Quote:This is a gradiated topic. Religion is seldom and all inclusively "bad". The thing that bums me out the most about religion is that it is comprised mostly of people that want nothing more than to be "good" and or "ethical", which is one reason why I get so pissed; I get this nagging feeling like they are getting duped somehow. My main "problems" with religion stem from:

  1. The root misnomer of Christian religion(s), which is the term "faith in God". Many religions are built on faith, yet it is an inaccurate statement. You inherit belief in god from parents, teachers and friends, and not from "God" him/herself. This means that Faith in God is nothing more than faith in man. More specifically "Faith in men who have faith in the men before them", so on and so forth. It is a conundrum that ends somewhere around 2000 years ago, or even before that. Thus, faith in "God(s)" means faith in man kind and faith in the church or temple of God(s). These are things I cannot have.
  2. For argument sake, god is perfect, man is imperfect. God created man imperfect yet holds us responsible for his mistake, as was observed by Gene Roddenberry. Also, Man is imperfect, thus all things of man are imperfect. The churches are institutions of man that dogmatically generate divine providence, which may be fundamentally flawed yet must be treated as the word of God. Dogmatic law itself is fundamentally flawed in this way.
  3. Religion is a reason or, as some would argue; the scapegoat for a great amount violence in this world. Muslim groups blow things up, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Bombings in Ireland, etc etc etc... All of these things are not moral nor are they ethical in my opinion, thus I cannot with good conscience associate myself with such groups.
  4. I was once told by a Nun that "Religion is not a salad bar", meaning you take the religion, the whole religion and nothing but the religion so help you God. Needless to say, this does not float my boat. All this leads to is outlandish interpretations (some seriously flawed) of religious doctrine for personal self-assurance and justification for perspectively flawed morality.
  5. I will assert that though I may not agree with some of the laws and stipulations of many religions, this does not in my mind necessarily make them bad. Unless a law of a religion violates my quasi-transcendental, personal code of morality (something itself which inherently must be imperfect, yes I know), I cannot, from my perspective, think of it badly. There are few laws that I feel are bad, and they are generally not "bad" enough to taint an entire religion to an evil pallor in my mind.
  6. Though no religion can help this one, it still is a touchy point for me. Long ago, most religions gave up the "Die all ye of heathen faiths" attitude. Most religions openly recognise the human right to have faith as you see fit. What I don't see is how any one religion can logically be any more correct than another. Were I to have fallen from the sky today, dumb to all religions and raised as a foundling, I would cling to the first religion presented to me. Chances are, no divine insight would help me while shopping around for faith. This just strikes me as... odd.

So perhaps this Node should be entitled "Why religion is fundamentally flawed" or "Why religion is naughty (not quite bad); because so many parts of it just don't make sense.