If you have a decision to make about religion, um, why are you talking about it on a poker forum?

Oh, wait, because you knew I have a Ph.D. in the subject? And you really, really wanted to know everything that they teach you when you get a Ph.D.?

Nahh, probably not. Ever since I quit teaching, it's amazing how few people actually want to hear what I know/think about religion.

Ask a specific question, maybe I can try to say something. (You can take that as an invitation or a threat -- your choice.)

I really think that god/ religion is a way for people to feel less small and unimportant in a very big world. Having the feeling that someone is watching over you and cares about you makes people feel better.

That said, I think the idea of religion is good. The basic premis of religion is to improve yourself as a person, who can disagree with this. What bothers me about religion is the way that some relgious people apply it. Using relgion as a basis for hate, hating gays, muslims, etc....... because that is how you interpret the bible is just BS. THis is using religion as a crutch further your own ignorance.

The bible itself is one of the most vaguely written documents of all times. There are litteraly millions of laws/rules and a lot of them are contradictory. Mt grandma worked as an escort for a while at an abortion clinic, and to hear some of the things the protesters called her and the patients, is true disgusting. Doesnt the bible say judge not or yee shall be judged.

So to sum up my feelings, I don't believe in god/ relgion. Maybe it is to much of a science background that I cant believe something I can't see, touch or messure. I had a friend ask my why I was anti-religious, I dont belive I am, I think that anything that improves you as a person and makes you happy is a good thing. I also bleive that anything that is used as a weapon of hate and ignornace is a bad thing and anyone that will hate some because a relgious figure said so is ignorant.

I hope this didnt offend anyone, if it did I appologise.

God is the fucking MAN, seriously.

That wine and fishes thing, classic!

Monk
xxxxx

Jesus Christ! Is EVERYONE a freekin Darwinist around here?

Not to piss off anyone, but i really hate when people nowadays sanctimoniously say 'well i personally am fine without religion, but you know, its okay for people that need it, you know, like training wheels. Me, i can be a good person without it' I dont approve of the wars and all the other shit associated with religion, etc.

Mind you having a degree in phlosophy and and having taken my fair share of physics also [thwarted physics major], i too have some issues with the validity of relgion and immeasurable things. But the truth is that arguments about the validity of religion (Christianity in particular) are VERY heavily fact and history based, and depend on factors absolutely independent of the smear job that modern society and the media has managed to do on religion, making people that beleive in it look like 'zealots', or at the very best, simpletons.

So, if you want to talk about religion, dont talk about how people made it up, or how its just a method of control the king manufactured...People that make this claim, Nietzsche and Freud included, are making a claim more obviously groundless than the Bible ever did. Just like its not Nietzsches fault that Hitler used his concepts to justify killing 8 million Jews, its not the Books fault that some people use it to justify shit that is patently unacceptable, like cussing at old ladies outside abortion clinics.

If you really want to figure out this answer, K3nt could probably actually help us all, as i have heard a lot of arguments about biblical texts, and thier prophetic nature, and all that jazz. Some of it sounds pretty good, but for every affirming thing i have heard, there is a naysayer saying something else. But there is definitely a lot there, and it aint as simple as religion is the opiate of the masses, and thats the end of it.

The way the argument would go is something like this: The Bible says its true. So we assume that IF its true, then it is basically as the Bible says it is. [contained within the bible are provisions about not messing with the Word]. But is it true? Well, if the Bible came from God, if there is a God, i think its fair to assume its true. So did it come from God? Obviously this is the problematic hurdle here...But I think that if it can be established that the Bible is indeed a prophetic text that has real predictive value for events WAY after it was written, then that goes a very long way to establishing the truth of its 'other-worldliness'...and this gets us much closer to the conclusion that it is indeed divine.

This is where the argument gets down and dirty, and factual disputes, historical accounts, and Biblical interpretations enter the picture. Yea or Nay, this is what the answer depends on--Things that most people making rash claims about religion have never even bthered to think about, because they have never really bothered to acknowledge the validity of the question of religion in the first place.

God is Love.

He's deciding wether to be a preacher or not. Duh.

Okay, here's some random thoughts on religion to me, especially about christianity.

I was a 'christian' back in the day, when I was forced into christian school, and basically made to feel like an outcast if I wasn't part of the faith. The thing about most christians, at least the one's I've know (which is a ton), is that they are either one of the two extremes.

They're either super christian, and will come out and condemn anything that the bible doesn't agree with. These are the people standing outside abortion clinics, cursing at women or the people actively protesting gay marriage, something that doesn't even affect them in the slightest. They refuse to accept that there are beliefs other than there's that might be valid as well.

The other extreme are the people who go to church on sunday, pray only when something bad happens, etc. But, on any day other than sunday they're out smoking pot, getting wasted, having pre-marital sex, etc. Not to say I disagree with doing some of these things. But these aren't things that they're supposed to be doing according to the bible. This is the category that I was a part of for a while.

So that's my problem with christians themselves. Now for god.

If he really gave a damn about wether people went to heaven and such, I have a feeling he'd make it more apparrent than send his son to die, and having a book written, of which most things in there can't be made certain. Why wouldn't god come down here, perform some miracles, and prove he exists to people? Why did he only do anything miraculous back in the day? The answer, I think, is a no-brainer. People were fucking retarded back then. Back then, if a stone got moved, and someone took a body out of a tomb, it automatically meant the dude inside rose from the dead. Today? Well if that happened today, we'd know exactly how it got out, who moved it, etc.

The reason miracles don't happen today is because they are no longer miracles once they can be explained. Things don't happen without explanation anymore, and when someone does think something special happened, noone but them were there to see it (of course!0.

Why do you think that a new religion started every couple hundred years back then and nowadays, any cult that started is automatically assumed to be insane?