Religion

OK, I have to be fair. When one is an atheist in a dominating catholic country, it's clear that I MUST have a lot of critic against the catholic church. But also in general I can say, that I'm not particulary fond of 'religions', which does not mean I dislike the people who are religious (they cannot help it, being indoctrinated from early youth).

Catholic church

In case you did not know : Poland is a catholic country, about 90% of the population is roman catholic. For non-catholics (not only atheists) it can be quite annoying to see how the RC church tries to dominate public life in Poland. Just some examples :

• Officially the non-commercial television is 'undependent', but if at the newsbroadcast a reporter says 'the pope' instead of 'the holy father' (whoose father, he isn't even allowed to have kids), there will be a wave of protests, because 'lack of respect'.
• I didn't believe it, but several people told me it's really true : If you want to have a church wedding, you have to go TWO times to confession, otherwise you cannot have a church wedding (OK, I do not want a wedding at all, and surely not in church)
• On every important political, social or cultural meeting there are some (not one, SOME) bishops from the RC church. Only at the official memorial celebration of Jedwapne, the church was strangely absent (For those who do not know : In Jedwapne during WWII jewish poles were forced in a barn and the barn was burned. The official version was that the germans did it, but recent historical investigation learned that it were poles who burned them. There was a beautifull memorial celebration where all important people in Poland were present, except for the purple clad leaders of the RC church

In the near future I plan to write more on this page, but for now it's enough I guess.

Other Religions

OK, I'm no specialist on religions and especially not on those religions you won't find a lot in Poland. But when I look at the world, I have the feeling that a world without religion would look lots better. Many of the places where there are severe and long lasting wars and conflicts, the main goal the fanatics identify themselves with is religion : Israel, Northern Ireland, India / Pakistan... just call them. Religion is not -as Marx thought- opium for or from the people, it's more like an adrenalineshot for the insane.

But the most important reason I do not have any religion is that I refuse to believe things, just because someone tells me to do so. Religions are myths people needed to understand the world around themselves. Nowadays we create other myths around ourselves to understand our world and call it 'science', and although those myths also cannot explain everyting, they are far more acceptable then religion.