is there a Dog?

Wow gosh, I really really hope that I can make the most of today. I hope tomorrow will be fun despite my non-fun obligations. I hope that I can do well on my APbio test this week. I hope I can do well at school this year. I hope I can make something out of my life. I hope.

By nature- people are hopeful. We hope for the present, the future, and even for the past. There is no denying this. I'm sure that you too can come up with a list of a few things you really really hope for. But is just saying these things out loud really satisfying enough? Well, at least for me, not really.

I guess the level of satisfaction with confirming your own hopes depends on the person, but most people choose to leave these sorts of things to a higher being through prayer. They seek comfort and answers through this higher being, as again, it is human nature to seek comfort and answers. And there in lies religion. At its purest form, that's really what it is; comfort and answers. Are they the right answers or right comfort? Well, that doesn't really matter; because as long as you're not harming anyone with your beliefs, if they make you happy, then they're good beliefs!

But if only it were that simple. For faith to really work for someone, they have to really believe in it. Which is why simplifying faith into a mean to find answers and comfort is offensive to most people of faith. To people devout to faith, these things are not just their way of securing their feelings, these things are real. Which this strong belief make actually drive home the theories that prayer is all a placebo.

Even if prayer is a placebo and made up by humans, what's all that bad about it? The argument might be made that it deters scientific thought. Yet, what if someone isn't all for scientific thought. You never see anyone looking at someone choosing to read a book at say, "Gosh, books deter athletic behaviors." Athleticism isn't for everyone, and scientific thought isn't for everyone either. I say let each person choose their god. If they prefer to pray to the sky and the ocean, if they prefer to find comfort in the Bible or through Allah, or if they can see understanding through scientific concepts, so what? I say- as long as a man harms none others with their beliefs and their beliefs make them happy then so be it.

Religion is not evil, and atheism is not evil, at their root they are both good things that serve to make the faithful or non-faithful feel justified and content. It is when we attack others for their beliefs that we find evil.