freedom from religion

Religious Artefacts

I'm not sure what happened today, but I seemed to be followed by religious fanatics everywhere I went.

First off at about 10:30AM I was sitting watching a DVD when there was a knock at the door. I opened the door and standing there were two men in suits, uh oh alarm bells started ringing in my head. The one nearest the door then said "we represent a different government" at which point I became confused. It was only when he said "We represent the government of Jehovah" that the alarm bells became louder. I usually just freeze up when these guys come knocking, today was no different. I don't really want to listen to them (definitely not join them), and yet I don't want to be rude to them either. So I nodded, answered a few questions about the meaning of life, listened to a short verse of the bible and then they left me with two "Watchtower" magazines. It took no more than about 1 minute or so and I was soon back to watching my DVD.

Latter on I had just left JB HiFi in Bourke Street and I was approached by a Hare Krishna girl welding a couple of books. We had a good chat about how our souls are our true identity and our bodies are merely a projection of our soul, she showed me a picture in the book to illustrate the point. I even managed to ask her why her head wasn't shaved, apparently only men need to do that. Soon enough I found myself giving her a $2 coin, for which I got a book in exchange . I'm pretty sure that I have spoken to this girl before in Swanston Street. In the next 2 minutes I was approached twice more by Hare Krishnas, one of whom gave me a "smile" sticker when I told her I'd already donated.

I quite like the Hare Krishnas, especially when they go for their lunchtime song and dance up and down Swanston Street. I've also heard good things about their restaurant in Swanston Street, one day I'm going to eat lunch there.

E.T. where are you?

As I went through Auburn on the train this afternoon I thought I saw a UFO somewhere over Abbotsford or Carlton. This got me thinking about what would happen if Extra Terrestrials (aka Aliens, Martians etc) visited Earth tomorrow and how people would react. This naturally led on to religion and how the various different ones would react. Naturally for the single (or few) god religions it would cause all kinds of questions to be asked. For philosophical religions such as Buddhism or Sikhism it would cause no great alarm. Then for multi god religions such as Hinduism such an occurrence would probably raise a few questions also, but in the end cause no rift in the faith.

Thoughts naturally led to Scientology, where things could get interesting. Naturally at first they would be claiming they were right after all (not bad for a 30-40 year old movement). Really it all depends on whether the new arrivals accept Scientologists as disciples and servants or eat them for breakfast. All in all I think *Scientology has the most to loose if we are visited...

* I know there's lots of stuff about "thetans" and souls getting spewed out by Hawaiian volcanoes etc as well, but I can't be bothered researching properly now.