Let me put it this way:

Mass worldwide genocide, racism that has run through the entire history of human kind, baby deaths, rape as a systematic form of suppression, a million horrible things that almost overpower the good on the planet, in the world, throughout all time.

If there was a God, it wouldn't let it happen. And if there is a God that not only allows but chooses for these things to happen, how could you believe in that?

I believe in personal struggle, personal strength, I believe in the good of the human race, I believe in the beauty of world and the million wonderful thing it produces.

But a God that drives fanatics to the extremes it does? I'll pass. I see why, and I very deeply understand and empathize why so many do. But me? I'll pass. I see the wonder of religion, the sacredness of ceremony and ritual, the good it has also brought and the badness it has held back on occasion. But I'll pass.


I'll pass...