Dont try to deny or block anything out, face it head on and remedy it.

Religion:

1. Needed (Invented) because:
People's mental relationship with others. People wanted to feel safe and unthreatened
when around others. Consider it for one moment. If you know what a person is like, what their beliefs are, what they think about, and above all, that they believe in the same things that you believe in, then you'd probably feel very comfortable around them. It's at this time in human's evolution of the mind that they were becoming more self-sufficient and
didn't want interference in their lives. Wars and other conflicts were common in years past and people were beginning to see what a disadvantagous life it was.
The human mind hasn't changed so much these days. There's certain people you won't
go around; whether you know them or not; it's because of a perception you have of
them. When you feel uncomfortable around someone, it's your strength of mind
overpowering you're mental accuracy, and an inability to place thoughts where you'd
like takes place.
Strength of mind is no great gift, it occurs in everyone to some degree;
it tends to seem to advance with age. It's the accuracy that counts. And as mental
strength increases more mental accuracy is needed. The word accuracy can seem a vague
statement, I understand that, but you're intelligent and able to understand it's
underlying meaning. Accuracy means simply, are you able to dictate what's going
through you're mind; or is your perception of what's truly going on and in some
instances, what should go on, where it should be. Mental accuracy has a tendency
to fade out under mental strength. People fall to the problem that is the root
of an infinite amount of difficulties and that has plagued the intelligent mind for ages:
missing the true objective by focusing on pointless details. Religion sought to achieve a mental cohesiveness between man and fellow man. It became unnecessarily
complicated over the years as people began to focus on minor differences
between humanity. You could waste your whole life and accomplish nothing. It's when we can all put our paranoia and dissapointment in all of the irrelevant pieces of life, and others' lives for that matter, and develop an honest, mentally strong and mentally accurate cohesiveness with the rest of humanity where we accept the fact that our minds do indeed exist and that they do indeed have the ability to achieve things that have not been achieved before that we will be able to attain the "unattainable". So please, don't focus on things that you yourself know to be a negative on other lives and your own life. It's not fair to others and it's not fair to you. I think it is fair to say
that we would all be better off it we were able to cooperate and work on common
goals that we all know to be important. It would be easy to realize that this is an
enormous task and that there's no sense in trying. But I don't think anyone would be
comfortable in accepting that. We can't all be followers and we can't all be leaders.
There has to be an appropriate compromise. Use your strength of mind to forge
fresh new ideas. Use your accuracy to ensure the integrity of these thoughts and
to see that they are honest free from underlying agendas. Accuracy is vital. As your strength increases, obstacles to your success will appear and you will need your
accuracy to face them head on, accept them for what they are, and move on with
your goals. As you gain more practice in this, your strength will continue to improve
and you will be able to formulate benificial and necessary ideas, so long as your
accuracy is not neglected and you continue your clear outlook on the events of life.
I welcome a response of any kind that is not dictated by emotion. Drop your guard and show me your mind.

what is this in response to?

To TheSvenCoburn, Where are you coming from? where are you going with this?, and What does it have to do with the written works of Ray Bradbury? Developing ones own value/ethic system can evolve over a life time. Mr Bradbury celebrates lifes possibilities, and points out its intricacies
with a keen eye for observing the human condition past present, and future. He has held up a collective mirror to us so we can peer into our own souls at seperate moments
of our lives, at least in mine. Sometimes with a sublime feeling of content agreement, other times for myself with a sense of what are you doing with your nights Mr Bradbury. I am just incredibly pleased that Ray keeps typing away with his muses in the morning,
and I hope they never let him sleep!

[This message has been edited by uncle (edited 05-13-2002).]

Take a look at the depiction of religion in "The Fire Balloons," where form is nothing and content is everything. I feel pretty accurate on this, having just reread the story about an hour ago.