Why I do not like religion...

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I was curious about Unitarians too. At the least i may meet some interesting people there.

Muslims that follow Shria law and ones that don't are a good example of this.

Thats the thing that nags at me, is that i know lots of christians and muslims who are nice and not bigoted, but i cant help shake the though that it is in spite of their religion and not because of it. though i also believe there is truth in both those faiths (how much i dont know)

If you're a good person, you'll be a good person with or without religion. If you're a bad person, you'll be a bad person with or without religion.

Some can learn to act like a good person because their faith tells them to, but at the core they still aren't good people. This will end up showing in their personal life. Usually through their family.

I agree - this is why I dislike the idea of religion as a moral institution. One shouldn't need the threat of death/torture/plague/re-incarnation as a leech to be moral. If you're a good person - you'll find those aspects in religion that confirm that - like the Golden Rule - but had all those religious teaching been erased from your mind, you'd still probably follow a similar moral code. If you're an immoral person, you'll probably find those "smite thy enemies" aspects of religion much more appealing.

Exactly, Celoneth.

Morality isn't based in religion. It's inherent in all of us.

Religion is a tool. You can use it for whatever you want.

If you want to use it to teach people to do/be good you can use for that and it will work very well.


If you want to use religion to build an army of fanatical maniacs who will commit heinous crimes for you, you will probably find that it is pretty good for that too.

You can use it to give people hope and strength in seemingly hopeless situations

You can use it to get rich by hoodwinking the faithful (suckers).

You can use it to obtain and maintain power.

You can use it to act with impunity and carry out all manner of obscene and abusive acts.

Knowing that someone is a Christian or Muslim doesn't tell you much about them. You don't what they were taught or how they were taught it.

I was raised in a Catholic schools which here would be considered quite conservative. But most Christians I come across on the internet sound like lunatics to me. The Jesus I was taught about would have been horrified that people were using his name to push their kind of bile.

Exactly, BigK.

The thing that makes me laugh is the number of so-called "christians" that will follow some aspects of their religion, and yet throw others out with a cursory "Yeah I don't follow that"....

I once knew a christian who was selling drugs. When I bruoght up the subject of what his religion would say about that, he told me that yeah he probably would go to hell for that, but so be it....

I'm not religious myself, but I am deeply spiritual and I strongly believe in a god-force, but not the god of the bible. In fact, I had a dream once that left me in no doubt that there was a god. Don't ask me what the dream was because I do not remember, but I just know that I woke up and *KNEW* for myself without a doubt that god existed. I believe that depicting god as some sort of man on a throne is putting WAY too many constrictions on God. God is much greater and grander than any human religion could possibly depict, and certainly not even capable of the sort of utter and complete *HATRED* that many religions spread as so-called "truth".

Oh, and on the subject of the Bible, it is a *FOSSIL*. If it was truly the "living word of god" as many religions say it is, we would be adding to it today. It would be truly alive and relevant to todays' world. It is my opinion that humanity will not advance any further spiritually until we stop focussing on the past and our difference, and start focussing on a future where we are all a part of one human race regardless of our skin colour or religion. In the future we're likely to make contact with beings not of this planet. That will really drive home the points I am making..

Sorry for my rant, but thought I'd like to get it all out

Joel

Actually, it's the very definition of prejudice. (To prejudge, to make a decision before hearing the evidence).

Bias is a preference shown to one party over another.

I think that religion and culture can give bad people encouragement and validation to act worse and with power. A good environment gives less.



I always believed that becoming a christian or muslim means taking on faith that they haven't been changed so much, but have been kept intact by God even through the translations. So while people here may believe that, and thus be able to accept a liberal interpretation, many believers do trust in their scriptures to be intact and thus believe it, "warts and all".

I think people need to face the reality that even if a "liberal interpretation" is possible, millions of people don't accept it and prefer literalism/fundamentalism, and as long as the scriptures last people always will. And I don't believe it takes the person being bad in the first place IE "they hate gays so they interpret the bible to be homophobic". I think it comes from people just wanting to follow it to the letter.

i also am irritated when people say that argument "but the bible has crazy rituals like sacrificing pigions on a period and fundies dont do that so they should reject the bad parts too". The new testament says Christians don't have to do old testament Jewish rituals, but they still have to be judgmental and socially conservative. ( i mean the post-gospel parts. Of course not all christians are "Paul-ine" and some only follow the gospels or follow non-bible books like the Gnostics. Or take the New testament as imperfect and explain away the difficult parts as no longer relevant.)

It takes a certain type of person to become homophobic just because their church/Bible tells them to.

The good people may still think it's a sin, but have no issues with members of the LGBT community. The bad ones commit crimes against us.

It's a bias shown towards the Bible and a specific interpretation of it.

Don't be sorry for your rant. I actually agree with it.

Problem is - that often times you can't follow scripture to the letter - 1) some of it makes no sense, 2) some of it is contradictory 3) a lot of it is symbolic and metaphorical so you have to do some interpretation. With the Bible you get the added fun of it being translated into many languages, often re-translated which pretty much guarantees some loss in meaning - which is why I assume the Koran is always in Arabic.

Beyond the text, you have the problem of the preaching - if your priest or rabbi or imam is conservative - chances are he will pick out and focus on the conservative parts and vice versa if s/he is liberal. Given that most people don't take the time to study the scripture of their religion and the historical and cultural context it was written in - the interpretation given by the religious authority is likely to have an influence. And yes, people do pick their churches and synagogues based on what they're comfortable with - if they're comfortable with homophobia they likely will not go to a gay friendly place of worship.