Religion needs its followers to be trusting to the point of naiveté. When things don't make sense, religion soothes the furrowed brow of the believer with such clichés as, "don't worry about that, it's not pertinent to your salvation." When others are stubbornly refusing to be evangelized, religion offers pat explanations such as "someone in the church must have hurt you in the past for you to hate God so." When a busload of innocent children is killed by a drunk driver, religion offers as solace "God needed them more than we did."

The truth would be dangerous to religion's continuing grip on humanity. Could religion continue if people thought "perhaps religion doesn't make sense because it is illogical, antiquated and made up by humans?" How could churches prosper if they admitted that people don't attend church because they studied the Bible and found only ancient history, inconsistencies and errors? And what good is religion to those who lose children if people accept that children die because life is random?

Scriptures, ancient writings by ancient men, have become clichés in our modern world. Rather than educate themselves in the classic skill of logic, rather than wrestling to understand physical reasons for things that happen, many people prefer to rest in the religious land of "God said it." And in that land, religious people believe things that don't make sense. The Christian writer Paul forbade women to speak in church. Fundamentalist groups have enforced that rule on women for hundreds of years since. Does it matter that Paul probably was writing to a specific group of people about a specific problem in their group? No, the cliché has been carried forward, generation to generation, whether or not it makes logical sense.

Religions generally teach that homosexuality is bad. Do they do so after engaging in logical debate and research? No, they accept the ancient clichés handed down to them by previous generations. In our country, religions are granted the protection of government, and if they want to believe that "God" is against something, that's their right. But religion is not content to believe "God said it." Powerful religious leaders strive to legitimize their platitude with created arguments such as "homosexuals target children," "the radical homosexual agenda is to destroy marriage," "what's at stake is the forced normalization of homosexuality," and "words like diversity and unity are covers to push homosexual rights."

If religion truly allowed itself to examine the history and reality of homosexuality, in an unprejudiced and logical manner, the only argument left would be that "God doesn't like it." Homosexuality has always existed in humans. Homosexuality exists in the animal world, though fundamentalists have been known to say it does not. Heterosexual parents may have homosexual children; homosexual parents may have heterosexual children. People who abuse children are called pedophiles, and there are heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles. We allow consenting adults to engage in whatever sexual behavior suits their fancy, in the privacy of their own homes. If sodomy is okay for heterosexual couples, where's the logic in saying it's wrong for homosexual couples? Married couples divorce at the rate of almost 50% today. Logically, it would be only fair to allow homosexual couples to experience the same "sanctity" of marriage!

Challenge your religion! Don't be at the mercy of illogical preachers and ancient, unproven clichés.