Hello World.  You are (understatement of the year) a controversial place, or more along the lines of: we humans make you a controversial place.  As much as I would love to believe in Thomas Jefferson's overly optimistic Beatles' catch phrase, "all you need is love" future(the foundation of Western 20th century social revolution but that's for another day), the pessimistic realist in me recognizes that world probably won't ever completely lay down every social and political controversy to join hands and sing John Lennon's "Imagine."

Speaking of "Imagine" I would like to speak to you about religion.  Don't worry, I'm not hear to harp, my religious views are my own. 

Religion has been present since the dawn of our evolution and is still heavily present within today's society, specifically Christianity within German and US demographics.  About 60% of contemporary Germany identifies as either Protestant or Catholic compared to 75% of Christian Americans.  The difference of these numbers isn't so important to me as how big they are.  Let me give you a little idea of the sheer size of that number.  It's about 285,011,000 people in Germany and the US ALONE who identify as some sort of Christian.  Why is it that Christianity/religion prevailed for so long.  What makes religion so attractive?  Why did humans suddenly decide they wanted a divine being?

My personal theory is that religion is man's earliest form of government.  It gave people a sense of order, a moral code in which a community could mutually agree upon.  Furthermore, religion also enforced order.  Love thy neighbor, live in eternal bliss or kill thy neighbor, and you are going to get it.  Then as prosperous communities tend to grow and become over populated...things start to break apart with raising fractions and without a strong authority possible anarchy may rise up.  This is where I think religion permanently sank it's roots into human society.  Divine right: to be appointed by all knowing and powerful divine being as an envoy of sort to over see said beings will.  Emperor Constantine of Rome, the first Christian Roman emperor claimed that he ruled with the protection of God.  Eventually divine right would evolve into a leader's absolute authority. Now as history goes on in Europe many more empires will raise and fall, giving way to nation states as the Enlightenment folds out, religion while not as strong still prevails in everyday society.  Take the US motto "In God We Trust," isn't the US supposed to be religiously unaffiliated?   Germany a much more secular country of 30% atheist shopping districts completely shut down on Sundays and the church bells can be heard miles away.  Religion won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Annnd, because I wish I had a little more Jefferson in me.

All You Need is Love, photo montage