Sea People Suicide Bombers

I was thinking of what to write for this post and nothing immediately came to mind except for my mothers side of my family. When I was very young, my mother would bring me to church every Sunday and I never really thought much of it until I was in middle school. Sure, I hated waking up early and getting dragged out of bed, but for a while church was a time for me to think and let my mind wonder for an hour or so on the weekends. Some days I would listen to the priest and sermon, but that was rare. I usually ended up thinking about the bigger picture and of how much I really believe in it all. More importantly, church was a nice time for me to dedicate to letting my mind wander a bit.

Even though I was never really an active participating Catholic, I still went through the motions and got Confirmed in 8th grade. I was around this time that I started to question the fraction of faith I had. I started hearing about corruption in churches and many other disturbing stories; I couldn't look at the priests the same anymore. I'm not trying to make blanket judgments here, because I always had a lot of respect for my parish's priests-they were good people and told great stories. It's just that I never really identified myself as a full-swing Catholic, I sort of dabbled and lost interest. 

The more I thought about religions and how many there are, it just reminded of how everyones worshiping the same sort of idea, just in different context. It's a little bit like different languages, people just have different interpretations depending upon their faith. But ultimately, religion fills the same purpose in everyone's life. It's there to answer uncertainty and fill a void in many peoples lives. The shame here is that religion can often turn people against each other over such a simple conflict. How can anyone be certain they're right? And is it really about being right? I definitely don't think so. 

I remember watching South Park a while ago and this one episode really illustrated some of my thoughts on religion in a simple, but also pretty goofy way. Here it is.