Quote Originally Posted by KevinFinnerty
I should start off by saying that I consider myself agnostic, as I acknowledge the possibility that there may be a higher power out there somewhere but I certainly wouldn't say I believe in a god.

Now, I could write volumes about how preposterous the notion of religion is (for this discussion I will focus exclusively on the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), but the fundamental flaw I referred to in the thread title revolves around one question for you religious people out there: why exactly did you choose the religion that you adhere to? In other words, why have you chosen to follow Christianity instead of Judaism, or Judaism instead of Islam, etc.?

On the one hand, religious people like to emphasize that empirical evidence of any kind is not needed to believe in their religion, and that faith in the face of this lack of evidence is virtuous. However, a person must have some rhyme or reason for picking one religion over another, right? I mean, people don't just pick their religions randomly, do they? Of course not (you'd probably be stoned to death in many Muslim countries for even suggesting such a notion).

The one incredibly fallacious line of reasoning that I want to discuss which people to tend to use to justify their belief in a given religion is that they believe because they like the message that the religion sends out. You might hear a Christian say something along the lines of, "I believe in Christianity because I read the Bible and that Jesus preached a lot of things that I agree with and did a lot of really great things for a lot of people." However, preferring the tenets and principles of one religion over the others does not make it more likely that the events and information the religion describes are actually true. It's reverse logic; you're basically saying to yourself, "It would be really great if this were true, so I will believe it is true." For people who think this way, ignorance really is bliss.

To state the fundamental flaw I mentioned earlier a little more clearly, the fact that faith in the face of a complete lack of evidence is a requirement in the Abrahamic religions makes the whole thing a paradox. Consider this situation: two people live identically pure and altruistic lives, except one believed wholeheartedly that Jesus was the son of God and died for our sins and all that jazz, while the other believed nothing of the sort, claiming that it would be foolish to believe such a concept over other concepts like those put forth in Judaism or Islam, which are presented with the same degree of evidence (or lack thereof). Would a supposedly just and loving God who does not possess human characteristics like arrogance and pettiness really send the first person to eternal paradise, and the second to eternal damnation, even though they lived identical lives with regards to how they treated themselves and others? Herein lies the fundamental flaw in religion as I see it, and its only one of many flaws in the idea of religion as we know it. I'll probably discuss the others in separate threads, as this post has gotten kind of long.
well Ive been to many muslim countries and they wouldnt stone you to death for that, etc malaysia, bangladesh, egypt, indonesia. Maybe religion might not be the right thing for you but there's no need to insult anyone now is there.