Yes, you'd probably rot in hell if you keep thinking what you're thinking, but she wouldn't.

Like most fellow countrymen, I was raised in the Catholic faith. However, I never joined any religious community because I wansn't really that much of a believer, and I had almost been expelled from a Catholic school by the age of 10 (for being against the doctrine), so I thought I should keep some distance. Took the first communion course in a military school without speaking to any of my classmates and I then there was that confirmation thingy I did for political reasons, not making friends again. Later on, I found out I was completely oblivious of what was going on in those courses.

Props to JC. He said God would forgive us for our sins, after all. So, if we commit a sin, we're giving Him (or Her) the chance to forgive us, and that would be another way of showing how merciful he is. What good would it be if His (or Her) followers didn't do anything wrong?

The eye-opener experience happened right when I graduated from high school, when my most religious friend ever suddenly became a father thanks to pre-marital shagging. Afterwards, there was this classmate from my old school (yes, the one I was almost expelled from), and I found out that not only she was fond of having threesomes with teachers (she told me about it myself), but I also I heard loads of "mind-opening" stuff, let's put it this way. It seems that school became a lot of fun a few years after I left it.

Then, this week, I heard some things from another classmate of mine (from university, this time) about the Protestant church she goes to. The pastor's fiancee was pregnant of some other bloke, a couple of the most faithful teens were now pregnant, and yet another girl was caught red-handed, about to be banged somewhere inside the church (the day I find someone who got off at the altar, I'm going to level this person as my new idol)... and there was this lad who locked his girlfriend up all day long in order to check how faithful she could be, and because he was jealous. Along with that, there were some stories that my girlfriend told me about her sister's Christian group, and they were quite punk-rock (not as much as what I previously mentioned though). Cheating, pregnancies... but often a lot weirder than your average drama.

It would go unnoticed, but the thing is: Some of these people were the harshest self-righteous human beings whose existence I've ever witnessed. Remember that "holier than thou" stereotype some of us have? Imagine it being scattered by such revelations.

And what could explain that?

First of all, the Christian faith is very individualistic when it says that, whatever you do, can be simply forgiven by regret and/or your faith on God (reason why people call priests when they're dying in order to confess - heaven entrance guaranteed). So, technically, it seems you can be as naughty as you want and, by having faith or saying you're sorry, it's as good as new. As I recall it, we should be thankful either to Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas for that.

Also, according both to Nietzsche¹, Taoism² and several others, extremes tend to behave in similar ways. This is yet another example. Their mind is so set at "avoid sin, avoid sin, avoid sin, avoid sin" that, after repeating "sin" so many times, it seems to add a whole new nature to their actions.

But, above all, it shows they commit mistakes, and this is just one of them. They're human. If one of them comes to you and says "I'm better than you for I believe in God", why argue? This is simply an ego boost, and open-minded religious people wouldn't say that sort of thing anyway.

Loads of people seem to hate religion to death. That would be as pointless as hating guns. Religion is not the problem, but people's mistake, which is quite human. If it weren't for religions, there would be arguments over philosophies (which already exists), football teams (idem) and social classes (ibidem).

Well, this thread seems to have 2 different points then.

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¹"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."