On the Subject of Religion

I would like to start off by stating my advocacy of the movie Religulous; I strongly recommend it to everyone. The film expresses satirical resentment toward religion by explaining that religions have major flaws and holes in their theories that most people do not acknowledge. For example, he describes how almost every religion has an almost identical story that fits the format of the Jesus Christ story of the virign birth and etc. Bill Maher makes many valid points and his general thesis that religion will lead to the downfall of mankind is, for the most part correct in my opinion. However, I do not think abolishing religion would accomplish anything because (as was illustrated in the South Park episode where, in the future, otters fight not over religion but over the name of their atheist establishments) our petty disputes will inevitably continue because that behavior is clearly in our human nature. On the other hand, religious extremism should indeed be supressed because some literal interpretations of relgious texts can lead to absurd acts of violence.

As for me personally, I am surprisingly not religious at all but I relate most closely to deism and/or agnosticism. Deists believe that a God created the earth but does not intervene with its affairs and therefore fosters no organized religious "faith". Agnosticism (which is composed of many more specific branches) generally asserts that the knowledge of God, the afterlife, the beginning and the end of the world are unknown and impossible to ever know. This approach does not answer the questions that people want answered through religion but it takes the most logical approach and does not make the "leaps of faith" that religions make.

Another possibility that I find plausible is that god is our free will and train of thought. If, as so many claim, I have the total freedom to choose to do whatever I want, the only way God could interfere would be if he simultaneously exists as the paths people take in their minds to make decisions and thoughts. This leads to a pressing question that I often consider: are peoples' trains of thought what allow for creativity and unique decisions? If everyone took the same paths when thinking about things, wouldn't they all lead to the same conclusion and wouldn't new ideas cease to exist?

Thus concludes my first thought. Apologies for spelling mistakes.