Totally agree. The only surprise is that so many people still believe. Faith schools of whatever denomination perpetuate the myths and should be banned with no public money used to support them. Perhaps then Jews and Moslems, Catholics and Protestants, Sunni and Shia, etc...etc...etc will realise that we are all human and live in peace and not slaughter the innocent.

Religion has been and still is the cause of a lot of problems in the world we know but faith in something ( Not necessarily religion)you believe in can be a great comfort to many in times of stress so for that reason I won't condemn those that believe. Prayer to whoever can be a powerful thing and don't underestimate that power until you have to seek help yourself.

When you stop and think about it most of us believe in something and if whatever you or others believe in is doing no harm I say.

To Each His own and Good luck to you All.

Via Condios

"Work out your own salvation with diligence"

Admirable words undoubtedly bravely spoken. However I would suggest we understand exactly what Salvation means.

For me I too must be honest, for like Pontius Pilate, who actually was historically proven to be that man of the time, the Roman Governor of Judea, I can also say of Christ, that I find no fault with this man!

If we all lived by the principle of do unto others,as you would want them to do to you....the world would improve overnight!

Text got doubled up somehow???

Very true, cocoman. The Catholic Church alone is worth billions, though somewhat less in America where they are practically bankrupt due to being sued by all the children that the priests abused.

Anyway, Christianity is one big money making exercise. I'm surprised that seeing as you worship money so much yourself, you haven't thought about starting a religion. It's got to be easier than trying to scrape a living around here, and you don't even have to get your hands dirty.

L. Ron Hubbard did that and created Scientology. He said himself that religion is where the money is, and lo and behold some of Hollywood's top stars fell for it and joined up. Hubbard did not die a pauper either, and neither did the character who started the Moonies.

There's big money out there in the religion business if you've got the balls to go for it and start one off. You just have to think of some religious angle that none of the others have. And remember, human beings are ready to believe anything you tell them if they think it fills some need in their empty lives. That need is there to be exploited, and that's how all the established churches have made such a good living for the top honchos who run them. It's worth thinking about.

That's a little statistic I've seen more than once. The Jewish Yahweh was originally a war god anyway, as they all were in the ancient world. Wars were fought between tribes or races who each had their own gods, and it was these gods who were victorious or defeated at the end of it, not the people themselves. It was all down to which god was the stronger.

Anyway, the notion of god has changed over the millenia, and they now try to put it about that the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim god is one of love. I see precious little of that in the modern era, where from a muslim standpoint it's a virtue to blow yourself to smithereens and take as many infidels with you as you can.

The Jews of course still nurture the false notion that their god gave them the land of Israel, and that's caused umpteen problems since 1947\48. There's a trail of death and suffering since then over this false claim to a land that was won by massacres in the first place, if the Bible is to be believed.

Then the Christians have their own unenviable record of persecuting other faiths, or even different notions of the same faith. There have been a lot of burning stakes, torture, wars, and suffering along the way, and we're still learning about the nasty events of this so-called religion of love and peace.

They'd still be persecuting the "ungodly" if they had their way, except that today science has proven their narrow little viewpoints to be totally false, and luckily we've become much more secular. The funny thing is, we're still basically a very moral and caring society despite having abandoned this religion. Thus proving that you don't need it to be a good person.

Let's face it, the god followers don't have a monopoly on kindness and virtue. You can still care about your fellow human beings without worshipping any god. In fact, I believe it's more likely that you'll be a good person if you ditch this religious thing altogether.

It's built into us anyway as part of our survival mechanism, and has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It's just that religion has usurped that goodness and told us that you can only be moral and caring if you're a religious person. Some religious people have even said to me that no matter how good a person you are, if you're an unbeliever you're going to hell anyway.

Ah well, you can't argue with that kind of logic, so I've given up on it altogether.