Interesting

While not writing this morning (jeebus, Martha Stewart is annoying; but Superwife enjoys her show) -- while, instead, reading some awesome skeptical science blogs -- I had an interesting though that's occurred to me before, but never so clearly. Many of my characters, at least when I bother to make this particular trait manifest, are religious.

I find this somewhat worthy of comment, because I am not. Not in the least. Religion is a societal cancer, a retardation on progress, intelligence, peace, and decency. To put it simply, religion does nothing but make people prickly and stupid.

Faith, on the other hand...

Hmm. Faith is different, at least to me. A person can believe in "god" without feeling the need to worship, which is where the trouble starts. You can believe there's an order to the univese without the need to call it "science" and teach it to children. In other words, keep it to yourself.

Also, faith can be an interesting personality attribute, as far as protagonists go, because it speaks of earnestness, with a dash of innocence and loyalty -- traits, as it happens, that seem to afflict my characters one and all.

Obviously not all my characters feel that way. That would be boring and repetetive; and it's hard enough differentiating them sometimes without intentionally making my hobby more difficult than it already is. Some of them have been quite vociferously atheistic, in fact. None, however, are religious; nor are they likely to be.