For the record, cremate me in wicker basket if I can't be buried in a forest as food for mycellium, birds and bugs.

Today I watched a live stream video of my brother in law's Mum's funeral service in the north of Tasmania. It felt wierd and voyeuristic in a way, but this is the modern age, where even your last moments in a coffin can be televised. I watched out of respect for the family - and she was a good woman. Loving, empathetic, very active for social justice. She had a way of making you feel as if you were really talented just for tying your shoelaces. My brother in law spoke very well of his mother, who died in her mid 80's, peacefully, with her husband beside her.

It's been years and years since I went to a full Catholic church service. It was lovely in it's own way, I guess - something she would have appreciated, and that's what it's all about - honouring the loved one who has passed. I guess it was meaningful to her and her husband, being part of that community.

Yet I'm glad we 'didn't have that religious bollocks' at Dad's funeral, I said to Mum. It felt decidedly more joyful, less sombre. Perhaps insensitive of me, but I'm a little anti God. You can say it's meaningful for people but I still struggle to understand how you could put your faith in the church and not the very soil on which we walk, and will be eventually interred within, or at least have our ashes scattered over it in some way.

This of course has nothing to do with my respect for my bro in law's mother, as if that needs to be said, or their family. Not at all. I'm just off on a tangent, perhaps.

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My massage therapist asked me what I thought of religion the other day. She's like that - an excellent therapist who should not drink coffee before she treats you, and very ADHD. She asks BIG questions. How do you even begin answering a question like that? I replied that it was really Gaza on my mind. How the sheer belief that God had put this land aside just for one set of people had led to woman and children being slaughtered - it beggars belief. Any organised religion whose members believe they are superior to everyone else and will take over the world isn't my cup of tea, to say the least.

I had one Hive member the other day pretty much threaten to nuke Australia for being anti semitic. It was his view that because I disagreed with what the IDF was doing, and didn't believe in what is essentially Israeli government propaganda, I have bad things coming for me for 'moral and legal reasons'. Okaaay. Here it is, fyi.

If you really thought Israel was committing genocide then you should be very worried because we might just nuke you for fun or because we are sick of Aussie anti-semitism. Australia can be destroyed with just 7 nukes. It has no defences against nuclear missiles.

This is the odd thing about religion. It's generally just men interpreting it for their own end, twisting it to suit their own ideas of the world. It's almost always discriminatory, dehumanising the other so that wars can be fought in the name of fulfilling God's prophecies.

Israel is going to dominate the world of the future while those that oppose Israel are going to collapse. This is locked in and almost impossible to change. This is the Biblical Prophecy of Bilam (Balaam) (an archeologically confirmed historic figure). Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed and whoever curses Israel will be cursed.

Oof.

^{Gif image created on Midjourney to my prompt - here}

When I was younger I used to believe God was essentially love, and that was the real basis for religion. Anyone acting outside of love wasn't really following the law of the bible, or whatever religious tract they followed so zealousy. Now I just believe it's an excuse to go to war, and if you can't go to war, you use it to justify whatever other hypocritical bullshit you're doing 'in the name of'. Any decent, intelligent, discerning person would feel very uncomfortable with how religion can be used to discriminate, oppress, belittle, threaten and abuse.

Maybe I do need to be more polite about other people's beliefs in God. I'm not anti people's right to believe, that's for sure, and I'm certainly not anti semitic unless the semite is killing babies, and that's absolutely not all of them. I'm not anti Christian or anti Catholic unless they're anti human rights or touching up choir boys. I'm not anti religion unless the person believing thinks they have a greater right to freedom of expression, of love, of land, of bread, than anyone else.

Perhaps, so long as they're not threatening to nuke people.

But I sure as hell won't have that bollocks at my funeral.