I never like to get too serious, but my best friend is having a child, so it causes me to ponder my mortality.

Growing up in a Catholic environment had pros and cons, but in the end I tend to side with the cons, and here is why:

1. I agree with famed comedian George Carlin that rituals are important, one should have many of them to stay healthy and well, but church should not be one of them. Catholic mass took up about an hour of my Sundays growing up, that is an hour that could have been spent doing much more interesting and enlightening things.

2. One should never force their values or beliefs on another. I feel like this goes without saying, but if one does not want religion in their life, take a fucking hint and don’t try to evangelize them. I would even go as far as to say that it is unethical to force your religion on your kids, you have to feed them, but you don’t have to screw them up for life by imposing your religion on them.

3. Religion causes serious problems in the world, and the United States are acutely responsible for these problems. Christianity in the United States is responsible for so much ignorance that I don’t know where to begin, but denying climate change is a good place to start.

4. It’s 2016, we don’t need religious crusades, which is precisely what is happening right now. We don’t call it that, mainly because Christians would lose their minds thinking that a drone strike on a Muslim isn’t justified. It pains me to even write that, but any student of history could tell you that this election cycle is polarizing on an astounding level.

5. Why? Why create unnecessary conflict, why make it awkward for co-workers of another faith at the water cooler, why believe in some deity that forces you to slave away at a job you hate?

I’m not asking for an end to religion, that would be almost impossible, but I am asking for people to ignore it more often. Human lives end 100% of the time, let’s not allow the afterlife to prevent us from living a real life…