?>

Lent

So yesterday was that Wednesday when all the people of one of those christian denominations decide that they should give up television or pizza because some guy walked around in the desert for a while. For me, lent ranks third on the list of annoying religious practices. Right below the pointless torture and killing of millions of people and racism/discrimination, but just above pretentious spiritual attitude. I think that lent tends to be more of an inconvenience for those who don’t participate in it rather than those who do. I have a friend who once gave up video games so for a month every time I went to his house and said “Want to play video games?” because that was what we normally did he would say “No I can’t, I gave it up for lent, but you can if you want to.” Well great, if I wanted to play video games by myself I could have stayed home. Lent makes communication harder as people give up cell phones and email, things that have become essential to life in the 21st century, right up there with food and breathing. For the next month we will all have to endure these people. It only takes one in a group to put a stop to a fun activity because they gave it up for lent. I’ve never understood the whole concept of lent. So this guy you worship spent some time in the desert, why does that mean that you have to annoy people for a month? How about instead of depriving yourself of something which doesn’t do anyone any good you go out and help people, do community service or something. Community service is about the only plus there is to religion so how about you focus on that a little more than this pointless annoying archaic ritual stuff which I see as really just a less extreme version of what those “pain is the cleanser” people do when they wear belts with spikes on the inside and whip themselves.