Atheists don't "reject" God. To reject something means you accept its existence.You may as well say you reject unicorns.

As for morality being God-given, that's utter nonsense. Religion is the ultimate act of selfishness and is totally amoral.

Religion dictates that you act only for the sake of avoiding punishment or to gain a personal reward - not for the goodness of act itself.

Salvation is something that is totally personal - it can't be traded or given away and that fear of inevitable death is the entire point of the existence of religion.

There would be countless burned harassed and slaughtered witches, Jews, heathens, infidels plus generations of slaves that may have a different view of the so-called moral blessings of religious belief.

Any social benefit from religion has long been swept away in the rivers of blood and the shattered lives it has produced.

The intent seems benign but it's the followers of such beliefs that fail and then everybody pays the price.

Morality is no more than an agreed set of social standards meant for that time and adjusted as required.

I don't understand why I'm paying taxes to subsidise a belief system that I don't belong to.
Let the Churches pay their own way - or does the Catholic Church have a secret Concordat with the Australian Government that guarantees their tax-free status?

Dear Belly,

I fully agree with Scribbler:

Scribbler described religion from a social point-of-view and concluded that it is a blessing to society. I would like now to continue from where he ended, deeper into the underlying cause:

Do we need air to breath?

Well the need for religion is even greater and more basic than that.

There is nothing but God - neither the air we breath, nor the water we drink or the food we eat, not even the thoughts we think, etc., including ourselves. Religion is the process of coming closer to God - and life is all about that: God discovering Himself. Without religion, without approaching God, there is simply no point to life.

We are all heading towards God, including the atheists among us and all others who comment here fiercely against religion, only some do it consciously, others not, some do it faster, other slower.

Now, as many contributors mentioned, there is the question of "organised religion" - and that's different, that indeed is not an absolute, so it does warrant a good discussion on a case-by-case basis.

An organised religion is an organisation that was set up for the purpose of promoting and accelerating religion. Organised religions need therefore be judged on their actual success: do they in fact promote religion as they claim to be doing? do they in fact accelerate the spiritual progress of their followers towards God - or do they perhaps achieve nothing or even the opposite?

We do sadly find groups who claim to be "a religion", but truly are not; or clergy who are in fact bad examples of religion and fail to inspire and accelerate religion in their flock; or scriptures not worth the scroll they are written on.

It is well and good to scrutinize religious groups and orders, there are justified reasons to be angry about some, but not to throw the baby with the bath-water.

Y I admire you commitment, once had it.
Do you not see it is unnerved by thoughts other than yours.
Can I yet again ask, with some feeling, what about all the other Gods?
No I will not except the SIMPLISTIC answer there is only one God.
The rest are false, not my view, yours.
Not good enough, God, every one of the many, created the heaven and the earth, no one else, not my view, yours.
We, even many of ANY FAITH learn and believe evolution.
The tax free part of religion is probably not as damaging as its stifling our ability to live together.
Yes we need a God.
But as all are mans invented crutches, fences not to be crossed, and as those things are dieing in modern Churches.
Start again, leave survival tools of the past,need to hate out neighbors out.
Construct a God that unites us all, that leaves no ground for child rape to be considered a sin not a crime.
That gets out of humanity's way as we learn to take responsibility for our actions.

>>There is nothing but God - neither the air we breath, nor the water we drink or the food we eat, not even the thoughts we think, etc., including ourselves. Religion is the process of coming closer to God - and life is all about that: God discovering Himself. Without religion, without approaching God, there is simply no point to life.

We are all heading towards God, including the atheists among us and all others who comment here fiercely against religion, only some do it consciously, others not, some do it faster, other slower.<<

If there is nothing but God we're not heading towards God: we're already there. So no need for religion.

Cheers,

Tony

"...So no need for religion."

If I require self-worship, yes there is.