Discussion of the topic of religion, more than any other topic, enlightens me about how willfully and stubbornly stupid some people can and are quite proud to be...

At great lengths, the effort is made to put the fear of hell into children when they have not yet developed critical thinking skills and will believe anything mummy, daddy and grown-ups say. By the time they grow up to develop and employ critical thinking skills to every other facet of life (hopefully) they fear a hell and are brainwashed from a young age so skillfully to crave a heaven that they put up that mental block between they're normal intelligent thought process and religion. Even questioning it is frowned upon as not "having faith" as is the self-preservationist clause inherent in it.
Such people are past the ability to look at religion reasonably and will always fear questioning something they grew up being taught and what they're parents grew up being taught etc etc. To think "just because some thing has always been thought to be true, does it make it true?" is a hell sentence to some.
I am not interested in debating such people who can not and who will not think for themselves and are willfully and stubbornly ignorant.

i hear ya..that is why i have yet to discuss religion with my son, who is 13...his father is asian and buddhist and i'm christian, but he will form his own ideas on what he wants to believe.

I am not interested in debating at all. I'm known at my church as the "why" girl. I have no interest in a faith that forbids me to understand why I believe what I believe.

I thought you were going somewhere else with this at first. I thought you would make a comment on the lack of open-mindedness and arrogence of some people who think that what they have been taught...or have come to believe....is the only truth and that anyone who deviates at all from what they believe is wrong or going to hell or something. That would have been cool. I can totally discuss THAT.

The fact that children are raised to believe a certain thing or think a certain way, especially when it causes fear.....well that's just simply collateral damage from this arrogence. Sorry you are so frustrated by it, but I really don't think we can attribute this to "mental retardation".

My son is mentally retarded and I will ask you nicely to not confuse mental retardation with being stupid. My son is as smart as he can be, but sometimes he acts stupid. Stupid is doing something you should know better than to do. Mental retardation is a reduced ability to comprehend. The two are obviously not the same.

i sincerely apologize to have offended you. I will make the necessary changes

Well, I was born and raised a Catholic. But, at a very young age, I started questioning certain things. I always had questions, ones that were never really answered in a way I was comfortable with. So, I first left the church then discarded Christianity altogether. It was not an easy decision I made, came through a lot of questioning both what I was taught and what felt right within my own soul.

My son has never been raised in any religion, a very conscious choice of mine. His father is Catholic, his best friend is Muslim, his aunt is Jewish and if I have to label myself, it would have to be buddhist, though I'm not entirely comfortable with that designation. He is taught about religion from an intellectual standpoint. I figure someday, something might resonate within his soul and he may choose to be something. Or, he may not. Either way I believe it is something he needs to decide for himself.

The doctrine of Chrsitianity is truly a doctrine that is based on both brainwashing techniques as well as intimidation.

In other words the Bible is a brainwashing book.

Christians will deny this, but that is totatlly irrelavent and doesn't change the truth.

It a religion that is based on brainwashing and intimidation.

No doubt about. You hit the nail on the head with that one.

Any creator of this universe could not possible be as stupid as the Bible make him out to be.

I found better ways to worship the creator of this universe.

Christians will claim that I'm worshiping a false God. But that's hogwash.

There is no such thing as a false God if you are worshiping the creator of this unvierse.

Any way that you worship your creator is indeed worshiping your creator.

So the idea of something as like as "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me", is utterly stupid.

I don't put any God above the creator of this universe, and any God who claims that I'm not worshiping it then must also be claiming that it is not the creator of this universe, because that's who I'm worshiping.

And I totally denounce the Bible as totally negative garbage. The Bible is not God.

People who worship the Bible are worshiping the thoughts of ancient men.

They are not worshiping the creator of this universe.

The other day my Atheist friend and me were told to wheel the residents down to church. We both got upset because before hand it wasn't our job. But like me she did as we were told. It reminded of the scripture of; "Suffer the children to come unto me." And I found it to be true because even thought it might be helpful if they were aware of what the preacher was preaching to them it wasn't our place to question. We had both had learned the lesson of damn if you do and damned if you don't. But we got a nice break while the church suffered the residents. But eventually the church service was over and it was our turn to suffer the residents, again. It was nice while it lasted, though.

My mom was raised Christian, my dad, Jewish. I was not raised with religion, but with Spirituality (yeah... that could mean anything, right?).

Thank you, Jasmine, for reminding me from where many religious people are coming.

