I always consider myself as a spiritual person but never as a religious person. I believe in God, in The Creator and I believe there’s a greater power above us all. I don’t really need a religion for that. Yes, I am a Catholic but I never want to rule my life with “rules of God” made by men. I think religion delivers a big possibility of misleading people into having blind faith. However, having said all these, I still respect them. I respect both religions and religious people. I think religions can definitely act as a medium for people to improve their spiritual life and provide people with a more organized way to praise their God. There’s nothing wrong with sending prayers. I send prayers to Mother Mary. I respect religion. But I think we’re making too big of a fuss out of it, and we let it control both our intelligence and our rationality.

Blind faith is something I despise a whole lot. Blind faith or faith without substance is very dangerous. At worst, it leads to extremism and bloodshed. At best, it is an opium people will turn to to escape their real problems. I think it’s really lame if people send prayers like, “God, please bless me with happiness.”or “God, please forgive my sins.” Seriously? I will be pissed off if I were God. And don’t you dare say, “God is never angry.” That will just prove my point on blind faith. Blind faith leads people into becoming passive mortals who are not taking responsibilities for their actions. We are responsible for our own doing and for what happens in our lives. There’s no way to turn to God just because you’re having a hellish day or just because you want to be happy. You need to get on your feet and make the most of your life. You need to find out the reason why you’re here at the first place and actually make some people’s lives better with your existence. Don’t ask for happiness. Create happiness. And think for yourself instead of using God as a scapegoat for whatever happens in your life. The way I see it is: God gives you a brain. Use it.

That’s why I never get it when people say “I love God.” Do you really believe you love something that you can’t see and you can’t touch? You sure it’s not just a reassuring thought you create in your mind so you will be ‘saved’ when you die? Many religious people claim they love God and follow all the rules obediently. Subsequently, that’s all they do. Obeying the rules. Well, I have been in love before. Love is not just a feeling. There’s responsibility attached to it. I believe that when you love someone, you try to love everything he or she loves and accept those things as a part of your life. So if God loves the people, and if you love God, why should you spend your whole time obeying the rules? You don’t love God by obeying the rules. You are doing it out of fear. Out of fear that you won’t be saved after you die and all those other things. If you love God, you should be out there, loving the people. That’s the point. And you should do it, you should love other people because that’s the right thing to do, not only because you want to be put in heaven or collect good deeds to save your own ass when you die.

At this point, some of you might ask me: Do I believe in faith? I do. I have faith in lots of other things. I have faith in humankind and humanity. I believe that humans are capable to do beyond their imagination, be it bad or good. I believe men can go great lengths to create a better world if they want and I believe they can also do the unimaginable bad things. I believe people can come out from their greatest sorrows and conquer their greatest fear if they want to. Now, many view faith as something unquestionable. I partially agree. Faith doesn’t come with reasons. You just believe in something and you can’t really explain it. But to me, doubt is an inseparable part of faith. To truly have faith, you have to doubt first. You have to challenge your faith; constantly beat it with questions as far as your intelligence allows. If it prevails, then it is really yours. To me, doubting my faith with my intelligence is my way to strengthen it. To me, doubting my religion is my way to connect more deeply to the divine power in my life.

I am a pencil that He uses to write stories of life with.
I am somebody, and I better do my job as best as I could.