Is Religion Pure Insanity?

Apparently there's this little holiday in Latin America called Semana Santa. I never knew about it because it didn't show up on Stevie's "Fireman of The Year" calendar that we use for event planning. I later learned that this is just Easter without the bunny, so the little kids down here are getting hosed in my opinion.

On this particular holiday everyone in the entire country heads for the beach. So we decided to go inland to the mountains. The surf sucked anyway and we've been wanting to see the cloud forest. The mountains of Costa Rica are surprisingly large. We left the beach and drove uphill for damn near 3 hours. Finally we topped out at what I assume was the famous cloud forest. I'm sure it is beautiful if you can see through clouds. I cannot and found the driving incredibly challenging.

Our destination for the day was a little mountain town called Orosi. Back in the 90s a couple friends of mine had started a kayak company and named it after this town. I wanted to go see why. It was also on the way to our next destination which was Turrialba. This was the town I went to back in 1991 when I was training with the US Olympic Kayak Team. We spent 3 winters here training for the race season. I have many fond memories of the place and can't wait to see how it has changed in 20 years. Oh my god, did I just say that? Man I'm getting old.

On our way to Orosi we saw displays of Semana Santa everywhere. Stevie and I had just watched an amazing documentary called Constantine's Sword (more info here). Watch it, it's good.  It explores the dark side of Christianity. I found it very interesting that the cross did not even exist in the religion until over 300 years after Christ died. It was introduced by Constantine as a symbol for conquering others in war. It had a tag line that read "In Hoc Signo Vinces", which means "By This symbol you will conquer". Millions of people have been murdered over the last 2000 years in religious wars. And the madness continues today.

"Religion is an important part. I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself. That's manifested in public policy through the faith-based initiative where we've unleashed the armies of compassion. I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe. And that's part of my foreign policy. I believe that freedom is a gift from the Almighty. And I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march. And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me. And religion is a part of me." 

- George W Bush

The armies of compassion have incidentally murdered tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in the middle east over the last 10 years. But when freedom is on the march, we just call that collateral damage. Newsflash all you nutty religious zealots - Jesus didn't kill! He didn't even fight. He would not have supported any war no matter how it was justified. He was an enlightened, peaceful, loving man and he would have thought you were F@CKING crazy. Why do people blindly follow this madness? Because religion is pure insanity.

Ok, I'm sure that will piss some people off. Happy Easter. Carry on. TREE