Many have been raised (conditioned) to believe based partly on belonging. It makes complete sense that it could seem that a non-religious person questioning another's religious beliefs might seem like a threat to all that has seemed sacred. As if questioning tries to take something away from another.

Critical thinking doesn't always seem to enter the picture when a Christian feels their beliefs are somehow being threatened.

Perhaps forced introduction of beliefs prior to the proper development of critical thinking could result in a somewhat stunted ability to think critically.

God WANTS us to Question.

And To Seek and Find!!!!

God does NOT want us to just follow blindly ....

simply because someone told us to follow
(that's religion for you.... not relationship).

God ONLY wants us to follow Him.....ONLY IF WE BELIEVE!!!!

BUT...

GETTING TO THE POINT OF BELIEVING , COMES FROM
HEARING
AND HEARING
BY THE WORD OF GOD!!!!


Once more ...

GOD WANTS RELATIONSHIP...

NOT RELIGION....

with His people He Created.

Im not feeling really inspired today so I stole this from another thread.

"The men of Israel wandered around the desert for 40 years...
even in biblical times, they wouldn't ask for directions."

Tee Hee!

I know what you're sayin'...

Where's the Passion?

True Christianity is not about brainwashing....

but about accepting and beleiving on the Lord Jesus Christ....
by FAITH!!!!

And that decision must be made WILLINGLY.........
and MUST come from the HEART....ONLY...
in order to be truly Born Again...
NOT from the Head!!!

If someone makes a decision to follow Christ ....

but makes the decision because someone else is telling him/her to.....
then
that decison only comes from the head...
and NOT from the HEART.. ..
and all that person will ever have found is DEAD RELIGION...
disguised as Christianity... and nothing else!!!

And that person will either probably eventually get bored
and leave ...
(cause there was no REAL heart change....made WILLINGLY from the heart)....

or ....

that person will stay stuck
in dead religiousity...
thinking that is what christianity is all about.

And there will be no fruits evident in that person't life..cause nothing has changed in that person's life.

Just dead religiosity flowing from his/her life.
Nothing more....

And satan loves to see this happening to people.....and laughs....

but let him laugh...

cause

God is still on the throne...

and

the VICTORY has already been WON...

by what

JESUS already did on that cross...

and

the devil has already lost....

but

he just doesn't know it yet.

One of my sisters went though a Born-Again-Christian phase when I was 18. She had a Pastor come to our house to do the deal. He asked me if I was ready to accept... yada, yada, yada. I wanted to be... really. I actually sat down to join my sister in support. As the Pastor spoke, I realized that it didn't feel real to me. As hard as it was to stop him in the middle of his passion-filled speaking, I had to.

It MUST be in my heart in order for me to embrace it.

The Pastor was very appreciative when I explained that it didn't feel real to me and that I needed to respectfully decline.

Well I guess I can say something on this topic. I hate to constantly lay ALL the blame on Christianity. My feeling is ANY fundamentalist religion that people insist on following blindly is bound to cause problems. In fact no one should ever feel they need to do that under any circumstances. As soon as you feel that your human right to question is being withheld or compromised, then its not a good situation for you to be in and you need to stand up for yourself and reassess. The only other places that goes on is dictatorship run small countries and prison. Americans are also the most religiously ignorant people in the western world. There is a tremendous emphasis put on blind adherence to a lot of lunacy or whatever they have been taught since childhood.

You always have the right to question dogmatic theology and especially if you are a woman.

And That's the way it should be done...

allowing one to make a decision on their own....

and understanding when one is not ready to....

Jasmine wrote:

<<<<<.....To think "just because some thing has always been thought to be true, does it make it true?" ....>>>>


```````````````
Jasmine.....

Just to THINK it?
No.
That does Not make it true for you.



YOU HAVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH FOR YOURSELF !!!!

KNOW!!!!

And KNOWING .......

TRULY KNOWING....

COMES

FROM

THE

HEART....

not the thinker(mind).


KNOW the TRUTH

and

the

TRUTH

SHALL SET YOU FREE!!!

Truly 40 years isn't even a reasonable number!

I mean the most complete idiots could have found their way out of a dessert simply be alwasy walking toward where the sun rises, and away from where it sets. They could do the same thing with the stars.

Walking in the same direction constantly is bound to get you out of a desert in less than a year!

You'd have to be complete utter moron to wander around aimlessly in a desert for 40 years! That's damn near a half a century!

They could have walked around the world in less time than that.

The story is utter nonsense.

Clearly.

Look deeeeeep into my eeeeeyes........