The balance point of religion and atheism -- not sure who's worse about it.

I have a personal policy: I will 100% respect your beliefs if you are kind and rational about them and if they bring no harm to other people.

By "kind and rational", I mean that you don't yell at or carry any spite toward people who don't believe the same things as you.

That being said, I honestly don't know who I dislike more. There are the people who are so extreme about their religions that their entire lives are devoted to judging everyone around them and pointing out their sins and that they're going to go to hell if they don't look to Christ for savior. And then there are the people who are so extreme about their hatred of religion that they have to rip away other people's beliefs, tear them to shreds, chew them into a wad, and then spit them back into their faces.

Can we just... not do these things? Can we just worry about ourselves for once and not expect the whole world to be exactly like us? The irony in this is that I'm expecting everyone to be like me... but for a beneficial cause, right...? I just don't want anybody to have to hurt over these things.

In my English class the other day, our teacher asked us to write down what we think is the definition of faith. He said that it didn't have to involve religion at all.

And there was this one kid who, when asked to share what he wrote, began by saying, "Faith is the belief in something that cannot be proven to exist..."

I just sort of stopped listening after that. I do remember him mentioning something about flying spaghetti monsters, as if he's so clever to have made that reference.

It's like, why you gotta be like that? Why do you have to make everything about how you're smarter and better than anyone who believes in God? I don't understand.

And then there was another time, about three years ago, when I got into an argument with two of my religious friends. I didn't even know it was an argument until I was being yelled at and called stupid. I don't remember how it came about, but we had started talking about evolution. They were saying things like, "How do you expect me to believe that I came from a monkey?" and, "The big bang theory is so stupid. How does life even come from something like that?" Now, at the time, we were in the eighth grade, though one of them was a seventh-grader. Anyway, I didn't know how exactly since I hadn't yet taken biology, but I was trying to explain that bacteria was the first life form to come about and how everything evolved from there. They used the fact that I didn't know the details against me, saying, "See? You can't even explain it!" As if because a fourteen-year-old can't explain it, then nobody can...

I'm fine with you believing in creationism instead of evolution. But if you verbally attack me because of it? Well, then I'm going to defend myself. Because that isn't cool.

Again, at the other end, there are the scientists who take it a step too far in their experiments. They waste their time and energy attempting to disprove beliefs that have absolutely no effect on science and so shouldn't even concern them.

When I was in astronomy, although the teacher was pretty rad because he was a super nerd and liked a lot of the things that I do, he was also a massive dick. We spent the entire first week of class disproving astrology. I could perhaps understand one day, maybe two spent on the subject, but no. A full five days dedicated to the "stupidity" of astrology.

He handed out a packet containing an article which made it seem as if astrology is a monstrous belief that must be stopped because it's tainting our children's minds. I could hardly believe what I was reading.

And the experiments we conducted were absolutely pointless and proved nothing at all. They were all just pretentious attempts at beating down something that those butthurt scientists didn't like.

One such experiment was where we had to calculate the astrological signs of all of the presidents of the United States in order to realize that there was no predominant sign associated with being president. The theory was that all of the presidents must have had the same traits in order to have been elected, right?

That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard in my entire goddamn life.

Look at Obama. Look at Bush.

I DON'T EVEN NEED TO SAY ANOTHER WORD ABOUT THAT.

It's fucking ridiculous how some people think they have the right to assert their beliefs as the most important of them all, and that anybody to say otherwise is an idiot.

People need to get over themselves. Seriously. The world doesn't have to cater to you just because you think that you have the universe figured out. The world is not a mathematical equation with only one right answer. It's more like an essay. You interpret it however you like, and no matter your opinion, all you have to do is write it in an eloquent and organized manner, and you'll get an A+. That's that. End of story. Stop being douchebags.