Religion

My official stance on religion is that I am an atheist. I do not believe in God or any type of 'higher being' who may have created the universe, or who has any sort of purpose for us. I believe that there is no purpose to life; we must create our own purpose. This is called 'existentialism.' There is no life after death, and contrary to popular belief, religion is freaking dangerous! It concerns me that people think it's okay to be religious. I know this will offend people, but why is it so offensive to criticize someone's religious beliefs, but not their political beliefs, or other kinds of beliefs?

I grew up an atheist; neither of my parents attends church, reads the Bible, or does any sort of religious stuff. I always took the non-existence of God for granted. In grade 9, everyone in the Challenge program took Philosophy, where I learned the word 'agnostic.' I decided to be agnostic for a while, then realized that I was kidding myself. There is no God.

This year (grade 12), I have started realizing that there aren't a lot of things I believe with more certainty than the fact that God doesn't exist, and that (organized) religion is pretty ridiculous. Just knowing this isn't really enough though; I wanted to have arguments for my position. So I've started reading atheist arguments. So far I have read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and The End of Faith by Sam Harris (if you only have time for one, I like The God Delusion a lot better). These books have further proved to me that my stance is correct, though admittedly I am just reading affirmative literature. Next up: some anal religious text!

My unofficial stance is that I am a Pastafarian, which means that I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). Followers of the FSM believe that the world was created by the FSM. The FSM first created a mountain, trees, and a midget. Short people are those who have been touched the most often by his Noodly Appendage. In our heaven, there is a stripper factory and a beer volcano. Every Friday is a holiday. Pastafarians believe that global warming is caused by the lack of pirates (there is a direct correlation between the rise of global warming and the number of pirates!), so the official garb is full pirate regalia.
See: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Some excellent observations on religion:
Ten Foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins - Tim Minchin
Sports, Ads about God, Homosexuality - Wil Anderson from 1:18
Wil Anderson @ Melbourne Comedy Gala 2007 from 2:08