If someone knocked on your door peddling a religion called Scientology that believes alien dictator Xenu brought billions of his people to earth then stacked them around volcanoes only to blow them up, you’d think they were nuts. But an invisible, all-knowing and all-powerful being impregnating a virgin or a man living in a fish makes so much more sense to us? If all my life I believed that Xenu was the originator of humanity I would think you were out of your mind. An invisible god that wants us to cut off parts of our penises or cover our faces with black cloth or stone people who have sex to death would seem like the most ridiculous and irrational thing anyone could come up with.

The fact of the matter is, religion comes down to what you choose to believe at the very heart of you. Elaborate supernatural stories sewn together to make sense of the world. But that’s just it isn’t it? Religion isn’t a science or a historical narration. I can’t prove God or gods exist just as I cannot prove Jonah lived in a great fish or God told Abraham to sacrifice his own son. So let’s stop pretending that religion has any basis in fact or science. Religion is a belief and it needs to stay that way. Far away from schools and government buildings, far away from workplaces and political parties, far away from anything where a cross section of society, with its plethora of religious beliefs, has to come together to interact as a functioning people.

I’m done talking or debating about religion. You want to cover your face? Cover it. You want to believe that you have to put your head to the ground five times a day to please God? Do it. You want to believe thetans inhabit us all? Believe it. Just keep it away from where I eat, where I live, where I work, where I try every day to be who I want to be away from the judgment and violence and pain that you so want to live in to support your beliefs. I choose not to fight this fight with you or even with myself. I’m through.