Apologies and blasphemy

I'm apologizing in advance for a hard to follow post. I've gotten very little sleep last night and have already driven in to St. Paul today. I browsed around a couple of stores in the area and am now quite bored. If I didn't have to jam two days of training into one day tomorrow and I had someone to drink with, I'd be at a bar right now. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, I think.

I saw a greater than normal amount of religious advertising on the drive up here to Minnesota. I fully believe that everyone should have a right to religious freedom, but your right to that freedom ends as soon as you push it into my face. I'm pretty disdainful of organized or somewhat organized religions in general, tho. It's like someone comes up with a good idea, and his or her followers try to get everyone to think the way that they do. Since most people like the status quo and resist the new, the followers get bitter and start telling everyone that they are superior in some way. Then the followers franchise, get lots more people involved, and start throwing their weight around. Then people get hurt.

Christianity started out as this great, hippie-esque cult. The original cult (before they got picked up by the Romans) was a love your brother, be nice to everyone, and free love movement. The Romans liked it, because they could make the huge and mostly poor people of the Empire happy, and they didn't even stop their orgies to do it. So Rome becomes Christian, and when the Empire starts to tank, the church takes over the power structure thanks to a faked document called the Donation of Constantine. Once they have power, they destroy all the records they can find (thank goodness the Moors held most of Spain) and then start the Crusades.

If you are Christian, try not to take offense to what I've said since I'm going by historical record. This doesn't mean that the ideas at the core of Christianity aren't a good thing. We'd probably be in a damn happy world if people didn't mess up fun and sex to satisfy their egos or hunger for power. I liked a phrase I read while reading St. Augustine. "There are many paths to God." I found that talking to whatever higher power out there in my own personal way works for me.

And I still think that God wants me to get freaky. Baby Jesus cries when Erik is not getting any.

If I'm wrong, I'm on the express train to hell...