I'm going to hell.

Ellie Arroway: Why did you do it?
Palmer Joss: Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other 95% of us suffer from some form of mass delusion.
Ellie Arroway: I told the truth up there. And Drumlin told you exactly what you wanted to hear.

(Contact - 1995)

Religion. It's a controversial topic. But a topic none-the-less. At this point in my life, I would have to agree with Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster).

I went to a Methodist Primary School, and went to church most Sundays. Not out of faith, but because my parents wanted me to be able to go to the best High School in my area. I got in, it was a Church of England High School. And even though I was always pretty good at RE (Religous Education) I think it was sometime during the first years of High School when I started to question what I'd been told since I was young.

When confronted with all the options, I just have to agree with what science has told us.

Which takes me to a book I read recently. I'm sure you've either read it our atleast heard of it- Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons'. It's a really good book, and I actually enjoyed it slightly more than I enjoyed The Da Vincie Code. It was strange while reading A&D, at one point I was sat there, I was maybe around haldway through the book, and I thought "Wait a minute, I actually wouldn't mind if the bad guy won, if he managed to blow up The Vatican- I've always had a dislike for Catholasism. It seems like an archaec religion, full of silly traditions and corrupt priests.

While having a dislike for religion, it's funny that the majority of films and books I enjoy have religion as a concurrent under-tone: The Devils Advocate (1997), Dogma (1999), City of Angels (1998),The Da Vinci Code (2003) and His Dark Materials Trilogy (1995-2000). Most of these films and books test the boundaries of religion, they question what we have been told. What we have been forced to beleive.

I don't have anything against people who are religous. Nothing at all. I just think they suffer from some form of mass delusion. I think that people are so terrified of death, that the only way they can live their hum-drum, boring, non-existent lives in piece is by beleiveing in a better place. Somewhere they will go when it's all over. Somewhere they will be free of the shackles of pain and be happy.

In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino) in Scent of a woman (1995): "Charlie, it's all shit."

Over and out.