Not only did I get my name written in Arabic calligraphy (gorgeous), I also got hennaed on my right hand. It took my boss 6 hours to finally ask my what was on my hand. I was with Daryl when he got his name calligraphied and it absolutely cracked me up that the calligraphist thought his name was Doud.

I know the point of the interfaith showcase was to promote understanding and respect of all religions. It actually had the opposite effect on me. I realized, as I walked from booth to booth, that there are plenty of religions which I completely respect (Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) and then there are religions that I don't respect (Mormons, Wiccans and people who worship the earth).

I've spent some time thinking about why I don't respect these religions and I think it comes down to the fact that I'm fairly certain that someone made them up. Like when I was at the Wiccan booth, they had pictures of their latest rite. Looking at them, I couldn't help but think that they must have just made it up. I realize that Wicca is older than many other religions, but I'm pretty sure that it was practiced as kind of a loosely held set of beliefs with no written documentation. Now that I think about it, Hinduism is pretty much the same way (so maybe I don't respect it as a religion).

The Mormons made me so sad because they all seem like really good people who believe in a lot of the same things as Christians. But then you get to all that L. Ron Hubbard space stuff and its actually pretty weird. I skimmed through the Book of Mormon a week ago and it reads just like someone wanted to rip off the Old Testament, make it really boring and set it in America. I guess my other problem is that its all terribly modern. And really, when you get down to it, Protestantism is only a couple of hundred years older than Mormonism (but Presbyterians don't get their own universe to rule when they die).