Something to bash on

[kandrathe]

As for the derail... I know I am a little tired of discussing Pedophiles.

I believe it is easier to be religious. That doesn't make it any more right or wrong, but I believe it leaves a bigger vulnerability towards weaker-willed people then the alternatives. These are the people who will follow the stronger willed, no matter the reasoning. This leads to people distorting religions towards their own purpose ... if the lemmings are to be led, why not lead them the easy way?

Back when I was in college I used this very same argument, that is "Religion is a crutch for the weak minded, or weak willed and powerful userous 'Preachers' manipulated them for their money and as power base for their own selfish gain." Now I think that only sometimes it is that way, and the discerning tend to recognize the sham or sometimes it is exposed as the fraud it is (like with Jim and Tammy Baker). As long as there are snakes in this world, there will be snake-oil salesmen. All people are fallable, and power corrupts. I've run into those lemmings too who have no basis in their belief, and no firm ground on which to stand. Sometimes they are Christian, sometimes they are Republicans, or Democrats, and lots of them are "something else"ists. My study of Tao and Buddhism have taught me that the path is longer for some, but I should still encourage those on the journey to walk it. The quests of our species seems to be enlightenment and immortality, and most any appeal to these base desires will attract adherents. The difficulty is in choosing your path.

I spoke about the hypocrisy in my post above, but I know I'm not the only person who has had bad experiences with close minded so-called Christians. I resent trying to have discussions with people who spout bible verses at me (out of context) to justify their usually selfish position but have little clue about the big picture of humanity and their role in the cosmos, how to live by the principles of the book they are thumping, or put actions behind their holier than thou positions. For a person to claim to understand the positions of Christianity, they need to look at the life examples of Christianities major architects. The distortions you fear will ring hollow to the discerning and eventually will fail. Sometimes those distortions are horrible and take along time, such as with Slavery, or the Inquisition. These types of wrong-headed ideas would have a hard time taking root in the doctrines of the modern age, due to values humanity has begun to believe in as strongly (or stronger), such as democracy, equality, liberty, and human rights.

Now you can substitute Islam, or Judaism, or many other philosophies into my prior statements above and it applies as well. Good ideas are frequently perverted by the self-serving and power hungry. The testament of any cause worthy of supporting is not just in what ideas are advocated, but more importantly what actions they are willing to perform to see their ideas acted upon. Christ would be happy to see people feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, curing the sick, giving hope to the hopeless and preached a philosophy of love and cooperation. Other religious doctrines are not as nice. My acid test on doctines are to measure the outcomes of the actions proscribed based on how they improve and uplift peoples lives, protect the planet, promote freedom, justice and equality.

The hardest part for agnostics is not the believing in the good works or the goodness aspects, but rather they get hung up in the details of creation myths or the mystery and metaphysics of how a God could exist. I did hear a pretty good answer recently, "If God were easily explained he wouldn't be much of a god." The crux of faith is getting to "Yes", and unfortunately (probably by design) there will never be any certainty of it. There is no scientific explanation since there is nothing observable, and speculation is fun but fruitless. People just need to study up and decide for themselves. But it is one thing to get to "Yes", and quite another to live "Yes".

I would offer that real Christians humbly perform good works as they can with little or no recompense in continual service to God and are pretty uninterested in what other people think about what they are doing. Evangelism is one of those "good works" which can be annoying to some people, but there are also all those other things people really appreciate as well. If we judge these people, it should be on their good deeds rather than the philosophy that brought them to performing the deeds.

In the United States it is easiest to claim to be a Christian, but then not really follow through with it. This is the bulk of Christianity in America, and maybe 20% of those claiming to be Christians really walk the talk while most of the others dabble in it. That is the hypocrisy you and I see, and how so many get suckered in by snake-oil salesmen.