That people who outright hate religion probably have anger issues and is probably projecting.

Also, Kids are also taught to believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and any number of other things... that eventually they don't believe in.  If religion had nothing real to it people would just not believe in it.

Not sure what WW2 had to do with religion/people taught something as kids though... he really lost me on that one.

As for me... I wasn't raised any religion... though did have a strong feeling of some sort of "god" some of which caused by very measurable circumstances.

After which, i studied up on just about every religion i could... even some not practiced anymore... as well as arguements for atheism... and decided i wasn't too happy about any of them.

The Christian god seemed "most right" but at the same time a lot of stuff people tended to preach seemed counter to what he said, and in general the bible just seemed like it was cobbled together by the Romans to make a more docile religion.

So, i just took up the prospect to be who i was.  Since god made me that way anyway... and that God would let me know what he wanted me to know.  Since he was god.

It's worked pretty well for me so far.  It's kinda like a Christian Deism.  Though who knows.  He might even not be the particular Christian God... might be someone else.  But either way, i think i've got a feeling of the right guy.

'I don't always know what the right thing to do is, my Lord, but I think that the fact that I want to please you, pleases you.'

You know, if i'm wrong.  It's not like i lose anything anyway.  Well unless it's some other god.  In which case... whoops?

Yes, I do believe in God. I have had my life flash before my eyes too many times to remember - had been told years before who my wife was and met her and married her - saw my wife and kids in 1998, 10 years ago, and accurately predicted my children's birth order - seen things in the future that I made intercession for that didn't come to pass - and most of all - was cured of suicidal thoughts and depression without meds.

As far as other folks, I've seen someone - actually quite a few folks - quite Scripture out of the Bible and seen miracles happen - I have been healed of sore throat (and there's no cure) without meds and a lot of stuff. If you have never witnessed any of what I have mentioned - and more - it's very easy not to believe in it.

The main prob is - most folks preaching don't know what they are talking about.

You are correct, bra. It's the blessings that make it all true for me. I wouldn't be the person who I am today if God didn't take my life over. I grew up knowing God, I grew knowing he sent Jesus and died for my sins. Everything is all belief with me. 

And yes most preachers don't know half the things they are talking about but some of those preaches that you listen to, does have some tid bits of information that can relate to you on your life and will touch your heart. You just have to listen real closely.

@Chapset

The reason why I believe in Christ or should I say a God, well it makes me feel so freaking good that I know one day I know there is a place that is where I can live eternally. It's like a high or drug. I can't explain the feeling. Everytime I see songs relating to God or I read the Bible it feels like there is a promise that is made, and its all about faith that will get you to heaven. If your faith is strong then your ticket to heaven is promised. If you pray and forgive those, your faith and wisdom because stronger. I'm not letting people who don't believe in what I believe change me for that fact. Seeing people in person like WessleWoggle I can explain better than over the internet. Then again there is no need for argument or talking or debating over a subject that will go on and on about nothing. Clearly he worships someone that is the same like me but his beliefs is that God doesn't judge. I believe that once you die you are judged right then in there. It says it in the bible. 

I try to live the christian life, do all the ten commandments like it says in the bible. I try to obey every single on of them. It's a belief that I strongly agree with and its a belief I will die with. No one can change it. My heart is locked with Christ, its locked with God. It's locked for the one that brought me on this Earth for a reason. And thats why I'm living to go through the pain and suffering that Jesus went through.

@WessleWoggle

It seems like you quoted me a lot last night after I threw in the white flag and gave up. But who cares, like I said once and I will say it again. I believe in what I believe, as long as I and you get into heaven thats all it matters, bro.

I responded to everything in the bold.

Oh please save your broad generalizatoins for some other place, if you actually asked around and talked to people that knew me thay'd all say I'm one of the most laid back and calmes people they've met. Then again I could jsut go ahead and start by making my own gnealizatoins by saying that people who start with personal attacks have reached the point of having to grasp at straws to try to rationalize what they believe in, cognitive dissonance at its finest. But then that's just another generalization.

Yeah kids are taught to believe in Santa and the Tooth fairy, and they keep on believing right up until they learn they aren't real through one way or another and then confrimed through people they trust the most, parents. If no one told them that they were false they'd grow up and still believe they existed. Your argument fails on this point.

Maybe you haven't read about children being taught about how the propaganda machine worked? Children being taught from the earliest stages to hate Jews and to treat them as inhuman beings. They all probably believed that at the time and in the most extreme cases they believed in even after the war and all the way into their adulthood. But, maybe I can use other examples, the beginning of the USSR, children were taught that Communism was the best thing to happen to them and they kept on having faith in communism all their lives, later on when things started going downhill the whole system of teaching children started to fall apart due to the fact that in real life Cummounism didn't work as well. You can see the same thing in the US with Capitalism and recently how people who voiced their opions against the government are unpatriotic, many of those chilren are now fighting in Iraq. I can keep going and going on this, religion works the exact same way, teach them young, make it fails safe (how can god be wrong if you can't talk to him, you can't see anything of his happen and the only thing you have to go on is blind faith?), and you have a lifelong believer who will then pass on his teachings to his children and the cycle begins.

