My contact with various people high up in certain religious groups (Protestants, some Catholics and Lubavitch, in particular) lead me to conclude that many people are inducted into religious institutions and taught fertilizer "for their own good and for the good of society".
Even a philosophy professor I had in college told me "for the sake of creating a society we can lie." Personally, I don't buy it.
I bellieve that even the largest ball of twine unwinds. You reap as you sow and if you sow curruption, you reap spiritually defective goods.
My mother had a Chabad pamphlet on Chanukah which said, "and little children, just like you, were willing to sacrifice their lives for this pure, holy religion." Then when I met the higher ups in that organization (stopping short of the Rebbe though), it appeared that they didn't believe in their own tripe.
But they still teach a defective doctrine to their thralls and isn't that the kick? And people who know better, go along with it because there's "something in it" for them.
My Uncle, who's a famous Jewish author (he wrote a book called "Judaism on the Web", once told me that they ".... get you when your young and impressionable and they teach you certain things..." I'm not even sure exactly what believes in.
And to grouse more about some Jewish friends and some of my relatives (without mentioning who they are) they're informed me that I "have to keep kosher, because my parents keep kosher. But they don't have to, because their parents didn't". And another friends of mine's parents gave me the same attitude too.
Why do people believe you can't be an iconoclast? When you think of it, the founder of Judaism, Abraham was. Literally.
I'd l ike to see the day, when science has more of the answers about what people should do with their lives, not to mention how we all got there. I believe only it what's duplicable and provable.
But the indoctrination process starts as soon as a child goes to a parochial school when it comes to religion. As who's to say which religion really is most correct? I've never seen a hand come out of the sky to sort the situation out.

I have to disagree on Brainwashing being used by every religion. Most mainstream Protestant denominations tend to offer a more skeptical view on "religion". In many cases, "religion" is the enemy because it implies something standing between man and God. There can be constant struggle between collectivism and individualism but, for the most part, individualism wins.

I have been on both sides (atheist and Christian) and I have found that the squeaky wheel of artillery-like Evangelism gets the most attention. In reality, it is very rare in the Christian faith. Christianity, in its pure form, is too simple to be an adequate bath for the brain.

I can't take seriously the belief that Jesus walked on water, resurrected the dead, et al. I believe all of this is mythology and was known to be such by the people who wrote the New Testament. My belief is that the founders of most religions simply
mythologize their system to sell it. It's the founders of the world's religions that I have the most beef with, not the people who came later. The latter were usually trying to straighten out ther mess their predecessors created.

I can't take seriously the idea that we are descended from fish. That doesn't mean it isn't true. It is either true or false regardless of what I believe.

If Jesus is God, walking on water isn't that difficult considering He made Heaven and Earth.

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VTHokie
I can't take seriously the idea that we are descended from fish. That doesn't mean it isn't true. It is either true or false regardless of what I believe.

If Jesus is God, walking on water isn't that difficult considering He made Heaven and Earth.

We differ in our axioms and therefore come to different conclusions. I believe that Jesus was a mere mortal subject to death and had a very large ego. I fail to see how a human being who was only 2 thousand years ago on this earth could create a universe which is millions of years older.
Again, every logical argument proceeds from what you start from. From my perspective, all these so-called miracles happened 6 thousand miles away, 2 thousand or more years ago and of course all of us in modern America where we have cloning, computers, cars, planes (and didn't they say "if man were made to fly Goc would have given us wings) including the net, organ transplants etc, have never seen anything like what's in those ancient textbooks.
Another supposition among the people who promote these religious works is that the people who saw them were somehow spiritually "more right with God" than us and therefore, they merited to see these miracles. Furthermore, they also believe that it was in God's plan to phase out the miracles to "test us".
Personally, I believe only in what's scientific and duplicable.
I don't believe in the supernatural and God to me is a natural entity. Limited too, not all-powerful and able to walk on water, et al..

If I purely believed in the scientific, I would have no reason to believe that Jesus existed at all. As an atheist, I certainly didn't.

I think science is on the verge of breakthroughs in many areas.
And once those breakthroughs are made, a lot of religious doctrine will either go out the window or be altered.

[i:ef8a2e310e]And once those breakthroughs are made, a lot of religious doctrine will either go out the window or be altered[/i:ef8a2e310e]

Possibly although science has a habit of changing over time. The whole global cooling vs global warming debate is a perfect indication of that. And remember, you can't prove a negative. You can only prop it up.

When science states a fact, there will always be someone using science to disprove it.

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VTHokie
[i:47f96e7120]And once those breakthroughs are made, a lot of religious doctrine will either go out the window or be altered[/i:47f96e7120]

Possibly although science has a habit of changing over time. The whole global cooling vs global warming debate is a perfect indication of that. And remember, you can't prove a negative. You can only prop it up.

When science states a fact, there will always be someone using science to disprove it.

Nobody disputes the basic axioms in chemistry. And I just read in Popular Science magazine how monkeys are being implanted with sensors to be able to play video games. Science in striding forth by leaps and bounds.