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On Religious IntoleranceNowadays, it is nearly impossible to surf the internet, walk outside the house or even

turn on the television without being bombarded with ads, forceful evangelists andtelevangelists, random people in the street that either yell at you and call you extremist

for not following their faithor simply because you ACTUALLY follow a faith.

In 6 June 1999, I took a decision after seeing a friend of mine being ran over by a car,

and being next to her on what were her last moments. Sara died later in the ambulance

as she was transported to the hospital. We were both 8 years old. She was jewish, and

all her life she had being taught to follow her faith and believe in God, practiced the

Sabbath with her family and such, so when she was laying there in the concrete floor,she told me that she did not feared what would happen, that God has a plan for all of

us. Despite everything, she was calm and serene when she died.

I was an atheist, and one of those which are consideredover gifted by many and as

such, discriminated in this country on which I have taken a forced residence back in

1995, having dedicated my life to purge all emotion from myself and to the pursue of

knowledge.

At my 11th

Birthday, after having being unfairly flunked at my 4th

grade by a teacher

which decided to punish me like that due to an allegedmisbehavior, I decided to

shift my search for knowledge to realize how Mankind had come into being, more

concretely, how History became History, and what moved Men to attain great deeds. A

3 month stay at my grandparents home in Northwest Portugal, burthened with chores

of a strong grown man over at my grandfathers smith workshop, and doing most of the

hard farm labor was enough time to meditate on such matters, having decided that a

great deal of a culture/civilizations essence is basically derivate from its religion. As

such, I saw how my grandmother, which spent most of my childhood attempting at

converting me to Christianity, was deeply catholic (to extreme levels) and was

permanently angry, thinking that she could use me and my 7 year old sister as cheap

labor force, paying us with the stay in a small bedroom and with often spoiled food.

Since then, I have followed several religions: Born an atheist, I was forced into

Christianity, and then, almost as an act of revolt against my familys rules, I became

muslim. Sadly, I was very misinformed, since there wasent much information and I

didnt had any access to the internet. As such, I was ignorant and became extremist, but

at a nonviolent way. Sadly, it was 2001, and after what happened in September, I ended

by getting mercilessly beated until I renounced my faith and became an atheist again,

and to a point, abandoning all of my research until 2007, when a great crisis hit my

family with my parents unemployment, which somehow lead me to wicca, and later to

Norse Paganism, and even Sikhism to a point. Later, in 2011, I reverted back to

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Christianity and got ordained an interfaith minister, having redeveloped a deep interest

in Shia Islam, becoming a scholar of it and adopting most of the practices.

Over all this years, peoples intolerance sickens me.

Yesterday, a friend of mine blocked me over at deviantArt because I became Muslim.Then I find out that his ex-girlfriend, a girl I loved to talk to, blocked me as well.

Religious Intolerance is everywhere because people hate each other. Extremism comes

from hatred and ignorance, and people make their lives miserable because they hold on

keeping themselves ignorant and not think for themselves. Ignorance is bliss they

claim, but in factIgnorance is Darkness and this sort of darkness is not the good type

of Darkness, which is the sort of darkness that eases one to sleep.

Mankind still has much to learn. Tolerance is part of Balance, and Balance is the key to

live a long, and happy life.