2009-12-20 Update: I now believe Jesus Christ is my personal savior, but what I’ve written below still has merit.
… or I’ll cross you right back! Not really, but that’s the best title I can think of for this photo. It’s a church at sunrise, with the ever-wonderful cross towering above.
I edited this in Adobe Camera Raw 4.0 exclusively. Here are the settings I used:
I thought about going for cool, bluish tones in the sky, but the golden yellows work better. As you can see, I added contrast and blackness too, to make sure the cross and building really is a silhouette.
I don’t subscribe to Christianity myself, but I see it as a largely good force in this world. People are (ideally) more generous, forgiving, and loving because of the Bible. 80% of people are like that. The other 20% use religion as an oppressive weapon. If they’re high up in the church, they stomp on other people and shun their non church-going friends. They don’t help those in need at all, yet continue asking for donations to line their pockets.
Every field has people like this. Christianity is supposed to be better, because it aspires to higher, Jesus-like perfection, but it isn’t because not everyone will reach Jesus-like levels. In theory, it could happen in this life, but in reality it won’t. It can only happen in an afterlife of some sort, where the bad ones are relegated to Hell or eternal death.
I don’t like Christianity when it brings people down. This isn’t entirely the religion’s fault; these people aren’t willing to go far on their own. But they leave important parts of their life up to the “decision” of God rather than taking …
