Religion: Controversial but Needs To Be Said

This comes on the wheels of watching Bill Maher's documentary "Religulous" in which he spends hours at different places around the world trying to prove that religion doesn't exist and people who believe in any higher being are idiots. For anyone who doesn't know, Bill Maher specializes in trying to prove that he's the smartest man in the world who knows everything and enjoys making groups of people look stupid. So I watched the documentary really just to see how he came at the subject. Although I disagree with him in general, some of his points I agreed with and they prompted me to sort out my interesting and controversial views on religion. I consider myself more spiritual than actually religious for a few different reasons. But Maher went way overboard in his total condemnation of all religion and faith as a whole. I know somebody's not gonna like me for some of the things I may say, but we've been thru that before.

• The Bible isn't a history book and shouldn't be treated as such. Maher and anyone else who dismisses religion as childhood fantasy automatically argues that the Bible makes no sense in a historical and scientific context. This is an easy way of getting religious people tongue-tied becuz they can't explain it. However, modern science has only been around for about 400-500 years and the Bible chronicles events much older, written by non-scientific minds. And most importantly (pay attention, this is most important), the Bible should be taken for its lessons and concepts rather than scrutinized for its minute details and scientific inaccuracies. I can't explain the details of virgin birth to you, that's the point, it's a divine process. I'll be perfectly honest although it sounds blasphemous to religious purists, I'm not sure everything in the Bible happened, or happened just as it was said to have happened. Had I picked up the Bible like a history book and read it, I would have called it bullshit too. But that's not how I think about it. That doesn't take away from my comprehension of the events and very valuable lessons offered by the book.
• Core religious beliefs are unshakable once a person devotes his/herself to them; This is a gift and a curse. Unfortunately, text is not as concrete as it seems in the minds of different people. Someone will say or live by something completely ridiculous and you can not change their minds because "it's my religious belief." These differences in interpretations led to fundamentalists justifying terrorism despite most all major religions advocating peace and condemning violence. But no matter how warped they've construed the text, when they say that's their belief you might as well stop arguing because you're not going to change their minds. People like to paint Islam as this religion of crazies that all have their minds set on jihad; that's not true. The extremists of Islam, as with every major religion, construe the text how they'd like to and convince followers that they're obligated to kill anyone who doesn't pledge allegiance to their religion. No one Christianity advocated violence, but the Great Crusades were wars waged throughout Europe in the name of the Christian faith. Others use religion as a means for extorting people's money for personal gain - some evangelists or mega-church preachers - despite most major religions frowning upon the collection of material wealth. But moral faith that religion provides can be a great gift to mankind also...
• I fundamentally believe that people need to have faith. What makes the concept of karma - the golden rule - work for people? What seems to save people from losing themselves when something very bad happens in their lives? What consistently has rescued people who have gone completely off-track with their lives? Faith. In each of these cases, people benefited from having something to believe in. If u don't have it, there would be no motivation to live ur life better or act morally at all. People deserve to have their faiths rewarded and any religious person has stories of this nature reflecting how their faith has come through for them or others around them that they know. There's a woman who used to be on my school's track team who was diagnosed with cancer, had to get her knee joint replaces due to the damage, and had to go through chemotherapy. However, during this entire process she was upbeat and cheerful to the point where I felt bad, even felt selfish, complaining about schoolwork , pain from practice, or anything else going on in my life. Her faith gave her an aura that was so motivational to me and everyone who knew her. She was on the brink of needing amputation but she was never sad because of her overwhelming faith that she would pull through and be alright. And now she is living a great life with her own business. I personally see something like that and can't see how ANYONE can say that faith is pointless.

So for those who don't believe in faith and religion, keep that to urself, don't bring it to me. I've seen enough that I believe that the hope and karma that makes mankind pleasant is heavily dependent on faith. The faith that living a good life and doing the right things will pay off for you in the future and vice versa. I think anyone, no matter their intentions, should be careful when doing something that may shake that balance. And for the overly religious crowd - that crowd who tries to break up a marriage if the couple lived 2gether before marriage, those who alienate homosexuals or other groups despite their faith, etc - u may not like what I said about the validity of the events chronicles in the Bible. But u'll get over it. I may be blasphemous in ur eyes, but I assure u, I've Been Called Worse...