I am a member of The Church of the None of the Above (TCOTNOTA \t-cŏt-nädä\) congregation, 1. Practicing Omnist.

Religion stills a thinking mind

A chaplain is trained to talk to anybody of any faith, not to become the patient's minister. My own religion doesn't need to enter the conversation. I'm there as a friend; I'm there for the patient.

People who use their religion as a framework to kill people, simply , are not nice people. Yes, that's quite a stand I'm making, but the idea that people are systematically executed because they don't share your God is beyond barbaric. The fact that there are people in our own country who seem to tolerate that, while being intolerant of a Christian's biblical stance regarding gay marriage, makes me want to go to leave the United States and go to a more sensible place, like Texas.

There are more things I refuse to tolerate (pretentious music criticism, clove cigarettes, slow-moving ceiling fans, restaurant hostesses who pretend they own the joint, people who walk and text on a crowded sidewalk, Hostess Snowballs, people who drop subzero in their conversation when they aren't talking about the Arctic winds, people who bring their own bedroom pillows onto flights, pharmacists who yell out your prescription in front of other customers, Time Warner Cable, Sting's chest hair) but I'll get into that later.... I may not do that...though, because I refuse to tolerate lists. They're lazy. And listy.

We are all part of God's flock regardless of race, sex, denomination, or religion.

At this time in history, there is a lot of emphasis on religion and science. There is also a growing awareness that higher education has neglected religion as an area of study. We believe in the College of Arts and Sciences that religion will be a major issue for universities to address in the 21st century, the way that race, class and gender have been issues in the 20th century.