Religion is great but it's not for me.

I'm not religious nor am I what you might call 'spiritual'. I would describe myself as agnostic - I believe in something but I have no idea what that might be. I know that I wholeheartedly do not believe in the Gods worshiped by any of the major religions. I'm pro-choice, support gay marriage and know that men and women are equals. I can't say that I only believe in things that can be irrefutably proven because whilst due to all the evidence I obviously accept evolution as being true, I also think that there are aliens out there somewhere and yet I have no hard evidence of this.

It usually surprises people when they find out that I was a deeply religious child. For reasons I'd rather not go into now, my childhood was not a happy one. I don't want to go into it because somethings need to be kept private and once you put something on the internet, it's hard to take it back. Anyway, my parents are not religious at all (although my biological father does come from an Irish Catholic background) but this didn't stop me. When most kids were asking for dolls or teddy bears, I wanted a bible and a statue of Jesus. I'm not joking, I actually asked for and received these items. I insisted on going to Sunday school and rather than being Christened as a baby, I was 6 years old when it happened.

My lack of faith now is attributed to what can only be described as the systematic destruction of my beliefs by the things I experienced in life. It became increasingly evident that if there was indeed a God then he certainly didn't like me very much. Oh, and my education had a hand in it too. As a kid I believed that god made the world, people and animals. At school you learn about the Big Bang, evolution, fossils, other planets and just how incredibly vast the universe is.

There are too many plot holes in religion for me. Like a badly written book (no pun intended) that doesn't make any sense. Why are whole nations starving or sick while others aren't. Why are prayers for a sporting victory answered while prayers for food aren't. I'm not naive enough to think that everything should be some kind of crazy utopia with no heartache or pain but I can't help but wonder why such terrible things are allowed to happen to good people every day. There are also some odds rules. Leviticus bans tattoos, eating various animals and drinking alcohol in holy places. Not too sure how that translates for Catholics when it comes to taking Holy Communion. Jewish men have to be circumcised. Jehovah's Witnesses would rather die than agree to a blood transfusion. Muslim women cover their entire faces. Sikhs can never have a hair cut.

I can only base my beliefs and opinions on the things I have personally experienced. I have found that a lot, and please note I didn't say all, of the religious people I meet to be overbearing and hypocritical and sometimes they have perhaps a little streak of delusion. I feel it's important to stress that I'm not saying this as a way of being insulting. The word overbearing comes from feeling the need to push their religion on others. The word hypocrisy comes from adhering to the parts of the religious text they like whilst considering others to be an interpretation, from not being forgiving and from being prejudiced. The word delusion comes from following with blind faith the writings of other human beings from thousands of years ago in long dead languages.You can choose to believe in whatever you want just as I can choose to believe in something else. Yet this concept is lost on some people. I have never had a Darwinist knock on my door to tell me about the word of evolution. I've never had an atheist tell me they will pray for my soul. I've never had a fellow agnostic credit one of my hard won achievements as being part of God's big plan for me. I've never had a humanist set up a soapbox in the town centre and tell me I'm going to hell.

We're living in an age where the media reports on religions all around the world on a daily basis and sadly people are becoming increasingly prejudiced against religion. We rarely get to read the good news stories and are instead presented with the negatives. We forget that for every suicide bomber, pedophile priest or homophobic protest there are people doing incredible deeds. Religion can be a wonderful source of comfort for people. It can bring a sense of inclusion, safety, security, happiness and love. I don't think people are aware of how important places of worship are to local communities. Sikh temples will offer shelter and food to anyone regardless of faith. Churches are used across the country for countless community events with smaller charities being given the free or low cost usage of halls. Without this help many of them wouldn't be able to carry out their work.

I get quite sad when I hear people being so derogatory about religious people. We complain about being tarred with the same brush and stereotyped if we drive a BMW (road-hog), wear a hoody (thug) or own a pair of gold hoop earrings (chav) but we're all too happy to call all Christians 'bible bashers' or 'god-botherers'. I think a great deal of tolerance is needed from both sides if anyone is ever going to be happy. Nobody deserves to be persecuted because of their beliefs but that includes those of us who choose not to believe in a particular deity. I don't want anyone to pray for me because I don't have god in my life just as the person doing the praying doesn't want me wishing on a star that they change their mind and lose their faith. I don't want to answer the door to find people trying to tell me about god. I don't want to come home and find flyers from the local Scientologists posted through the letterbox.

If you're religious and happy then good for you. I'm not religious and I'm equally as happy. If we're all happy then what's the problem? Live and let live and all that jazz. I won't come to your place of worship or home and try and read On the Origin of Species to you so how about we agree that you won't come to my door to preach.