My imaginary friend is better than yours.

….as one of my colleagues says. He has aspirations of being Australia’s first dictator. I will vote for him.

Does God exist? Did Jesus exist? Buddha? Does Allah?, (yes, the Danish have drawn pictures of him so they must have seen him).

Does Mickey Mouse exist? Cartman from South Park? Mr Hankey for that matter?

Well, no. To most of the above. Possibly. Who knows?

What is religion? Why do people follow such beliefs?

I grew up attending Catholic schools. Two, in fact. My high school was a Marist college. Marist brothers allegedly vow a life of poverty. I saw no evidence of this. Quite the opposite. They all drove fairly new cars. Their living quarters seemed to be quite comfortable with life’s luxuries at hand. In fact, they drove better cars and lived in better appointed houses than my parents or my friends parents had.

I attended church as regularly as forced to do so. I was “conditioned” with their music. Strength in my later life allowed me to overcome this conditioning. I recall sitting in classrooms at school, being “brainwashed” through the continuous recital of propaganda in the form songs. It was fun, during later years, to “make up” alternate lyrics to such songs. Many a time, I remember the dirty looks from teachers and other compliant students, as my friends and I held back tears of laughter at our ingenious lyrics.

Toilet humour never loses its edge.

Back then, I didn’t think much of all this. Now days, I am a little wiser.

Firstly, I am not “Satanic” or even atheist. I’ll sum up my religion now.

1) God most likely exists.

2) Enjoy everything in life, as long as it does not harm or interfere with others.

That’s it.

When I observe religion in action, the overriding theme I see is control. Stories of the bible, I believe are not documentaries of actual events. Rather, they are a series of carefully structured stories to guide people through life. All well and good. However, these guides are being abused by religious nutters who use them to control, rather than as a guide.

For example, what harm is there in adultery if you and the wife are mutually indulging in a session at the local swingers club?

As Australia’s first dictator, my colleague has pledged to ban all public displays of religious preference.

Wouldn’t the world be better off? We wouldn’t have Christian John, Solomon Jew, Osama Islam, Jimmy Buddhist and Raj Hindu arguing over whose imaginary friend is better.

Wars and civil unrest would be dramatically reduced. Christmas could be allowed to fully develop into something that is simply a celebration of families getting together.

Ramadan would be a time for reflecting on our eating habits. A time to give our bodies a rest from the over sugared, preservative laden crap we eat now days.

But best of all, you wouldn’t get harassed by nutters on street corners trying to recruit more victims to their beliefs. No more people with an agenda preying on the weak. Oh and think of all the innocent children that would no longer be molested by religious figures.