I've studied social effects and reseached the spread of religion througholy, and it's the main reasson im not religious at all, I too looked into religion and just did not see why I should blindly put my faith into anything, anyone who says the world is too perfect is a naive fool. (would have majored in History instead of CS if there was more money in it...) I see it for what it is, what it can do, and the power it has over people and that's the reason I hate it so much. Marx put it best "Religion is opium for the masses."

Cool, you believe that. I just don't understand that the bible was written long ago and the actions are coming to past right now. That's what hilarious, things just don't happen from out of the blew like that. I strongly believe that man will kill Earth. It's like that. We are having Global Warming problems now, the weather is changing up differently. I'm just looking at the signs and looking at the book of Revelations and seeing the comparison, but to each is own bro.

You're underestimating the amount of doublethink involved in these people.  They're taught to believe every word in the Bible is the inspired word of G-d, even though many of these words contradict each other.  This way of raising children promotes believing in self-contradicting logic like "I can murder but still get into heaven because Jesus will forgive me and love me."  It's not even really self-contradicting since G-d murders the entire planet at one point because he can't forgive them.  But then later he changes his mind and decides to use Jesus to forgive the whole planet.  It gives the impression that G-d supports murder at some times and forgives everybody at others.  It's all just a question of timing.

That really had nothing to do with WW2.  The Holocaust wasn't a  main reason for WW2.  That's pretty goofy.

As for Santa Claus.  Most people don't find out he's real.  Most people realize logically that he isn't real.

Things like racism are believed by people because people are born with a shortcut generalization that "different = bad."

It's part of the structure of the brain.

People might actually just believe these things because you know... they believe them after all.

Also, the fact that your generally laid back, yet have something against religion so hard actually is a very good sign that you probably have projection and anger issues.

You seem to equate religion with "differing opinion."  It's ok for people to disagree with you, you aren't some super genious who knows the best, logical and correct answer on every issue.

If you studied as much as you say... you'd know now all religions are pleasent... so the opium theory goes out the window.  Some treat people as if they were made to serve, and then made to bow out of existance.

Also, if you studied the effects or religion, you should of come to the conclusion, that it really hadn't caused much bad at all.

When you see the "effects" that are bad religion has casued... you often find there were political and economic reasons for everything they did.

Religion had nothing to do with it in the end effect except as a justfier.  When other justifiers would of worked as well.

Even science.  After all... most dictators tend to slow the flow of new information.  It makes ruling over people easier.  Aside from which.... religion has done as much to perserve and advance knowledge as it has to stop it.

Politics is what is wrong with the world.  Not religion.

Except... people aren't taught to believe that.

Christian Religion teaches you can only kill people and comit other crimes if you believe in jesus AND are repentative.

You have to be sorry you did it... and if you could go back in time change it.

Hence the whole problem.

Nowhere did I say anything about WW2, I said you don't have to even look past WW2 to see the effects, implaying a time frame not the event itself.

That's the whole point, you can logically discount Santa by the simple fact that there is no way someone would be able to travel around the world in one night and visit everyone, to top it all off give everyone a pesent. You can't do that with god, because there are not enough limitations on him. In fact every time something contradicting religion has been made religion has given ground. Back in the day when people thought Earth was the center, that the stars were heavenly bodies, all that, when it got disproved it gave even more ground. Right now it has been pushed back to the Big Bang and how that's the moment of creation. Come a few years, centuries, or millenia when people figure out why that happened religion will give ground again. God has been made so that he can't be logically disproven on purpose, if god could be logically proven or disproven we wouldn't be having this debate. I also realize that these things aren't mentioned directly in any scriptures, however they are as much a part of religion as the Pope is, a religion is a belief and you can't have a right or wrong belief if it can't be disproven in some way.

I don't equate religion with differing opinoin, I view it as a tool to control thousands or millions easily. Also, yeah most religions are pleasant and don't promote anything of what has happened, but Communism is also the greatest idea to grace mankind in history, yet we saw how well that worked out in practice. In the end, theory doesn't matter, real life actions, effects, events do, and religion has been nothing but a divisive, violent catlyst used by very few to control millions.

Religion has everything to do with it because if thats what people believe, and if someone twists it to their own accord, it's still a belief held by the people, still a religion. If the initial belief didn't exist then there wouldn't have been anything to twist in the first place. At least in science when someone starts yelling "1+1 = 2" no one will be fooled because to earn a scientist's "belief" they have to go through extreme examination.

Politics are fine, politics is just a way of phrasing social interactoin between groups of people, or between few powerful personas, something we can't live without, we're not about to start living alone. Religion on the other hand is something we don't need to survive, plenty live just fine without religoinin their lives (statistically atheists earn 10% more, just random trivia) and we would all be better off if it never existed in the first place.