This discussion (off the forums) have been a long one, and a heated one.

To the point of gay/homosexual marriage, I'd like to ask: What is marriage?
To me, it's a limitation. The way marriage vows are usually exchanged, it says that "to this person I pledge my undying love, my labour, my life, my thoughts on all of life, my seed to bear/produce children, in all eternity"
This seems to me like a limitation on humankind. There are the people who are content with living with one person the rest of their life. And there are those who would be content to have a spouse, but not content to let that spouse be all of their feelings and affection. That loves on one more than one level. Then, you have those that feel a marriage is wrong altogether.

I believe that religious communities have the right to set limitations on their faith. Why not? They are comprised of people with similar mind-sets, beliefs on how the world is made, and so on. They have the right to disagree with people, as do we all. But the story of someone being evicted from an AIDS-hospice for being consentual towards gay-marriages is wrong. The catholic church has the right, IMO, to deny the services of the church (testimonial, weddings, baptism, communion, etc) to those which it disagrees with. But when you treat a disease, as said before, you do not have those rights. I have the right to choose whether or not I want to listen to Jehova's Witnesses showing up at my door, cause that's intellectual, religous. But I do not believe myself to have the right to deny helping one of them if they knock on my door asking for help with a wound.

My true beliefs on religion is that almost all of the world has it backwards, but that's another topic altogether.

As for the "predatory" priests we have all heard about within the catholic church: They do contradict the idea that homosexuality is wrong. The church allows them to continue their work. To me, that is saying: We condone that our priests, who should be celibate, have sex with members of the same sex.

I have read the Knights Templar-trilogy of Jan Guillou, and in this, there is a lot of facts with regards to the Catholic Church. One thing that comes to mind from these books, is the talks of Earl Birger, the founder of Stockholm, and the one bringing peace to Sweden, with Cardinal Wilhelm of Sabina. (This is a proven fact, with Papal commands to back it up) Wilhelm says he wants the Swedish Priests to live in celibacy. Not because it is stated so in the Bible, or it being a commandment or direction from either God or Jesus, but because the Church would soon be piss-poor if priests had heirs. They have to have some heritage from their father, right? And marrying off a girl meant giving some "gift" to the family of the man who was "forced" to look after this woman the rest of her life.

I am off-topic here. My point is, that every religion is a corporation looking out for itself. They crave money, fortune, comforts just as much as anybody else. But they accomplish this without a product to sell. What do they have to sell? Sure, crosses, rosaries, forgiveness of sins and a sure-fire way to keep people giving all their life by saying that all you think is a sin, so you'll never be free of sin. (This is mainly the way of the Catholic Church, I know. But that's the faith/religion I am most knowing of.)
If any other public corporation did these things without claiming to be a religion, they would soon be shut down by laws, or people recognising it for what they were: A scam, a hustle.

I believe people are free to choose what they wish to believe in. They want to believe in Creatonism? Fine by me. They want to believe in Evolution? Great, doesn't bother me the least. As long as they respect that other people might not share their beliefs for some reason, I am fine with it.

What do I believe? It's a mix. I believe some divine being (Dragons in my case) created the Universe, Earth, mankind. But not as finished products. We didn't simply spring forth as humans. We evolved from the first idea of this divine being.

Religious communities working to ban the teachings of evolution from the schools, are, to me, narrow-minded stupid fucks. Or people trying to take religion off the curriculum. As long as the teachers don't try to promote one religion, or try to ban the idea of science, I believe the children have the right to learn whatever we can teach them. And that includes such diametrical opposites as Creationism and Evolution.

I don't remember where I heard it, but I believe it was Benjamin Franklin saying it: If we each had an apple and then exchanged it, we would all have one apple. If we each had an idea and exchanged it, we would both have two ideas.

That's something I really like. That shows that you have to be open to new influences.

Well, time to end this. I could probably have discussed this from both sides of the fence for several hours, but I think this will do for now.