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You are free to create a new religion, go ahead. Why post it in a gaming forum? :P
Also, freedom is not overrated, it's just misused, primarily in the US where freedom stays above all although equality is as important and limits freedom as soon as it's disturbed. That is the thing humans need to understand.

@tons of replies: When talking about atheism you should distinguish the different kinds of atheism and not just talk about "atheism" as a whole. It's like going to GameStop and saying "I want that one game with Mario in it".

And don't start all these arguments against religion like child molesting. It probably happens less in religion than anywhere else. You're just driven by media (where's your sense of freedom there?) and swallowing what they tell you. Oh, a plane crashed, I guess we should ban planes because they are insecure and kill people. Oh boy, a fat woman died on a roller coaster, we better close all amusement parks.

to be fair to the old testament.... it was written 5000 years ago. I think you are being a bit harsh. I mean at that time they were very concerned with reproduction and continuation of their tribe(s). Homosexuality does not offer much expansion and growth.

Back in those day if half your population was only concerned with butt sex you would be conquered and destroyed by a higher reproducing tribe/culture within a few generations.

 N
ow days this should be a non issue as most modern countries are trying to find ways to control population growth.

Religion is the cause of so much hate, we need to get rid of all religions tbh

Do you really need to believe there is some bearded figure in the clouds who smiles to himself and gives you a little tick on a sheet each time you get up in the morning go to work and don't murder everyone?

That is a pretty worrying thought.

Why this got moderated? Religion is made up stuff. I can have fun with the world of Final Fantasy, but I don't believe it really exists. I can see that some people draw strength from such beliefs, but why does it get moderated if someone says it isn't real?

values: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

purpose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

(Modern) religion is not about worshiping God and basing your life on "his" ideals. It seems you don't know what religion is about or just try to march against it in an extreme way to gather followers. Nobody would say the bible is law (except for extreme people). Most people know it's about metaphors and everyday situations and how to "master" them in a way without harming anyone. If you want to be extreme about it and say religious people are all fanatics and living by some old script, you are not any better than exactly that minority in terms of being extreme and a weird guy in this world.

Yes, there's weird stories in there and you can say those are thousands of years old. Still, the meaning behind them is always relevant. Just to throw in another extreme statement: people who don't see the meaning of religious stories and religions themselves are either ignorant/narrow minded or unintelligent :P

Inbefore shitstorm, I'm an atheist btw.

Exactly. People do not need religion as a moral compass or to seek life questions.
Many philosophers and humanitarians seek these questions, as well as constant sharing constant discourse on how to improve human rights and so forth.
There are many people seeking equal values and seeking ways to help those who are impoverished and so forth.
It does not require religion to ponder about the universe or to show compassion for others.

People should question what an established norm, and decide whether it should be challanged. It should be encouraged to question life, not to settle for a belief that is considered the norm of that culture. If people did not seek any reforms, womens rights would not have been improved, the question of gay marriage rights (and in some cases the success of said right) would not have come to be.

There have been cases where religion and mostly conservatists prevent progress (conservatism is an ideology, however, it is often connected with religion).

Well, this thread does an excellent job in getting rationalists on this site banned. May I try my luck.

Religion is about institutionalizing a belief. For example, you could believe that no life exists besides on earth. If now some space mission finds life on another planet you might revise your idea. Then it is not religion. Or you don't revise that idea but start to discuss that this extraterrestial life isn't real life or the sensors of the space mission is somehow faulty or whatever. Then your belief is a dogma. If many people share this dogma it turns into a religion.

Some basic dogmas in religions have grown overtime into a realm of different things, like in christianity. Many christs decide to believe not all in the bible literal but see it as metaphors. That doesn't change the fact, that they still believe in some core-dogmas of the religion.

So, we can believe many things, nothing is wrong with that. In the best case - as I illustrated above - we revise our beliefs with new facts incoming. Beliefs also can bring hope or courage, that is good.

But there are also bad things about it, many crimes were done in the name of religion. As it is true, that the religion isn't primarily the reason for the bad thing, there is one thing that has to be attributed to religion: people were doing things they wouldn't do normally, because of their belief - burning witches, going into holy wars, massacring the neighbors (of different religion), making terroristic assaults. While some people still would do these atrocities without religion, a lot did it against their morality because they thought based on their beliefs it would be the right thing to do. Throughout history religion was used to manipulate masses into doing things they wouldn't have done otherwise. This basically is the bad thing about religions. Basically, beliefs only you have and no one else can give you hope but avoid the problem of manipulation, so this problem isn't inherent to beliefs in general, only in organized beliefs of masses aka religion.

So I don't want another religion, as good the intentions in creating it may be.

To counter some misconceptions:

The opposite to religion is rationalism, not communism. In communism also rationalists were repressed.

Because something isn't proven wrong it doesn't mean it is true. Nobody proved that a world with Pokemon isn't existing, but still most people wouldn't believe one does exist. The core of this argument is Russell's teapot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot