Every time you turn on the television or click on a YouTube video, there’s a political ad from Democrat Mary Landrieu or Republican Bill Cassidy. 

While these political candidates should be focusing on showing people why he or she is the right one for the job, most of their time has been spent telling voters why the opposing candidate should not be elected. 

Watching politicians go neck and neck with each other takes me back to elementary school when I would listen to my classmates tell me about how they would extend recess time if we voted for them and not the other person. 

What I’m saying is that politics has become a childish game.

What do politicians get out of bashing each other’s campaigns? More votes?  

It may bring them more votes, but the fact that they get those votes by slandering the opposing candidate doesn’t exactly make them look any better.

It would be great if politicians would play fair, but that’s just not how the game goes. 

The object of the game is to see which candidate can tear down the other the most while still maintaining a squeaky clean image.

There’s no need for politicians to tell us the voters why we shouldn’t vote for the other candidate. 

The fact that they’re in the final two let’s us know they are obviously qualified for the job, so simply presenting their case and leaving the other candidate out of it would be best. 

When we stand back and watch politicians talk trash about each other’s campaigns, it should make us question who they really are and what kind of person they will be in office. 

We should seriously consider the fact that the very tactics they use to win the election are what they’ll likely use to get their way while in office.

The point to be made is that telling voters why the other candidate isn’t fit for the job doesn’t help improve society. 

The message you’re really sending to voters is: “If you vote for me then I will beat the other candidate and that means I will be senator. 

You will have elected someone you don’t really know, then you can do it all over again in the next election.”

More time is spent trying to get people’s votes than actually making a difference. 

All the time politicians spend exploiting one another could be time spent seeing how they can effectively bring about changes that will benefit society as a whole. 

Rather, they go through the trouble of trying to secure a lousy position.

I understand that being a senator is a very prestigious position and is a huge stepping-stone in the political realm. 

However, when it becomes more about the position and less about what is being done by the person in that position, society is destined for a mess.

Voters want to know that voting for a candidate means they will do any and everything in their power to make sure that what they said they would do actually becomes reality. 

And even if they don’t win the election, walking away knowing they played clean and fair would help them sleep better at night.

At the end of the day, progress is the real issue at hand. 

Going back and forth about why the other candidate’s ideals and beliefs are wrong can only get you so far. 

The real question is what YOU will do when you’re in office?

 No one cares that you’re against the other opponents support for Obamacare or funding education.

 The main concern is what you will do about it.

Meanwhile, I can hardly stand going to YouTube right now. 

How can anyone enjoy their favorite videos when they have to sit through a dreadful 15- to 30-second ad watching two grown people act like children? 

Honestly, reading my biology textbook sounds a lot more enticing than that. 

As we patiently wait for this campaign to come to an end, I sincerely hope that the future of politics will shape up into something that represents more fairness, integrity and clean play. 

Until that happens, I’m going to stick to reading my biology textbook, which I should be doing anyway.

Religion can be spoken about freely, yet we tread softly when publically mentioning it.

But, the hardest idea to grasp is that having the right to spread religious awareness is certainly not the same as pushing beliefs on others. 

While people reserve the right to practice religious freedom and to speak without restraint about any faith they choose, forcing others to listen isn’t freedom of speech; it’s harassment.  

There are over 127 major religions and seven billion people on earth with seven billion different views of God. Some love Him, some fear Him, some question His existence and some are still searching for Him.

Some will decide that God plays no role in the trials and tribulations of life, while others will find faith the moment they see their newborn child take the first breath of being. 

Whether we discover where we spiritually belong in a pew on Sunday morning or on a lonely drive with no destination, the journey to finding or forgetting God is what determines our views. We can’t be told what and who to believe in, or to even believe in anything at all.

What we learn, who we meet and the challenges we face are what we remember when we stand before Him, not the church members that knock on our front doors, or the people that stand in the quad condemning us all to hell.

And if the church goer at your front door changes your perspective, let them. Be baptized in one church, change your mind, and be baptized in another. Let what you learned in biology class make you question evolution and the powers above. 

Learning from life experiences and questioning God’s ways isn’t sin; it’s human. It’s human to change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually when physical surroundings change. It’s human to simply be curious and indecisive.

Faith only exists because there are people that believe strongly enough in it to make it a reality and a way of life. Without doubters and differences, the strength of religion would never have anything to be measured against. 

Because of that, religion without true belief is weak. 

Never practice out of habit, don’t follow just because your parents or friends do, and don’t ever think one religion is superior to another. In a time that seems to have the explanation for everything in a test tube or on a database, people believing in any God at all is a miracle in itself.