Yana Usdi

I'll skip the Jesus bit and just answer as far as religion itself goes. If people want to prove their righteousness they could feed the poor, treat the sick, clothe and house the homeless, or any number of other things. If people want to beat their chests and pretend they are good people without making any real effort to actually be that, then we've got religion.

I'd have more respect for it if they did what they were supposed to do but they never do.

Hell, I will touch on the Jesus bit real quick. People claim to be Christian, right? Doesn't that mean they follow Christ? Seems to me he said, among other things, the following.

Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. So what do we have? Politicians beating the bible on the campaign trail, the TV filled with them, and so on.

Here's another favorite. Matthew 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. In other words as you judge, so shall you be judged. I always took that as saying if you judge others harshly by your standards you'll also be judged harshly by the standards of others.

It goes on and on about how you're supposed to do things and most people today, so called "Bible believing Christians" especially, don't seem to have a clue what the bible even says.

And for what it's worth, the assumption that those who don't believe must not have read the thing? Untrue. Most educated atheists I've met have read it, and for a lot, including my wife and myself, that is when and why we lost faith. We actually read the thing. It doesn't make a damned bit of sense and in parallel reading the same stories across multiple books it doesn't even agree with itself. Prohibitions against drinking blood in the old testament for instance contrasted with drinking and eating the blood and body of Christ at communion. And this is why I don't debate religion much. I don't really want to attack the faith of others if they've got a use for it, but for me it's empty. About as useful, and with about as much moral grounding, as Aesop's fables.

An Atheist I once knew put it like this. People often ask me if I can find ANY wisdom in TheBible(TM)... My answer is, "Of course, as long as you take it out of context."