Hey there, can I talk to you about God?

     You're walking down the high street, and a friendly, elderly gentleman plods up to you and asks you if he can speak to you about his religion. This is a fairly non-offensive act, but what it represents is far from it.

He will talk to you about his god, about his holy book and about how you should believe in them to "save" your soul from eternal damnation.

Starting to sound a little more sinister, talking of perishing in a never ending hell fire, weather in a literal, or metaphoric sense. But we are still not to the nub of my irritation and the horrible undertones that it carries.

He will ramble on, reading passages and personal tales, trying to convince you to change what you believe. And there it is. Like a giant, flashing buzzer going off above his head. He wants you to take everything you know, throw it out and replace it with his version, without a moments thought.

No. No no no no no no, a thousand times, no. Give up free thinking, give up rational thought, give up your brain and become slaves to a dogmatic fairytale book without a question. No. I don't claim to be all knowing, and I have my condescending moments in debates, but I do not actively seek out religious people to badger them into changing what they believe. If they come up to me, i will present a very strong, concise argument as to why they are wrong, but I wouldn't walk into a church and start reading him physics books to show him now Noah's ark is a load of tosh.

So why do people find it acceptable when it happens the other way round? If I walked down the street giving out swastika's, i would get abuse. But someone gives out crosses and its no big deal, endearing even. Despite the fact that the bible is full of as much hatred, racism, homophobia, sexism, murder, rape and the like as the Nazi party is despised for.

If I were to walk around preaching about anarchy, people would frown upon it, but preach about hell, and everything is fine.

I do not like people pushing religion onto me. I imagine most are the same. If people want to believe in something, fine, but don't go around pushing it on people. If they wanted to believe in it, they would seek it out. Especially when what you are pushing is inconsistent fairy tales, spun out over thousands of years and believed as hard facts. If people were preaching say, particle physics in the street, at least they would be getting some education out of it. Instead, they preach on about "Gods word", about how he will save you from a place you cant see, if you declare your love for him, who you cant see, and rescue your soul, which you cant see. Wow, really winning me over there.

Ahh, people will say, but religion isn't about thinking, its about belief. Yes, your right there. There is no place in religion for rational thought, because you could uncover massive holes in it, which a sane person would see as a flaw. Christians brush this off as "the mysteries of Gods work". No, its not a mystery, its just bollocks.

They are directly asking you to not think, not to question, not to query. I cannot do that, and despise anyone who wants me to adopt this backwards idea. How can you not think? How can you believe in something, without a shred of proof? I once put this to a preacher and he told me, ironically, that they want all their Christians to think about what they are reading. The laughable point of that is, if Christians thought about it, there wouldn't be any Christians.

"If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people" - House