Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins
Out of context: Reply #109
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I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. I will live and die a happy Agnostic.
I’ve been seriously questioning my religion and have reached an important conclusion; I believe in A God but not in religion. I can’t prove God exists, and neither can you. Yes I believe Jesus Christ existed, I’ve been to Paris and have seen his crown of thorns in person. But do I believe he is the Son of God? Hell No.
There are 21 major world religions, the four major ones being Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Yet Christianity alone has 34,000 separate identifiable Christian groups throughout the world.
Isn’t obvious? People just need SOMETHING to BELIEVE in.
Everyone has faith in something, whether it's God, Buddha, the absence of a god or themselves. We all worship; it's one of the things that separates us from the animals. Religion to me is a person's beliefs. Some people believe in a supreme being. Others do not. Some people worship in a church of sort with others who share their beliefs. Others do not; I am one of those people.
So much religious diversity lies in the past rather than the present. Religions of the distant past tend to be labeled "mythology" rather than religion and are dismissed. Greek Mythology was once treated as being just as "true" as modern adherents of religions like Christianity. Were these people wrong? Were their beliefs wrong? Hardly anyone today believes them, which means just about everyone thinks that they were empirically incorrect. Yet at the same time, they were utterly convinced of the truth of their own religion.
My great ancestors the ancient Mayans and Aztecs believed the Sun to be their God. Every morning it rose from the dead and gave life to the crops and lit their world, which in turn gave them life. Sounds like a perfectly good reason to worship the Sun, It helps you live for Christ sake!
All religions are incompatible in terms of who or what is worshiped. To put it simply: they can't all be true, but they can all be false.
I'm not sure if everyone fully appreciates all the implications that diversity can have for the religious beliefs that they so devoutly and fervently hold to. Do they realize, for example, that others have held to their religious beliefs just as devoutly and just as fervently?
The Bible for instance! Do people not realize that MAN wrote this book? Not only written but REWRITTEN...NUMEROUS times. It started out by word of mouth, and if you’ve ever attended high school you know that gossip becomes embellished as it’s passed on. By the time it gets back to you, you have people walking on water, parting seas and every animal on earth on a small little boat.
Don't get me wrong, there are things about religion that I hold dear and respect entirely. Christianity and Islam for instance teach and are founded by Peace and Love. Buddhism focuses on inner peace and respect. But there was peace and love before Christianity; I don’t need a religion to practice these things. Out of respect of my culture I will still get married in a Catholic church and will introduce my children to religion and let them decide for themselves.
Strip away all the rituals, celebrations, traditions and other things that define any particular religion, and we are left with something that every organized religion holds dear: GOODNESS. Religion is a guide for people to be good. We are human and humans make mistakes. Mistakes are part of being human. Some religions have lots of rules. Some people need lots of rules.
The fact of the matter is you or I will NEVER know for sure, at least not until we die, so why argue over proof that isn't there.
Agnostic, Atheist or Christian -- in the end it all amounts to faith.
And so I have lost my religion, but not my soul.