First post

Tonight I have to finish two books, Frankenstein and In Cold Blood, the latter of which was very good and the previous of which I have not finished yet. In order to keep me awake long enough to finish Frankenstein, I downed two red bulls. This is keeping me plenty awake as of yet, but it seems to have another side effect. Perhaps it was not the red bull, but instead the haunting morbidity of In Cold Blood. In any case, I began to contemplate my own mortality. I thought to myself, "I wonder what my funeral will be like", and then with horror imagined a priest or similar religious figure presiding over the ceremony. I became overwhelmed with the urge of recording somewhere that I would want an athiestic funeral with no religious influence of the sort (in case you hadn't picked up on this already, I am an atheist who is opposed to religion). Realizing that writing this down just on a scrap of paper or in a word document on my computer had disadvantages (e.g. misplacement, computer replacement, the fact that its just plain weird), I decided to start a blog, an idea that I had been toying with ever since my mom did so a few years ago and that had been reawakened by a friend of mine (who is religious, ironically, though I respect him immensely). I thought to myself then, "what shall I write besides this morbid declaration?" I decided that I might as well record my thoughts towards religion. Religion, in case you had not already determined, is a subject of great interest to me. I personally hold religion in low esteem, yet many of the people whom I respect most are religious. Therefore, I would like to say that I view religion much in the way that I view smoking. I realize that this viewpoint may offend many people, and would like to point out that it is but an analogy. I cannot fathom why anyone would embrace either of the two. I feel that both shave off the time from one's life, smoking literally, and religion metaphorically, for those long hours spent in prayer I can only view (and yes, I have tried to view it otherwise) as wasted time. Yet, as I have grown to respect some people who smoke, I have also grown to accept people with religion. I often feel the need to point out that lack of scientific evidence proves that God or other deities and such are no more likely to exist than an invisible rhinocerous that follows me around and protects me. As such, I can paradoxically empathize with Evangelical Christians who seek to save others from hell as I seek to save others from wasting their lives. I also realized as I formulated this declaration that I was in a way confessing. I imagined myself confessing in an altar that I sometimes lose respect, to my shame, for people who are devout. Everyone has a need to confess, and perhaps religion is so universally appealing because it gives people such an outlet. Seeing as I have no wish to delude myself, I do not intend to confess to some priest but to whoever reads this blog. This is not to say that this is the sole purpose of this blog. Also motivating my desire to blog was a nagging thought which was also awakened by my confrontation of mortality. The thought was along the lines of this "Everyone ought to have their story recorded, because every life is interesting." As such, I am in effect, recording my life. I do not intend to bore you with the details of my relative youth (I am but fifteen years of age), I merely intend to speak of things I feel are important.