Pain, Pokemon, and Thoughts on Religion

One of the drawbacks of the construction at home (which, thankfully, is now done) is that I haven't been getting to sleep in my own bed, so my sciatica is now acting up, and my back keeps going *twinge twinge... TWINGE!* unless I'm careful about how I sit, stand, walk or lay down. I am not a very happy Litha. :-| I am, in fact, a rather flinchy, owwie, occasionally-whimpery Litha.

However, I am also well-distracted, between work on Japanese (I think I'll be starting Kanji soon, at long last) and... Pokemon. *Ducks in case of thrown vegetables* It's all brother anastras's fault. ;-P I suspect it would also be sister taytheer's, but that she was out of town when he got me hooked on it. I never could get into the cartoon, but I have to admit, I'm really digging the video game. "Collecting them all" appeals to my materialistic streak, and some of the little critters are pretty neat-looking. I even have a Kitsune of my own, courtesy of my brother. ^_^

I've been re-reading the Dhammapada, a chapter a day. Like any spiritual or philosophical text, there's a fair bit I agree with, but also some that I don't. For instance, I like the self-discipline of Buddhism. However, it does seem to have that thing that most religions have where it looks down on people who don't follow it. That always strikes me as silly, no matter which religion is doing it. There are billions of people on this earth, and no single religion is going to be able to fit absolutely everyone. Really, for religion, I think they'd all benefit from two rules:

1. There is no such thing as One Right Way. God/Cthulhu/Star Goddess/The Flying Spaghetti Monster/Whatever (allegedly) created a world full of diversity. It therefore stands to reason that there are diverse ways to commune with Him/Her/It.

2. I think it would be beneficial if people generally weren't taught religion until adolecense, when their cognitive development starts to include more complex thinking processes, like abstract thought, etc. At that point, I think they should be taught a little bit about all religions and allowed to make their own choice as to which they study more deeply, if any. This way, we might see fewer fundamentalists of any religion. Also, I think it might cut down on religion being used quite so much as a means of controlling people, as opposed to as a means of personal spiritual development.

Edit: I could really go for a brownie, right about now... :-?