I've heard people often say "Don't ever talk about Politics or Religion". Why are these subjects so taboo? These are two of my favorite subjects. If we can't talk about Politics or religion, then what shall we talk about? How's the weather, or what's playing at the movies this week? I like your new haircut, or what did you have for dinner last night? Who cares, these topics are empty and meaningless to me. Isn't politics and religion something we should be talking about?

This subject first came to mind during the last election when I walked into a classroom and found pieces of papers with a list of candidates to vote for. Really? This means someone, probably many, were going to cast their vote, yet they didn't know enough about the candidates to vote from their own knowledge and research. Someone had to make this list to tell them who they should vote for. What a tragedy. It would be nice to educate people just merely on political topics and the politicians stance on each topic without a biased slant.

How many people who are "religious" actually know the history of their particular religion? I recently visited a Southern Baptist Church here in the local area because my seven year old was asking about being baptisted. I thought to myself what religion would be better at baptizing than Baptist? When we arrived, I looked around the church as the staunch white faces glared back at me and quickly realized that my son was the only brown skinned person in the crowd. Because I'm not easily intimidated, I stayed through the service in hopes to accomplish what I came there for. On the drive home, I thought to myself, what's the difference between Baptist and Southern Baptists? I wanted to find out. When I researched more about the "Southern" Baptist, I found they had split from the "Northern" Baptist because they had wanted to continue slavery, segregation and Jim Crow Laws. Also, they did not, and still do not favor women in leadership positions within the church. I also found out, the Southern Baptist just elected their first Black President in June of 2012. I suppose they were somehow attempting to make amends for their past history of prejudice. A couple weeks after attending the church we received a letter in the mail. In order for my 7 year old son to be baptisted, he had to attend a class, take a test and be video taped. I wonder if the early Christians had to do all this? I don't think so, and I don't think I'm interested in moving forward with this, at least not at this particular church.

Whenever someone tells me they don't talk about Politics or Religion, what they are really telling me is that they are so narrow minded, they don't have room for my views too. We as adults should be able dialogue and exchange ideas with out getting mad, calling names or getting our feelings hurt. No one has the corner on truth. It's ok to disagree. What's the big deal? We're all different, there's not even 2 snowflakes that are the same. Think about how more complex we as humans are.