”Atle has been thinking seriously about religious belief”

for a looong time. Now, at last, in the wake of much pondering, he has eventually (?) arrived at a decision: As religion/religious belief by definition is about BELIEVING (and nobody can defy that point of view – religious belief and religious certainty are opposites), either you can choose to believe or you can choose not to believe. The third option is not to care at all. But with all the Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, you name them, believers, it is not easy to be indifferent to all this religious energy emanating from hundreds of millions of dedicated people.

The second option is NOT to believe. The problem with this option is that you express you KNOW religious belief is some kind of ….. bullshit (sorry – not very nice but I find no better word).

That is why Atle has decided to believe. To believe is really no big thing. Everyone can believe whatever they want. You know that the sun will rise every morning, but you are free to believe that one morning it will stop in the 9 o’clock position and stay there forever. In short that is the difference between knowing and believing. And the good thing about believing is that YOU CAN NEVER KNOW!

That is why Atle now embraces religion. Not only one, but ALL religions, the ones he knows, and the ones he does not know. Pretty tolerant, isn’t it?

Atle has no problems about doing so. But what he does not understand is all this religous certainty. The believers, either they are Muslims, Christians, Hindus, are kind of ravaging (sorry about this word, but I once again find no better word) each others’ religions – they are even killing in the name of their religions.

If it is possible to upload photos now, this photo shows Atle ready to check out what is ”up there”.