RiverDog wrote:It's that period of time back in the early to mid 80's that I aquired a healthy disrespect for all religions due to televangelism and other religious enterprises taking advantage of the elderly. It's the root cause of my stance in the Tim Tebow debates from years ago.
You shouldn't judge something based on the negative folks that represent it. For every lousy guy publicized, there are a bunch of good folks helping people. Religion encourages a lot of helpful behavior. Most of the religious folk I've met are middle of the road, rote believers who are major hypocrites that have never actually read The Bible of any of the holy books. I've seen the scammers like you who are real bastards preying on those looking for hope and purpose. I've also met some very kind, community-oriented people who are highly religious driven by what they believe to be a higher purpose. Religion was built to govern and manage people, those that follow the positive elements of that management generally make good members of society.
If you don't believe because the entire mythical foundation of the belief system was written by people trying to define the world thousands of years ago and it's about as true as people of that time could manage (meaning mostly BS), then we're in the same club. No matter how kindly or dedicated the people I met were, I just can't buy into false material. I hate idol worship and worship of just about anything. Cold, calculating reason should drive the world tempered with occasional influx of emotion to soften implementation of hard, necessary components to a well-functioning, effective society focused on building strong humans with the intention of survival and advancement.