"It's the same old theme since 1916, In their heads, in their heads, they're still fighting..." - The Cranberries, Zombie.

Why do people never seem willing to forgive other people? Unwilling to sit back and think, Wait a minute, why are we hating people for something their grandfathers did? Why are people so fucking stupid as to believe that the route to justice involves killing? You'll forgive me if this week's column is rather short, but I'm not feeling that great today.

I don't fully understand the nature of the conflict in Northern Ireland, so I am not qualified to tell you about it. However, I know that most of the people fighting are simply continuing a war that their grandfathers instigated a long time ago. Is it necessary any more? No. Why do they continue to fight? Simple: They like to hurt people. Anyone that believes The IRA or Ulster Freedom Fighters are fighting for some cause, noble or not, is merely deluding themselves. The people are fighting because they like to see other people suffer.

It's the same sort of thing with the Arab/Israeli conflict. The main difference here is that the conflict becan two thousand years or so ago. Other than that, the two cases are almost identical. Why? Because both are fueled by the same force of evil: religion. I'm going to be frank now, and I don't give a rat's hairy arse what anyone reading thinks on this. Religion is the force that divides every human being on the planet. It is pointless and sinister.

Have you ever say down and read through the scriptures of different religions? You should. You can find religious texts from all cultures in your local library. When you read through these tomes, something begins to take shape. I have noticed that most, if not all religions have a VERY similar structure. There's variations in names, places events etc. but they all seem similar. All have a central all-powerful god (yes, even the pan-theistic religions such as ancient greek and roman). Sometimes it's the supreme deity, sometimes it's a man with superhuman abilities, sometimes it's the 'god of gods'. Whatever. They all have the 'Big Boss Man'. This Boss is surrounded by lesser deities (angels, seraphs, whatever). These can be either less powerful gods, a close group of worshippers, demi-gods - They form the 'home-guard'. Now, with every religion, there needs to be the bad guy. After all, without a bad guy, the good guys wouldn't have anything to do, would they. This is the good part.

Read the bad guy bits through and through. The Bad guy (Satan, Lucifer, Loki, Tony Blair) usually starts out as one of the Big Boss Man's home crew. Sometimes they're really close, first created/most powerful/own son, whatever. Anyway, the bad guy is usually gifted with better powers than any of the other members of the home crew. In fact they are so powerful that they could rival the boss himself in that respect. Now, the bad guy usually has the uncanny ability to THINK FOR HIMSELF, and he realises that maybe a life of servitude for all eternity or whatever is NOT what he wants to do, and maybe the boss' plan ain't all that good anyway. So he challenges him. Ultimately, the boss get's his homies to kick the bad guy's arse into next week and he goes and starts his own 'kingdom of evil' (NOTE: In the kingdom of evil, people get to think for themselves, do what they want, and generally have a good time).

Religions branch off a bit here, but some converge again for the grand finale. At some point in the far future, that bad guy will get bored of his 'Kingdom of Evil' and challenge the Boss again, at which point the world will be destroyed and there will be a FUCKING ENORMOUS BATTLE. All the 'good' people (that is, all the people who followed the Boss' orders without question) will fight against all the 'Bad' people (free thinkers, mainly), yada yada yada.

What does this mean? Does it mean that maybe there is some amount of truth in religious texts, as all seem to follow the same theme? Or does it mean that after the original witch-doctors had come up with a way to soften the blow of shuffling off this mortal coil, they went and told people, and people told people, and the whole thing branched off into the biggest pub-story corruption farce of all time? We'll probably never know. But think on this: The Romans had really crap Gods. Like really crap ones. Oh but what about Jupiter and Mars and that lot. No, before them. they had crap gods that nobody's ever heard of. Then they invaded Greece, and found out that their Gods were pretty damned cool. So they robbed them and renamed them. See? That's why Roman and Greek mythology are similar. Because they're blatant copies of each other.

Different Religions are like Bon Jovi songs - they all sound the same, even though they're different, except for a couple of them, but nobody really likes them anyway.

Human Beings PISS ME OFF.

Next week on "When Non-Thinking Idiots Copy Other People's Ideas": Sony Playstation 2

So, back to the opening topic, people killing in the name of religion, and people hating others because of their religion is no different to people hating  others because of the colour of their skin. It will never stop though, because people want to hurt others, and so they'll use whatever excuse they can find. Religion is the easiest excuse.

Anyway, I have to go now and beat up my brother, because he stole a chocolate bar from my Christmas box 13 years ago.

"Can't you see? It's not me, it's not my family In your head, In your head they are fighting With their tanks, and their bambs, and their bombs, and their guns, in your head, in your head they are crying" - The Cranberries, Zombie