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[TorchTheWitch]

62. not by religion - by bigots within a religion or just plain bigots

And there is the problem many of us are seeing here. It isn't the religion that's the problem nor most of the followers nor most of the clergy but bigots that USE their religion as an excuse to be a bigot. The only exception I'm aware of is the upper echelons of the Roman Catholic Church, but they're so insulated from the real world (and purposely so) that they're clueless on what their own followers think and believe. The priests on the ground that actually live among every day people not so much. And those upper echelons are the most hypocritical corrupt money grubbing twits nearly as bad as the ones in the medieval days they so long to have back (and WHY they so long to have them back). Does that mean that Catholics are abandoning the Catholic faith? Some yes, perhaps most no... they just break with the Roman Catholic Church - the CHURCH, not so often the faith.

Personally, I really don't know what I believe anymore and often wish that I was more spiritual. Religious faith is very often a rock to cling to during traumatic times that allows people to suffer those times and get through them. It's hope where their reality has none.

I know all about the Westborough Baptist Church and how disgusting they are. I certainly don't classify them as a religion since it's all the twisted beliefs of a screaming hateful nutter and his extended family. They're just flaming bigots hiding behind their own made up "religion". Just like other bigots that USE their religion as a means to make themselves appear legitimate and worse to try to convince others they are. Because we no longer live in a by-gone era of ignorance the only people they attract are the ones that were already bigoted like they are. Hate doesn't win hearts and minds that weren't already hateful.

All of the "big three" Abrahamic religions have the same basic tenets - there's one god, there's an afterlife where you'll spend eternity either in a bad place paying for not being a good person and a good place you get to enjoy by being a good person. They all describe what things are good to be and what aren't... love your neighbor, turn the other cheek, heel the sick, feed the hungry, help the poor, etc., and don't kill, don't cheat, don't lie, don't steal, etc. All of their holy books describe these things as well as stories (parables) as examples of both goodness and badness. What all three all come down to is Be a Good Person and the incentive to be so. All the rest is arguing over fine print the purpose of which is almost always to find something to use to point to in order to justify intolerance and hate. They were also all written ages ago by ordinary people during a time and in a place where the culture and knowledge was extraordinarily different than today and outside of that specific region.