Regarding Religion: A Few More Thoughts.

*An ideal religion IMHO would be akin to the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten's monotheistic 'The Aten' which was a Sun deity. Pharaoh Akhenaten might have been on to something and solar deities are not all that uncommon, albeit usually one of a pantheon of related deities. That is a solar deity is usually part of a polytheistic theology. Now the Sun has it all over God (and company). The Sun, unlike that certain other monotheistic deity at least can be seen! Seeing something certainly assists in the credibility of any sort of concept and of course God is that "invisible 'friend' in the sky". The Sun has a bit of a personality (ask any solar astronomer), but it performs no miracles; it's reliable; it is life-giving; it is life sustaining; it freely gives you heat and light and ultimately food without demanding anything in return. The Sun issues no commandments and doesn't demand any worship or command any sort of theological rituals like learning and singing songs or pageantry. It doesn't endlessly ask for money. There's no fiery punishment (either Hell or burning at the stake) for blasphemy or heresy; there's no need for special structures or buildings to assemble in weekly, albeit Sunday would be a good day to pay homage to the Sun. There are no nasty bits like crucifixions (albeit there can be sunburn and the now and again case of skin cancer). The Sun never tells you that you are unworthy or a bad person in need of saving. The Sun treats you just fine and has no bias towards any one special group of chosen people. So the Sun makes for an ideal God!

*I believe in the freedom of religion providing the religion you believe in is the exact same religion as mine is.

*False Religion: Any religion that's not your religion! When you say that your brand of religion is right and all others are false (either in part or in whole), you do realize of course that you have no appeal to any authority, higher or otherwise, and that the majority doesn't rule (except of course unless by pure force).

*You can just about get away with anything if you claim that your "anything" is part and parcel of your religion and thus your religious beliefs and practices. Witness all of the recent and very heated debates over the ‘rights’ of the religious to refuse giving any ‘rights’ to the LGBT community or to prohibit a woman’s right in having an abortion. Then we have the religious community determining or at least trying to determine what should or should not be taught to children (i.e. – creationism / intelligent design vs. evolution in science class). But this is relatively mild compared to what follows. So, for yet another example, albeit a more serious example, putting your religious faith in faith healing as opposed to medicine has resulted in hundreds of unnecessary deaths, often of children by their fundamentalist ‘well meaning’ religious parents. Animal sacrifice is still legal providing that it done in the name of your religion. And the numbers of people, especially children, who have endured psychological as well as physical harm by exorcisms are legend. There have been many recorded cases of people who have even been killed during exorcisms, again especially children who have died by 'well-meaning' religious adults trying to beat demons out of them - literally. Exorcism often became an execution, putting meaning to the phrase that the cure was worse than the disease (which is what so-called 'demon possession' usually was - just an actual disease). The psychological and physical abuses inflicted on members and ex-members of the so-called 'Church' of Scientology are numerous and well documented, yet Scientology oft regains and retains it's tax free status as a 'religion' and is virtually untouchable. Even New Age spiritual beliefs aren't always harmless as people have died from fad diets and herbal remedies / treatments as well as putting trust in psychic surgery. And no amount of words can adequately describe the hideousness of the Westboro Baptist Church. Actually it's not the 'Church' that's hideous - it's the 'human' member ship of that 'Church'. Then too, to round out some (but by no means all) religious horrors still practiced in some parts of the world, we still have literal witch-hunts and trials were the accused was damned if they did and damned if they didn't. The final resulting outcome was, and is, never in doubt - death to the 'witch'.

*Religion has many a closet full of many a skeleton, all too often literally really real skeletons. One just has to recall all of those European 'Christians' who invaded North, South and Central America destroying entire indigenous cultures and societies in the process in the quest for gold / silver (El Dorado), resources, land and all-round empire building (i.e. - I claim this [already occupied] land for X in the name of Y) and of course converting the native pagans to Christianity by any means possible. Of course multi-hundreds of thousands of indigenous natives had to be exterminated in achieving those 'Christian' goals. Ethnic cleansing would not be too strong a phrase, but when God is on your side; when you are of the Chosen People; when you have "Divine Right" and Manifest Destiny backing you up, the ends justify the means and might makes right.

*We all know, or at least should know, that religious fundamentalists (and that includes or incorporates various religious faiths) have as their ideal goal the goal to ram their faith down the throats of anyone and everyone else not part and parcel of their One True Faith. More specifically, there are various American politicians and former politicians who have as an ultimate goal an American theocracy (Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Mick Huckabee, Joni Ernst perhaps even Newt Gingrich) and a total end to the separation of church and state. Translated, there are numerous right-wing religious fundamentalist politicians who, if elected to high office (i.e. - the presidency) would govern according to the Bible and not according to the American Constitution.

*Speaking of the U.S.A., to the best of my knowledge the United States is the only country with the word "God" imprinted on its currency although that hasn't always been the case since "In God We Trust" was only established as the official motto of the United States by Congress in 1956 (and reaffirmed 50 years later) and the phrase first appeared on paper currency in 1957 (although the phrase had appeared on (and off and on again) on some American coinage since 1864). However, this is actually in direct violation of the American Constitution's First Amendment which requires that officialdom not favor any one religion over another belief system - the so-called Separation of Church and State. However, there wouldn't be any politician brave enough to try to rectify that unfortunate state of affairs since 90% of Americans are in favor. Oh, as an aside, as the joke goes, "In God we trust, all others pay cash".

*Christians probably worry that if the gay community ever gets to control things politically they will treat Christians the same way that the fundamentalist right-wingers have treated the LGBT community since way back to when Methuselah was a baby in diapers. Fundamentalist Christians should have a reason to worry! Justice would be served if they ever got a taste of their own medicine. As a quick example, Christians have no difficulty in adopting children but there are numerous places due to Christian lobbying than ban gay couples from adopting. Christians lobby for the criminalization of LGBT activities but the gay community have never lobbied for the criminalization of Christianity. When was the last time the gay community burned a Christian at the stake or stoned a Christian to death? Yet some of the more extreme elements in the Christian right-wing have and are calling for the death penalty for homosexuality and related activities.

*Why does religion get special rights just for claiming they are doing or representing God's (or some other deity's) will? Special rights like obtaining freedom from paying taxes, and all by enforcing, according to their holy texts, what is and isn't moral, while they get to - in a manner of speaking - go inside your bedroom and issue commentary on your reproductive / recreational behaviors as well as telling a woman what she can and can't do with her body.

*In a similar vein, if you are a Bishop or an Archbishop, a Rabbi, an Imam, a Priest, a Reverend, a Pastor, a Clergy, a [religious order] Father, a [religious order] Sister, or have any sort of title that identifies you as a man / woman of the Cloth (i.e. - the Pope), you tend to be considered an intellectual, one of the elite, someone to be looked up to with a moral authority that's nearly untouchable.

*If you adopt the philosophy that religions are man-made and derive from the human mind, then you have a ready-made and obvious explanation why there are so many of them.

*If you could reason with religious True Believers, there would be no True Believers.