It was never religion itself that turned me off, it was always the followers, the believers of them. All I ever saw was ego, hypocrisy, and entitlement. Just a bunch of narcissistic, arrogant, and insufferable humans who are steadfast for that which they cannot prove. So absolute and stubborn in their convictions, infected by baseless claims. Ignorantly tumultuous speech smothered by hypotheticals, and dressed with incredible certainty. The similarities are uncanny aswell, they're all so similar more so than they are different. Most belief systems share a similar format. They think theirs is the all mighty one, they have some sort of enlightened deity and the others are false, and in extreme cases are willing to die and **** just for the sake of being right. Religion always appeared to me as demanding unconditional devotion without giving much of a reason. Exploiting peoples fears, in order to silence questioning, the most devout are the willfully blind. Eternal damnation, hell, and suffering are consequences they promote to scare lost souls into falling in line. I'm not saying there arent some positives in religion, but the high horse and holier than thou attitudes cultivate everything but a foundation of true spirituality. Religion often makes enemies, creates disunion, and gives people another reason to look down on their fellow man. Those who pray differently are looked at with disgust. Instead of trying to understand one another, or recognizing the things we see as important the vast majority of people also hold these things in high regard. We are all just trying to provide for the people we love. We love our families, our kids, our wives. We get up in the morning and put our pants on the same way to go to work. We may have different colored eyes, hair, or skin, but we all share a heart, a voice, and a breath. We share more in common than we think, but jump to conclusions because we misunderstand the little things. Something as simple as a foreign language can instill discomfort, thinking less of others because WE do not understand, thinking people of seperate cultures are less intelligent than us when its US who dont understand THEM. Making judgments instead of looking at our own lack of education. Its easier to finger point, than it is to research. Its easy to draw uninformed conclusions, than it is to engulf and throw ourselves into another mans world where we are unfamiliar. People dont like to leave their bubble, their comfort zone, and so the mind goes unchallenged. Whether its on purpose, or on accident, complacency harms only ourselves. Being stuck in our own distant worlds does nothing good for anybody. If we could just be human for a moment, look past what we mistaken for difference, and stop feeding the cycle of hate. We might realize that at our species core we share the same desires, the same goals, the things we hold dearest are not exclusive to us. If we could stop competing for a moment, maybe we could realize that on this microscopic planet, we really are all we got. We know no life like we know here on Earth. We are wasting time, and opportunity bickering over trivial *******. We would rather commit suicide as a collective, than try something else, try something different. Thinking larger beyond ourselves, seeing others as you do yourself, seeing that we are all a family here. The work starts within, we need to stop settling for Religion, for Political Parties, for a distraction to occupy the energy we should be using to hold ourselves accountable. We need to stop letting external forces tell us how to think, tell us who to hate, and what should bring us shame. Until we look within, and get completely honest with the worst parts of ourselves, thats all we will ever see in others.