02-05-2012, 07:04 AM
My dad used to say that religion was largely irrelevant as the
number of faiths was so vast as to guarantee that people of any
moral persuasion (good, evil, ambivalent, indifferent,
entrepreneurial, ...) could find one that supported their views.
Religion was an effect, not a cause.
He thought it was just fine to believe in any religion you wanted
as this didn't have much of an effect on your already established
morals/character. (i.e. Apply that old adage about judging people
by how they treated you, not by what they said they believed
[or didn't].)
... I'm a scientific atheist who thinks that the probability of
"external" god(s) is vanishingly small. If god(s) really do exist,
they are acting in a manner so random as to preclude any proof of
their existence (at least so far).
BTW, I say "external" because there's convincing psychological proof
that god(s) internal to individuals/groups really do exist. (See
separate discussion thread on cybernetics and cybernetics-of-cybernetics.)
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions