Just sometimes.

Swedish has the same word for pray and beg. In a way that explains a lot of the relationship between the Swedes and our church. It wasn't until the 1860s that Swedish citizens had the freedom of religion. (I won't go into detail about who could join what and where they could practice their faith) And almost a 100 years later in 1951, they got the legal choice to exit the church. Still a majority is a member of the Swedish church, even though it doesn't have that much to do with religion. My reason for staying in it is that hopefully at least some of the taxes I pay to it will go to preserving the church records of population, you know, from way back when.

It's also an example of how faith has more to do with politics than personal beliefs. The public dictates what the Bible means. In order for the parish to remain inact the church must accommodate it, or they won't go. This is the part that changed with freedom of religion. It's the freedom to go with what you personally think, it has absolutley nothing to do with any god or religion. You disagree with the priest, no biggie, keep on looking until you find someone that does agree. In this, yes, I'm saying it, religion isn't constant! There's no pure essence in it, there's no right and wrong. As long as people are set to dictate the words of god the issues of man will be more prominent than the divine.

We can beg for forgiveness, we can torture our bodies and souls in the name of God. We can plea for mercy, dwell in doubt and remorse, but it doesn't really matter, there's always a place in time where some church would accept your shortcomings as being the action of God itself, but if you have bad luck the same will codemn you to burn in hell for all eternity. It's all about timing and location.

Let's do the simple example of homosexuality. Certain churches bring it to be a deadly sin, it's unforgivable. (Well, last time I checked it wasn't part of the capital vices...but what I think doesn't matter, just had to put that in there for some reason.) And then, there are other places and times where it's fine. I wouldn't say that all Swedes are perfectly ok with homosexuality, but it is in fact legal for them to get married in church here, and we do have a gender neutral marrige law.

People make religion, not God. It's simply a yardstick we use for morals. Does it mean that atheists have no morals? Of course not. Morals predate religion. The 10 commandments weren't taken out of the blue, they already existed when they became part of a belief system. And now there are so many different ways to dictate what God means, what God says, what God intended.

Just the simple fact that we have different paths as to what to believe, when it comes to Christiany we have how many branches or churches? Which one is right? If any.

I won't make it even more complicated by bringing in all the people who lived long before Christanity. I don't want to be such an ageist.

But just sometimes I'd really like to believe that there's a higher purpose of this life than life itself. That there is an utter truth, and that I've been wrong this whole time. Instead I'm bound to be my own goddess with an equal chance of begging and pleasing.