Religion

I can't say I know exactly how to approach this one, but I do know what I want to say, hopefully I can say it the best way possible.
I started thinking about this a few weeks ago, after someone said to me that they aren't "religious." It sparked a series of thoughts about what it means to be religious. What is religion. What damage may have been done to those who consider themselves non-religious, by those who practice the various world religions.
Now for those who are picky about grammar, I chose not to use the question marks because I don't want any answers to those questions here but wanted to demonstrate some of my specific questioning thoughts.
I think that's enough of a lead in so jump time!

Smoke & Fire

I had the thought to write this one on Friday or Saturday but then I ended up working from Friday afternoon till this morning so I didn't get a chance. I might be a little too tired to write and have everything make sense, but I'm going to give it a go before I forget, or get swept up in the next week and the topic becomes irrelevant.
But, before I continue, a little music.

Blessed

It's been a few days of thinking on this and figured it was time to get my thoughts in order.
I had a question about what it means to be "blessed" so I looked it up in the dictionary. The first definition that was given surprised me in a pretty dramatic fashion.
The dictionary said that it means to be Consecrated but I'll get into it more after the jump.

ID

Newsflash: I'm a sports fan.

Ok, that's not news, unless you don't know anything about me.

A few days ago, last Thursday to be exact, a little thing called the NFL started the regular season. My favorite team played for the first time this season last night. Not a great game, but that's not completely relevant.

Yesterday, when I woke up I decided to go to the gym to workout. Well, it was also game day so I wanted to rep my team all day. So I put on a t-shirt and went to the gym.

After getting back and getting cleaned up I put on the jersey that I planned to wear the rest of the day. Like all other jersey's it had a players name on the back, was the colors of the team, and had the teams logo on the jersey as well.

All things that clearly displayed that I was identifying myself with that team. But it got me thinking about that topic, identification.

I'll get into it some more after the jump :)