How Religion Works in My Eyes

(Written at age 13)

In this blog I will be discussing an example of how I think religion works. So get ready for a big load of information :)

Religion is like a community of people who make and consume pairs of glasses. There are a few major producers (I'll be referring to producers of glasses just as producers, same for consumers) each have their production plants which constantly produce more and more glasses. These glasses are then distributed out to the community.

Unfortunately, every producer has a different way of making glasses, and a different price (The better ones seem to cost more). Therefore people who have one brand of glasses see things one way and people who have another brand can see things completely differently. Since everyone in the religious community wears glasses this has led to rather vicious disputes over which glasses offer proper vision. Almost everyone who has been in the community for a little while is sure that their brand of glasses offers the right vision; now this is a problem.

This has led to people running around trying to convert people to their favorite brand. Most people don't want to change their brand, thinking that they will lose their vision of things. This makes the people who are trying to convert each other rather angry, therefore they often resort to smashing each other's glasses in big punch up fights to convert each other. This is generally how things go, wars are started over what glasses people wear. Most who engage in the fighting, state that they are only doing it because they want to save the enemy from going to hell; but fighting usually pushes everyone further away from each other.

This behaviour does not provide a good example nor experience to people who are new to the religious community. All of the sudden they're getting smacked up and thrown in a war just because they're not wearing correct glasses in someone else's opinion. Some leave because of this, and others are convinced that their glasses are not offering proper vision and then put on a new brand. Sometimes this is good, and other times it leads to them falling off a cliff in Studyland.

This brings us to Studyland. Studyland is a place where great and marvellous treasures have been found; plans for new glasses, jewels of untold riches, treasure chests bursting with gold and much more. But, like any place filled with treasures, it is filled with pitfalls and traps of all kinds. Thankfully all traps are rather obvious, but the kind of glasses someone wears can make all the difference. One brand of glasses can hide some traps, make some traps even more obvious or even make some up that aren't really there. An inexperienced (or even experienced) ranger of Studyland with the wrong pair of glasses can easily make a wrong turn and be caught in a trap. Some never come out of these traps, but some do, often requiring the help of fellow rangers. Most times, the reason people don't come out of the traps in Studyland is because they don't think they're in a trap; so when their fellow rangers try to help them, they just tell them to go away.

Some people are called veteran rangers, these are people who have spent much time exploring the various parts of Studyland. But due to the constant dangers that Studyland has to throw at you if you don't have the right glasses, a number of these veterans have been severly wounded while exploring Studyland. Many times, their brand of glasses hides their wounds from them and they go on telling people to go down a certain path in Studyland, not remembering that that path leads to a big trap.

Because of this danger, most people don't venture into Studyland to find treasures for themselves. They usually listen to what other people say about their adventures into Studyland and take of the treasures handed out by some of the rangers.

This provides more market for the selling of glasses to the consumers, as there's more people just sitting around not discovering things for themselves. The producers hire (some are so willing they don't even need hiring) product evangelists (this term is used outside of religion, for example, there are Adobe Product Evangelists) to sell glasses to people and convert them to their particular brand. Some evangelists sell more glasses than others and this leads to some stiff competition among evangelists, even in the same production plant. Many of them compare themselves with the others, handing out graphs to each other attempting to prove that they sold the most glasses.

And then there are the people who don't get as much attention as product evangelists, but are still important in the selling of glasses for their respective brand. These people are the Customer Care Officers otherwise known as CCOs. Their main job is take care of people who have purchased their brand of glasses, make sure their glasses are working, provide help and tips for them and generally keep them happy. They also do a bit of converting work for their respective producer, but on a smaller scale.

Among these staff working for the producers, there is corruption involved. Some actually use another brand of glasses but have made it look as if they're wearing the glasses from the brand they're working for. The reason some do this is because you get different amounts of respect for wearing and using different pairs of glasses, as with your pay. Therefore they are sacrificing integrity for an attempt at having the best of both worlds.

Now let's shift gear and go down to some of the more minor producers. The minor producers usually take the design of a major producer, tweak it a little (or greatly) and then distribute it out to the public. Minor producers don't usually have product evangelists, therefore their reach is shortened, and their CCOs take up that role. Some of these minor producers actually try to combine two different designs into one pair of glasses. Sometimes it slightly works, resulting in a crooked pair of glasses, but most often this approach results in that particular minor producer handing out a pile of broken glass to their consumers. Now what do you think sticking broken glass in your eyes would do for your exploring in Studyland?

And now going a gear down further, there are people who simply do not follow any producer. They take a glass design and attempt to tweak it (lightly or greatly) or take two designs and make a pile of smashed glass in pretty much the same way the minor producers do. Except since it's just one person they don't usually get many people using their pair of glasses, unless of course they start up a minor production plant.

Now, since there are many different brands and pairs of glasses all over the community there is many ways of seeing things in Studyland, or pretty much anything for that matter. As mentioned before, this starts wars and production plants for glasses also start to produce bombs to send to the other plants. People might be walking along and suddenly a bombing attack unfolds around them. A number of people have been taken down by these attacks, or have been caused to leave the community altogether. Soldiers, rangers alike come to battle with each other with treasures from Studyland, glasses, bombs whatever they have. Rangers with a name ending with PhD are brought in to obliterate the opposition. Sometimes, it all seems like chaos; and of course we're all doing it lovingly, we're just trying to save the enemy by sticking a bomb down their throat, that's all. :P

And, at the root of it all is the fact that people want everyone else to wear their favorite glasses.

The point is, glasses affect the way people see. In Studyland someone may yell out, "Look I see a treasure!" and then someone goes "Don't be stupid, there's nothing there.", or someone may yell out "Look out there's a trap ahead!" and then another goes "What? There's a road of gold ahead! Come on, let's see what's at the other end!"
There are many ways of viewing everything.

Here's a compressed summary of all the images in this blog: