1. If you catch me outside the conversations with some of the more extreme religious people on this board, you will find that I am quite enamored by mythology (religion).

2. However, when some people take a religious text seriously, or literally, I take it as an affront to Reason, which I value. Reason, logic, an attempt to discover the truth.
Worse, when they try to convince me by threatening eternal torture, by skewing facts or appealing to speculative woo-woo ideas. I am sure you are offended by similar efforts in other areas (politics, economics, etc.)

3. I am not against religion, per se, but this is tough. I am against religion in the sense that I don't believe it is a good thing, but I am not against most religious people who act reasonably.  That is, I'm not against drugs, per se, but aginst the drug addicts who then are a detriment to society. I am against New Age crap in the same way. Many people I know are into it and I don't mind until they start suggesting that children should take Zicam for a cold.

4. I often find that people find me offensive only when I talk about their religion, or their specific beliefs. I would suggest that I know Xianity most, and I am trying to set the record straight. There is a real, actual history, there are a few real artifacts and the bible does say some things - but not all of it is as the churches, or the religious people, would have you learn.  I find dishonest propaganda destructive.  Worse, I find that many of these people are well meaning but ignorant, but angry and don't care to learn the facts. (For example, many Xians will tell you of the "truth" about the Shroud of Turin and use it to support all sorts of things. Then they get irate when you try to tell them that science has shown it to be Mideaval origin, the fabric style is Mideaval, the paint (blood) is of a Mideaval mixture and there is a confession from the Mideaval era of the guy who did it.  But they are simply too angry at people who they think are trying to destroy their Faith to listen).

5. I find that generally people in the power positions of religion will lie, either out of malice or ignorance.  i would strongly suggest to any religious person that most of what they "know" about their religion is based on lies.  For example, the famous story of Jesus saving the woman from stoning: "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone" is a late addition by a scribe and not an original story.  But who has ever brought that up in church?  Let alone the mistranslations of "virgin" or the idea of the trinity, or the history of the Bible, or the supposed deaths of the Martyrs.

The thing that surprises me is that self-proclaimed Xians don't want to know the real history or foundation of their religion.  As I have said, they teach this stuff in Seminary school, but when an atheist says it, it is suddenly subversive and mean.

By religion you mean Christianity! Because, there are plenty of other religions who have no definition of hell,,, there are plenty of religions that claim there is a good life after death,,, there are plenty of religions that don't care about you turning into them or even disallow to strangers to do so...

So you problem is with Christianity ,,,, Christianity is the problem... look how hostile it was against anyone else,,, Christianity and it's GODs were hostile and remain so,,,,you ppl are good,,, just like you who ready to kill for their beliefs... Seems you guys just found your perfect couples,,, rednecks got pakis and you "intellectuals" got Christians...

Round two, go fuck each other around walls


Doesn't matter who you pray for Dawkins, Jesus or Dalai Lama,,, still same cap for meh,,, the more ppl will avoid any of that the better it will be

I'm angry coz i see you constantly bashing religion. If you had one post in a while that would be fine but this is sort of obsession like religious obsession... So you => atheist pioneering priest


as for your latest question,,, most of children do live in the country where their parents do, speak language their parents do and so on... Call it no freedom of choice,,,

You are right, the parents influence is huge, but I think if you will look, it is nothing close to the percentages.

You realize the question is raises, though.  How do you determine if it is right?  How do you know if you are right, or just following in your parents footsteps?  (BTW, Jesus said to reject your family. I'm not clear what his goal was, but was he suggesting that you leave your parents beliefs behind and follow him?)

I'm glad you survived, and wish the other person did too.  I imagine you must suffer from horrible survivors guilt whether it was your fault or not. I have sympathy for you and realize it must still be emotional.

I don't want to be insensitive, but because you bring this up in this conversation, I will offer my only comment on it.

I understand why you feel that this would be an important event, and why you feel it is a sign considering you were already feeling "sinful" about your life. I'm glad you feel that you can redeem yourself, and are hopefully working towards that.

As the "skeptic", I would simply say that an event happened, and you applied the meaning later. Lots of unlikely things happen everyday.  While a person may claim a car can't do that, it seems to have done it and the tragedy is that this supposed miraculous event took the life of some one.  I call it a tragedy, and you were lucky.

I am not trying to be insensitive, only offer my perspective. I understand that I wasn't there, or anything.

Then I think we have a lot in common.

I too understand I am mortal and that there are things beyond my understanding, and that I temper all information against that, and against the reliability of the method I have come to understand the things I believe I understand.

Have you been there? Do you know what's there? So don't teach something you don't know others who think they know what in reality they don't coz you sound exact like them.