it's always been the long lived debate - science vs. religion but i think that the power of the mind arguement holds a little bit better than the science one. i am a non-practising catholic, i don't very much like the catholic religion, who its come to where it is today and i disagree with alot of its views on issues in today's society. my boyfriend is christian, he goes to church nearly every weekend and sometimes i go with him. he's not all up with the christian way of life and disagrees with things just as i do. i go to his church because its fun (its pentecostal, definately not boring) but i don't believe in everything the pastor says. he says a lot of good common sense things but i don't take them in as everyone else there does. he talks about religion and god, and miracles of faith and redemption through faith. i don't believe in that - i am a firm believer of the power of the mind.

i read this book once, it was called "being happy" by andrew matthews. it was all about positive thinking and the power of the mind to make negative situations/thoughts positive. now, no matter how long i had believed that there was a god and that he loved us people, all the praying i did never helped me one bit. some people say that god helps those who help themselves, well that didn't work for me either. i was never in any kind of trouble, i just wanted to be a bit more fortunate off but obviously that was just a little too hard for this god that everyone believes in. my belief in god was also dampened when all the sex abuse cases came out with the  catholic priests - i thought "how could this god let these people who represent him do this to those poor little children?" i just couldn't understand it. i know that people make their own choices but i thought better of those people than to do that. maybe some dickhead down the street might do it, but definately not priests - it was just wrong. when pope john paul the whatever died i found an article about him on smh.com - i don't know if i still have it but it was about him, the pope that let millions live in anguish while everyone thought he was the best pope ever. it told about how he banned condoms in africa, where they have an aids crisis and need them. it told about the millions of gays out there that were told that the love they felt was wrong. no matter what you tell anyone, you can't make them believe that the love they feel for someone else is wrong. maybe i disagree with that most strongly because i am bisexual but i think alot of straight non-homophobic people will agree with me.

this book knew what it was talking about. the things in it worked. it was all about positive thinking - "most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be" abraham lincoln. it really was an awesome book. it detailed how to think happy. it said that if you were certain something was going to happen this way, then it would, which is why depressed people are so depressed - they think "well life can't get any better" so it doesn't. the back of the book says "this book is about - why you spill spaghetti only down your best suit, why some people seem to just be in the right place at the right time (and how you can be one of them), why bills always come at once, why traffic lights stay red for half a day when you're late, why you accidentally meet your neighbour when you're on vacation, why you can drive an old wreck for fifteen years and never get a scratch on it then buy a new car and crash it in three days". this book really does work. if you think negative, then you are negative - hence thinking positive makes you a positive person and means that positive things can happen for you. this motive worked more for me than any god ever did and i swear by it.

now at my boyfriend's church they talk about this kind of stuff - being happy and releasing your fear (which of course is caused by the devil in this case) but they relate it back to religion. the pastor said last night that your mind can be your worst enemy because it lets you defy god - well your mind can be your worst enemy because you let it be. at their church there is a lady who is very sick, she is in hospital and apparently she was meant to have been dead by now, she's that sick. well obviously she's still alive, and they credit that to god and his performing a miracle because she believes deeply in him. i think that this situation is exactly the same as the power of the mind. she is still alive because she made the choice that she didn't want to die yet. maybe her god helped her because she honestly thought he would - but isn't that the same as the power of the mind. she believed in it so it happened. maybe these people believe so much in god because their mind makes them. they honestly think that he's there so he is - maybe this god doesn't exist at all. he just does to them because they think he does. its the same as if i wake up and say today is going to be a shit day then generally it is.

so its not science vs. religion anymore - its the power of faith vs. the power of the mind