Belief is a belief you don't water or a certificate to believe something, stupid some people are stupid.

Are you freaking kidding me?  A parent should decide how to raise their child to the best of their ability. And if that includes the parents religion, why not? Not only that.. But gagchartzftw basically called mesoteto an abusive parent. That's crossing a line my friend. But fine, let him live on his godless, intolerant high horse. I don't hate atheists or people that have the agnostic belief, but it's assholes like that that make me just want to destroy the world so we'll find out who's after life is really right (oh wait, athiests don't have one anyway).

EDIT: okay, that last part was a bit extreme, but it does piss me off.

I agree with that bit about child raising. Obviously if a parent thinks they're right about religion they'd want to raise they're child with that same understanding for their own benefit. Just as they would pass on the belief that eating vegetables is good for you, so they would want to pass on what they also believe is good for you 'spiritually', if that be the case. We'd hope a parent also encourages the child to examine the faith passed on to them on their own but that's besides the specific point of attempting to pass on a belief.

There seems to be the assumption out there that religious beliefs are inherently 'inferior' to other beliefs and should therefore be completely and utterly passive, leaving room only for a quiet, hidden, personal conviction of which must be completely irrelevant to the rest of their conduct in the world. But, religion just essentially represents a set of beliefs. No neutral ground. Too bad.

For me, it would be depresseing to believe in God and know that nothing that I will ever do matters.  I can develop new ways to use renewable energy, I can work on new theories to describe the universe, or I can work on new medicines to treat diseases, but with God all those great actions dont matter.  You could be on the cutting edge of medical science or you could live in a cave, your actions have no effect on the greater outcome of things.

I am a leftist, and thus, I am often accused of being lazy and wanting the government to provide.  For me, the lazy people are the religious who want a God to provide for them.

Its all relative.

Sadly, the Big Bang is as far as we can see back in time (CBR), so answers to questions like this, if we are ever able to answer them, will be theoretical.  So we dont know what caused it, or if anything caused it.

The Big Bang could be a natural occuring even in the universe (similar to quantuam fluctuations), it could be the result of an ongoing process in the universe, or it could have no cause whatsoever.  Its may be an error to believe that everything has a cause, and any cause-reaction path you takes leads to the universe being created or God being created.

so funny

i dont believe in god at all, the whole idea of religion makes my skin crawl

but im not getting debaptised . . .

that would mean i believed it meant something in the first place.

which i dont. itd be like buying zombie reppellant, totally meaningless, like jesus.

ya i feel similarly. I am not going to get debaptised. I was once a Christian, and the whole thing of baptism is symbolic. It doesn't mean anything to the Christian faith. It's just water.

^^^

its a chance for your parents to show off their new baby at the church ;)

This is one of the most incoherent and ignorant posts on these issues I've seen in a long long time, and I'll explain why:

Incoherent because you never actually explain why god existing would necessarily mean it doesn't matter. For instance, how is it any different with or without a God that interacts on on the level that we have now (ie not much at all)? Why does it necessarily "not matter" when god exists?

Ignorant because religious people don't actually expect god to give them anything, they merely draw personal strength from their own belief.  It's interesting that you use a morale equivalence which indicates that you see a lack of self-reliance as a negative thing (and I agree with you on that) but justify your promotion of non-self-reliance by government intervention to yourself by trying to argue that other positions are "no worse" or "the same thing".

In reality you won't find a single major religion that actually believes that god will provide for their follower's mortal needs, but that their community of believers can do good deeds in god's name.  In short its the idea that "god works through good people", and the key here is that it is people who are working, not god.  In fact by all accounts the focus of god's direct efforts are almost exclusively on their immortal needs as viewed through their beliefs. So there is really no comparison to be made here whatsoever to justify your "it's no worse" argument. 

While the CMB is our most direct observation of the makeup of the very early universe it does not represent the only known method by which we can study it.  Additionally the verdict on our ability to find a causal event for the big bang is still very much out and dependent on some of the outstanding work being done towards a ToE.

I think most would agree that the Big Bang is a naturally occurring event, but I don't know how many would buy the idea that it lacks a cause as the argument is presented.  There are a few scenarios in which extra-universal events may not adhere to causality but its kind of a tough sell without more specifics.  Also, the Big Bang may lack a causal event, but causality is still very much a law of the universe it created (an important point of clarity).

We know many of the laws of physics are dependent, to varying degrees, on the makeup of our universe so any macro-verse will not necessarily be forced to adhere to them exactly as we expect.  Causality specifically is an unknown in that regard.

But going back to the original comment by John the point probably wasn't a cosmological one I'm guessing.  So the simple answer is that the "well what caused _____" argument is a very poor argument for theists to make because it can easily be turned on them.