Why I do not like religion...

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When I was a kid, I thought there was something wrong with me because I just couldn't believe what I was being told in church. Sure, I believe there is a higher power but nothing being said about 'god' was evidence based. I found the practice of guessing what 'god' wanted to be rather odd and completely contradictory to everything else the adults in my life were telling me.

Believing in God is something that I found difficult at times, but once you have faith the evidence just starts to show itself. I know its very weird - but try it.

I do have faith. I have faith that there is a higher power. I call this faith because there is no way to prove either way whether it's true or not.

I have an aversion to 'self evidence' in religion. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

That's a cognitive bias issue. You train your brain to seek out certain stimuli and you get the impression of finding it more frequently. You can do the same thing with a certain number if you stretch it out over a long period of time. Just pick any seemingly benign number and start to look for it and recognize it as your number whenever you see it. You'll notice you'll start to see it with more and more frequency (or so you'll think).

This is also how 'good luck' and 'bad luck' happens. You focus on what you believe you will find, and it suddenly becomes bigger than it really is.

If you expect to have a bad day, you'll count all the little things that go wrong daily and think the day has gone especially bad.

Religion, Faith, and Worship has never done anything for me.

In church, I just didn't "get it."

I would just daydream about other things and I never gave it another thought later.

There may be a God but I don't know or care.

I try to be a good honest person, and if I get up there and 'God' tells me that I can't get into heaven because I didn't follow whatever dogma or specific faith he headed up, than he is not God. God will not refuse one who is so happy to see him.

I once told my mom this, and she looked at me like I had grown a second head.

I was taught that untill you accept Jesus as your saviour and his blood washes you (metaphorically), you are depraved and an enemy of God, and he would not bear you in his presence. And you ain't gonna be happy to see that!

Then let him see us for what we really are. For what he made us to be and let us not exalt him beyond his flawed nature.

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Well, some countries in Europe view the forced education of children in non-profit, tax-exempt religious schools to be a form of child abuse (abuse of the right of children to think and make independent choices).

Too many non-profit religions are one-way streets as in:

No questions allowed - convert or die so to speak.

(Salt Lake City, Utah - Mecca, Saudi Arabia - Rome, Italy)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pe ... s_heretics
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/galileo/

You keep believing that. I prefer to focus on the right here and right now. Things I can touch and feel.

I have some not so nice things to say about Jesus, but I think I'll refrain.

I didn't go to a religious school.

So... start with your conclusions already made, and then find the evidence afterwards? I think not.

That's the very definition of bias.

I used to think I needed to find the right religion because everyone seems to find some sort of meaning in it. I could never get into one - I don't get how reading a book or believing in a higher being or doing some ritual is supposed to give my life some sort of peace - plus - the arbitrary rules, the frequent sexism, the often boring mythology.. I gave up - and my life's been much more peaceful for it.

This is pretty much my experience, as well. I do believe in a higher being, and sometimes during certain holidays I find myself contemplating the meaning of the holiday from a spiritual standpoint, but I don't do rituals. I don't read books on the subject. etc...