Easy times,
You're right, so many people, so many religions, beliefs.

Makes one wonder who DID in actual fact create heaven and earth, does it not?

We all question the what if's, the why's and get told the answer is in the bible, if we do not find it and dare to ask where it is, we get shown a passage that only resembles the answer we are looking for.
Should we god a question and we do not get an answer, we get told "the lord works in mysterious ways.

It's an individual thing.

Cakers interesting post, but you do miss something if you do not read every post.
In my view it is worth while and on returning we should read every post after our last, it keeps us from silly replies to miss understood posts.
Some posters on both sides have lets say blamed the other for this debate.
I question why in some circles we are told we should never discuss religion?
Is it fear we may learn something?
I also find no reason people should not be free to practice religions, any of them.
But question the blindness that says my God made all things.
Who made the other Gods?
The immense, huge question, is in the beginning what was there?
I am not getting down on my knees for a God that openly says his people are not mine, but the people of Israel.
Again I think man is one ,without Gods to divide us we could achieve much.
My dad is better than your dad is a child's game.

As an atheist, the various quotations provided by wobbles collectively come closest to my personal perception of "God/s". I particularly liked this one:

“Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.”

Exactly!

Belly mate....

when God called Israel to be his chosen people.. they were chosen for a reason..'not' because of anything virtuous about themselves, but in order to bring the light of Salvation to the world....

They were appointed to a task....not to specialness in its own right.

I note CJ is still beginning with his conclusions, and concluding with his presuppositions :)

wobbles and CJ, what's wrong with my hair colour?

Maybe I should pray for a change.

Pericles,

“It would make absolutely no sense whatsoever if a family, ... were to invent the kind of religion you suggest. In fact, it would have the exact opposite effect, wouldn't it - it would divide the society into anarchic factions which would ultimately wipe each other out.”

You are absolutely correct with your observation. How do you explain atheism and the increasing tendency to do just what Boazy said? You are correct that it doesn’t make sense but you need to realize humans do not always do what make sense and can’t be relied upon to invent a sensible God.

Wobbles,

Your favourite quotes do point to a sound byte society increasingly saturated with information with less time to reason. That clearly works against religion. Why wonder about the meaning of life when you can scoff with a cute quote?

Belly,

I was a little over focused on a statistic that I had heard. The big numbers are in that denomination so if that gets overtaken there isn’t much distance left to travel. I was attempting to politely hint that there might not be vastly greater numbers of people in the Islamic faith if it was outnumbered by a single denomination fairly recently.

I’m glad that you are open to the good in religions. I agree with you that most religions tend to have a good in them to be located.

Cakers,

Funnily enough I think of Vietnamese as being Christian. Is my stereotype reasonable from the stats? Do you know one way or another?

Kartiya Jim,

If you don’t see any scoffers look at Wobbles post and your last sentence. Not to mention the dogmatic pronouncement of Pericles:

“The creation of gods - along with all the abrogation of personal decision-making that such a move entails - is simply a support mechanism for people without sufficient internal resources to come to terms with their existence and the world around them, on their own.”