I will not add fuel to the fiery wrath of all the religious fanatics out there by naming the religions that these two purport to be allied with but instead we will call them pens and cats.

What struck me so boldly was the shear dogmatic blindness that they both displayed while spouting verbatim the words, as interrupted and translated, of long dead men. These were not people of education debating a current issue of the day in which a possible conclusions or logical assumption could be found. They were simply stating, as if fact, what they had memorized from a book written long ago. A book that had been translated many times over by many people. Each with a definitive outlook on the interpretation of those ancient texts. Each adding and subtracting as they felt fit or as the doctrine of the times or king required.
All the wile, listening, I was thinking to myself "Who were these men to tell me how to live today?" and "What did they know of the times I would be living in?"

The obvious answers were that they were men in search of power and control in their own times. They sought to use this relic of their past to assist in this control. That is not to say it was always for greedy or malicious purposes. If the times they lived in required that an adjustment to the obsolete parts of the center for their religious laws, so be it. Maybe their editing helped to bring order to a particularly unstable time or government. But they could not have known what we, I, would face in our time and should have any hold on my actions or the actions of others around me.

Another thought springs to mind in the midst of this boisterous debate. Why should any man, or woman, have any more say than any other in what God intends for us to do with our lives? Am I to believe that these men had an "inside track", on the thoughts and intentions of God? Of course not. They were no different than you or I. In fact I would speculate that you or I might even be wiser than they, given the higher level of education we have been afforded in our times.

Holding my tongue, I fought the urge to involve myself in their all too open discourse. I reminded myself that anyone who would and could spew forth, with such venomous intent, the exact page, paragraph and line of any 500+ page book is not one to be reasoned with. And here I was listening to two such fanatics. In the end it was, what I would call, "A dead mans draw." Neither party had convinced the other that their ancient editor was the correct one and both left with the indignant rage of one who knew they were right no matter what logic dictated.

Unfortunately what I have come to realize was, that these were no mere fools ranting on religious beliefs, they were both high on the chain of corporate America and their whims did affect the lives of those below. These men who so diligently committed to memory the views on life of long dead authors, had the power to inflict those thoughts on many people.

Maybe even you.

A final thought;
Do we really need any religion any more?

Thank you,
From just another American
~Kid Kaos