Sally Nicholson's thoughts on religion

Sally said - "Turns out most religions could take a leaf out of sikhism's book. A fab assembly today from "a man in a hat" (according to my Year 1's!). "If you want to believe in God, that's great. If you don't want to believe in any God, that's great too!"

As I said only the other week - "If somebody wants to meet up with a few like-minded people in a former warehouse under the guise of calling it a church go ahead, I would be the last person to interfere."  Just don't expect me to be in awe of your splinter group off a subsect of just one denomination of the Church that split off the Catholic Church in the middle ages. 

Religion gives great joy to many people. It also gives comfort and solace to people in some of the darkest moments of their lives. But I always wonder what motivates the "ostentatiously religious" who are prone to waving their arms around during their "church" services in some bizarre attempt to appear more religious that the people around them.

I tend to judge people on the basis of what they do, day by day and week by week. What they do during one hour on a Sunday is just a tiny part of this. Many of the most community minded people that I know have no obvious religious affiliation while two of the most religious appear to do no voluntary sector work whatsoever.

My suspicion is that some of these fringe religious groups are in for a major shock when they reach the proverbial "Pearly Gates".  "But what did you do that was useful to society at large?" is a question likely to leave them floundering!