in a greater power. ultimately, i blame those experiences for making me gay as no gay club in the world can claim as many young boys kneeling before grown men as the church. plenty adult movies have elaborated on the theme. hot stuff really.

the respect for the concept of god has stuck but as i matured critical thinking began to develop (sometime last tuesday) and i found myself in need of filling a gap in the shape of a bearded man. i didn't find it in a church.

last month my grandmother died, providing further catalyst and fuel for my search. here's what's odd about the whole death thing: the most comforting words words i've ever read were not those of religious creative writing. they are of theoretical physicists. i find greater meaning in, theories which, if i understand correctly, imply that nothing in this world is ever lost. we are information stored in a variety of waves, particles and ultimately strings. this information can never be destroyed. this would make sense as only an open system would leak information and an open system cannot hope for the stability we observe in the universe. the fact that my grandmother had a life, people who loved her and who will miss her is forever stored in the very fabric of space and time and can never be destroyed. divine enough for you yet?

what's my point? religion is a good idea, but honestly, let's just state the obvious: it was, is and will remain prone to human error. as such, it should be a personal matter free to interpret individually. i give you the freedom to worship what you want and you should respect that and not interfere in my life or judge me. i don't really need an institution (which sucks up plenty cash, never paying taxes) to tell me just what "thou shall not kill" means or that due to the gender of my partner i'm going to a place where i'll burn for all eternity. it's pretty fucking simple really. i look to more than a man in a funny hat for faith and see nothing wrong with keeping my eyes and ears open.

someone once said that when we die, we go to where we came from before we were born. not a great idea considering no one remembers what that was like. it still beats the alternative some religions offer though.