#28 30 Day Writing Challenge- A Place I'd like to Visit/Move To

I have recently established an obsession with all of the Scandinavian countries, which are Denmark, Norway, Sweden and also Finland. Sometimes Iceland is considered Scandinavian.

I really love how these countries are all run. They all have something really good going for them, whether it is their education system, jail system and religion. The values in these countries are very close to my own.

Take a look at this blog to learn a little more.

But these countries are really nice, in my opinion. I want to travel to them, at least. If I had to move to another country other than Canada or the United States, I would pick one of those countries. The reason why I'd choose the US over them is just because their culture is closer to Canada's, and I already know the language. I'd have to learn another language to move to one of those countries.

Here are a few links to some amazing pictures/videos of these places:
- Sweden
- Norway
- Denmark
- Finland

Anyways. These are some amazing places.

In addition to the Scandinavian countries, I would really like to travel all around Canada and the US. Even though I did state earlier that they are similar, there are some differences.
In Canada I really want to visit
-Newfoundland
-Alberta
-British Columbia
-Yukon
In the US I want to go to:
-Pennsylvania
-New York
-California
-Florida
-Idaho.

A few other countries I want to visit are:
- Greece
- Spain
- Italy
- The entire UK
- Germany
- Pretty much all around the Mediterranean

The difference between theism and religion

Theism is the belief in a god/gods.

Religion is a collection of beliefs, understandings, and thoughts about the universe, and usually has a belief in god or gods.

You cannot prove theism, yet. There is no solid proof that a god or gods exist.

But religion, can be proved. Religion has existed. There have been thousands of religions, meaning groups that practice their collective beliefs.

Just because religion is true, doesn't make theism true. But, that is not what I am talking about in this blog post.

I do not generally like religion. I dislike the modern church. I believe scriptures, bibles, etc., to be fictional stories created a long time ago. Religion has been deeply flawed, historically.  When catholics from Europe came over to Canada during the great migration, and even before then when the UK (Britain) was trying to populate Canada with Catholics, to convince the people the be Catholic. Tjhey were hesitant to leave their native beliefs, but they eventually switched. Why? I believe the main reason to be that the natives and the europeans wanted to trade, and the europeans wouldn't trade with them unless they joined their religion. They send missionaries, built churches, and people slowly converted, so they could trade their furs with the european's silver goods, like needles and knives.

My point here is that the religion just came over and took over. This was one of the more peaceful missions.

Many missions ended in violence, because other areas of the world weren't as tolerant to new religions coming and telling them what to believe, and the new religions coming were insistent on them converting.

All of the blood shed, and immoral behaviour provided throughout history, by assorted religions, leads me to dislike religion.

I'm not hating on a specific religion. All religions are historically flawed.

I would say now, these churches aren't violent, like they used to be. There still are some violent churches, practices and religions. But arguably, less.

I still refuse to commit to a religion.

Now, theism. You do not have to be religious to believe in a god or gods. Religions tend to give out a guideline about what their god is like, omnipresent, omniscient, etc., which makes it easy for the theist to believe, if something seems more realistic.

Believing is weird to me. Like you believe a certain religion's interpretation of who god is, what he is like, what he looks like, etc.

I was just trying to imagine if I believed in god, what he would be like.

This is how religions have split throughout time, I guess. Thinking about what god is actually like, or more specifically, Jesus.

But theism itself, is not really a religion. It is a belief. One can be a theist, and not be religious.

I suppose one could be atheist and have a religion too. For example, lets say an atheist begins attending an anglican church. Sure, the anglican churches' belief is in god, but perhaps this person just enjoys going to church, reading the scriptures, educating them self about the moral aspects of the religion, and not the theistic. This person would then be religious, but atheistic.

But I am not a theist. I am an agnostic atheist. Essentially I am really just an atheistic skeptic. I am almost resolutely atheist. But there is always that little bit of doubt in there, because as I said previously, there is technically no proof there is, or isn't a god. So that's why it's "agnostic atheist".

My point here is just that religion and theism are two different things. Quite often they go hand-in-hand. But not always. I just felt this needed to be distinguished. I've never read anything before about a distinguishment, and I just kind of realized it a few weeks ago, that the two are completely different things.

Just as a final point, I really don't know much about religions, individually. I find them interesting. But generally, when I research and look at religion, I look at it with sociological, historical philosophical and psychological eyes, not really religious eyes, therefore I don't really know much about the actual rituals by religions, I just know more about their philosophies, past histories, effects on society and the individual. Even that I know very slim on.