Religion
TO MEMBERS OF THE JEHOVAH'S WITNESS GROUP:
Of all of the denominations of Christianity the Jehovah's Witness Group is the most persistent and invasive. They are the only cult to try to push their way into your home to show you their ignorance. To them I would like to say: Who or what gives you the right to travel around a neighborhood knocking on stranger's doors? Do the Jews, Islams, Zoroastrianists, Taoists, Hindus, Shintoists and Buddhists invade your homes expecting to be invited into your personal living rooms in an attempt to "save" you? Did you know that Judaism was founded in the 5th century BC and is the parent religion of both Christianity and Mohammedanism? And did you know that Hinduism was founded in 1500 BC, Islamic about 600 AD, Taoism in the 4th century AD, Shintoism about the 6th century AD, Buddhism in the 6th century BC, (Gautama Buddha was supposedly a miracle birth), AND Zoroastrianism, probably the parent religion of all of the above (certainly of Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity) was founded about 1000 BC? (Do you know that the abbreviation"BC" means "Before the birth of Christ?) Did you think that Christianity was something new? How many tired mothers with sick children trying to get some much needed rest have been troubled by your door-bell ringing? How many family wage earners did you wake this week so you can push YOUR religious beliefs on them? What is YOUR educational credentials or status that makes YOU an authority? Go to your public library and read about all of the above, then just MAYBE you will learn that no one has all the answers. A person's religion is a very personal thing. MY God does not require me to invade your personal property, and I respectfully request that you show me the same courtesy. Kitten, the Senior Citizen, 4/93 *********************************************************************************************The Church of Apathy
Are there those of you out there who feel that you don't want to have to identify with a specific religion? Do you feel that atheism and agnosticism is just too much work? Then join our church. That's right, a new religion with a new attitude: ---------Apathists.
The Church of Apathy was thought about by its founders for several years before they decided to put it together in 1973. In 1989 they finally got around to looking for a church, but found it was too much trouble, and besides they really didn't care where they met anyway. Their next project is to find a clergy man, but so far, no one really wants to look for one. An added bonus, if you should ever decide to attend a meeting, there won't be any long boring discussions of whether or not there is a higher being, because it doesn't matter that much to anyone in the church. If you're interested, or think you might be, if you ever get around to it, send us your name and address, and we'll send you your confirmation letter. That is, if you really want one, and if we decide it's worth it to reply. Why knows? Who cares? We certainly don't; we're Apathists!
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True spirit of religion
In the Letters to the Editor in the Winston-Salem, Journal in late 1995 or early 1996 was the following letter from a resident of East Bend:
My friend and I were looking around at this yard sale when a little boy came riding up on his bicycle. He looked to be about 6 years old. He ran up to the man and asked what he would take for the snow sled he had there. The man looked at him as to see that the little boy wanted the sled real bad, so he asked what the boy had to trade for it. The little boy said, "I'll be back in a few minutes," and sure enough, he was. He came back in a big hurry. He had a little glass jar in his hand. He said, "This is a lightning-bug jar. See? It has holes in the lid. I used it to catch lightning bugs."
So the man took the jar and looked at it and said, "Yes son, this is a nice lightning bug jar. I think I'll trade with you. But how will you get it home?"
"Oh," said the boy, "I'll be back in a few minutes." So he went off in a big hurry again. In a few minutes he came running down the street to take his snow sled home. It was all he could do to carry it, but he was so proud to get it that he had to strain a little bit. We could tell that the man had made the little boy's day. And the little boy had made his day. And as far as mine, they both made my day. It was so thrilling I had to turn around so no one would see the tears in my eyes. As we were leaving the sale, and he was straining to get his sled home, a friend stopped and asked the boy if he would take $10 for the sled.
"No," he said." I just traded a lightning-bug jar for it."
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From AMEN, the Diary of Rabbi Martin Siegel
God is me and you. God is the undiscovered dimension to life which man does not know and will never know, something he can only fleetingly experience through relationships with other humans and, thus, with God. God is the back drop in front of which man stands.
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From The wisdom of George Santayana, The Spanish Philosopher
-------sure I am that God receives many that the churches damn.
----Religion arises under high pressure: in the last extremity, everyone appeals to God. But in the last extremity all known methods of action have proved futile.
----The panic that seems to seize some minds at the thought of a merely natural existence is something truly hysterical; and yet one wonders why ultimate peace should seem so intolerable to people who not so many years ago found a stern religious satisfaction in consigning almost the whole human race to perpetual torture, the Creator, as Saint Augustine tells us, having in his infinite wisdom and justice devised a special kind of material fire that might avail to burn resurrected bodies forever without consuming them.
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