Quote Originally Posted by trini_gsr
how is this different from the government saying "follow these laws and pay your taxes...or else you're going to JAIL"??? are they not driving obedience (aka "enforcing") through fear too?

most religions do exactly what you've mentioned...teach respect for human life and all of God's creation. and not all of them teach that there is punishment (hell) after death. not even all CHRISTIAN denominations believe in hell/torment.

true, but I am mostly referring to the evangelical zealots, and there is a high number of them too.

Government exists out of necessity, religion also sprang up out of necessity, but the need for our static religions like you said is dying.

Now that we have religious freedom in our age, new beliefs and faiths are springing up, some crazy and loony creations of centuries ago like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, to some more modern religions like Scientology.

There are other religions that put an emphasis on the faith of self discovery, such as Buddhism, and have never waged war on behalf of their religious figure head.

Christianity's and Islam's history are riddled with crusades and Jihads and just nonsense blood shed and genocide. Along with events such as the Spanish inquisition. With this history in mind every time a holy rolling jesus freak ever preaches the power of his all powerful and benevolent god, all I hear are words of hypocrisy.


Christianity and Islam really are bad religions, maybe not because of their teachings, but definitely because of their history.


Remember at one point Hitler claimed his conquest was for god.