a quick word about science . . .
it's not a belief system - it is a process.
a scientific theory is not regarded to be absolute truth in the scientific community . . . it is simply the best possible explanation that has not yet been disproved by an easily repeated and explainable process. science and rationality ask you to accept nothing more than this. science is always willing to correct and improve upin itself, it is seeking the best answers, it is not a static body of knowledge. there is no anti-religious bias in science, this is just percieved because so little of any religious thought holds up to examination and scrutiny.
religion, christianity in particular since that seemt to be what we are discussing here, orders you to accept it as the one reality and truth based soley on "faith," which is a fine and romantic notion, but is more or less a code word for surrender to irrationality.
why on earth would i believe there is some kind of cosmic or unfathomable super-being watching my every move and judging me, condmening my life if i don't live it according to some arcane principles? why has the whole world's population not been exposed to this? are the billion are so christians just special, and the 10 billion or so other modern humans that have ever lived are doomed? somebody back there cited the fact that much of the world believes in some kind of god, well let me just chime in that although that is quite true, the differences between said gods are severe, and many believe in polytheistic relgions that are vastly different than any western one-god relgions (which incidently are all derived from the jews, the first to popularize a one god faith system).
why did a god fill our world with conflictory evidence to what religion dictates? is he into tricking his flock? i would ask the religious to at least contemplate whether they feel god would be in their lives if they were raised isolated from society. god is not intuitive, relgion is indoctrination, people know about and believe in it because they were either told to when they were young or sold on when they were older.
i don't have a problem with religion, more power to you. but i do feel that limiting your view and perception of the world through a belief system cooked up a few thousand years ago doesn't do you any favors in life. i don't want the answers handed to me. i also know that athiests have never gone about murdering people or fighting wars because they don't believe in god . . . but millions have lost their lives because of faith. this doesn't reflect on people that hold faith now, but rather on the nature of faith itself.
i never believed in god, not even when i was a small child, i found the idea absurd even then. i have researched relgion, read books arguing for and agaisnt faith, left my mind open. i can never escape the fact ever, that in the end religion is asking you to just believe without much merit, it is soley based on what others claim, it is anecdotal at best, and certainly less rational than the conclsuion that relgion is not an accurate explanation of things. and what benefit do i get from belief? nothing really, i don't need. i don't fear death, because i think there is nothing afterwards, your brain shuts down, there is no pain, no thought, nothing, and that is okay, because hey, i'll be gone. i believe one of the reasons religion developed in the first place was the primitive human fear and curiosity surrounding death.
i'm surprised nobody here has cited the famous propsition by the mathematician blais pascal, who wagered that it is worth your while to have faith in god, because by doing so you risk nothing and stand to gain much in the afterlife if god is real. by not believing you risk eternity. my reaction to that has been the same my whole life, since i heard it at the age of 11 . . . sheer cowardice. i'll never suBathmateit to what any group dogmatically claims to be the truth without so much as a shred of evidence, other than volumes of circular rhetoric, out of a ridiculous fear of some afterlife torture for not suBathmateitting. the very fact that a concept of hell of punisHydromaxent was ever introduced just throws more evidence towards the notion that religion is very much about fear and control. it may not have started out that way, but if you read the old testament, that god, the original god before he was re-written in the sequal, is one angry motherfucker.
*german stallion - you seem like a nice guy. pick up a copy of "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. it's not actually about demons, don't worry, but it might give you some food for thought.
