Alright, you vultures, here's a freshly slaughtered update so you can quit picking at that dead horse. And it's even about something more substantial than the ego-boosting self-reflections of an angry little man...
Religion, to me, is like leaving a tip in change. To those versed in social etiquette, it is well-known that a tip left in change is considered an insult to the server and the establishment, and it makes you look like an idiot and a pompous jerk. Even if you calculate the proper percentage of the tab exactly, it is apprpriate to round to the next (yes, up, not down) dollar because your deliberate selection of each nickel adds to the insult of leaving coins on the table. It shows that you've gone that extra mile to make sure they know they didn't earn that other 35 cents of the dollar. And this is how I see religion - as an insult to he whom it's meant to honor. The intent is there, but the execution comes off insulting because people are ignorant. Just as the restaraunt patron attempts to follow etiquette by calculating the precise tip, the patron of religion is bombarded with so many rules that have been perverted over the generations, that even to follow them exactly as they are written does not satisfy their intent. The supposed "proper" tip percentage is just center field in the ball-park of what is accepted, and is intended to give you a measure by which you can determine what is appropriate. And by the same token, religious laws and methodologies of any given sect are just one out of a thousand, none of which are the precise holy decree for correct worship. It's the intent that counts, and if you go too far down a road you think is correct, you're going to end up being more of a heretic than the one who didn't tip at all, if you follow what I'm doing. If there is a God, I believe he would find the perversion of spirituality that is religion more insulting than atheism.
Just another one of my little comparisons of religious things to simple, everyday things; it's what I do; take it or leave it, I know I could've spelled it out a little better if it wasn't 2:30 in the morning.
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