Why do Atheists Hate Religion?

[CoinCube]

You should not be posting something you don't understand because you cannot explain the proof you are posting as a proof of God.
I can post a mathematical proof that God does not exist, that nobody will on Earth will understand, including myself.  Do you see my point?

The difference between our books was:

Genesis 9
"for in the image of God has God made mankind."

Book of Lawrence 3:14

"and the atoms were created in the supernovae, then those atoms were used to make water, then single cell bacteria, and eventually a man.
Man is a Stardust."

Are you saying that you don't see the difference about how these two books/verses describe how the man was made?

Well the source does matter. You and I are not well known and respected mathematical geniuses Kurt Gödel is. We may have to just agree to disagree about the appropriateness of my highlighting his work.

Regarding a comparison of your understanding and the Biblical account you are choosing the wrong passage. If you want to talk about dust you should find the most relevant Biblical passage on the topic.

That passage is the following:

Genesis 2
"Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground"

So let's compare this to your:

Book of Lawrence 3:14
"Man is a Stardust."

The Biblical account seems more accurate. It implies the dust had formed into ground first and mankind was formed from that ground. This is in line with current scientific understanding.

Scientists believe that we may have had our beginnings in CLAY
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2488467/Scientists-believe-beginnings-CLAY.html

All life on Earth may have come from clay according to new scientific research - just as the Bible, Koran and even Greek mythology have been suggesting for thousands of years.

The latest theory is that clay - which is at its most basic, a combination of minerals in the ground - acts as a breeding laboratory for tiny molecules and chemicals which it 'absorbs like a sponge'.

The process takes billions of years, during which the chemicals react to each other to form proteins, DNA and, eventually, living cells, scientists told the journal Scientific Reports.

Biological Engineers from Cornell University's department for Nanoscale Science in New York state believe clay 'might have been the birthplace of life on Earth'.

Hope this helps clarify things for you.

[CoinCube]

As compared to what?  Your dream?  Life originated in liquid water.

You are just trolling me.  You cannot be that stupid.

If you want to discuss the origin of life and how a man was created you have to use evidence other than what the Bible says.

Bible requires faith.  Faith is not a reliable way to discover the truth.

Yes life probably originated in clay submerged in water. Probably near volcanic deep sea vents though we don't really know for sure.

I also agree the Bible is not the best place to look for a detailed and systematic approach to understanding the origins of life. That's not its purpose. Scientific understanding is a far better tool for that.

I disagree with the notion that the Bible and scientific understanding are mutually exclusive or contradictory. I understand how many reach that conclusion from an very literal interpretation of the text. I feel much of the Bible is best understood as truth through analogy and metaphor.

[CoinCube]

Finally, we can agree on something.  

Bible metaphors get you straight into metaphysics and philosophy.  There is no science in the Bible because the scientific revolution started much, much later after the Bible (or Quran) were written.  The two are mutually exclusive.  I hope you understand that much.

If you want to play with the philosophy of the scriptures, you have to give the same attention to the Quran, Talmud, Vedas, Puranas, Popol Vuh, Avesta, and many others.

Not mutually exclusive complimentary. Different tools for different jobs both necessary.

I agree that a full understanding of truth requires one to evaluate the truth claim of everyone who declares they have it as well as the development of some organized framework to evaluate each contender.

This is where the metaphysics you don't care for very much comes in handy.

[CoinCube]

To me, all these ancient scriptures have no value.  They were written by people who knew less than a 12-year-old knows today.
...

Scientific knowledge is cumulative, scriptures are not.

Isaac Asimov was a great writer but his vision of the future was a pathetic and bleak one. In his vision millennia pass yet humanity grows not one iota wiser. We even stop advancing scientifically and technologically forcing the robots we happened to create along the way to silently take control and tend to us as one would a herd of cows.

It's very hard to explain the value of the a priori to someone who has adopted your worldview af_newbie. It's not really a question of science or fact but of interpretation.

Its related to how one voluntarily chooses to perceive and interpret the world. A flavor if you will that drives ultimate potential.

I will draw your attention to the work of CS Lewis another famous author and someone who left his childhood Christian faith to spend many years as a determined atheist. The article below is quite long but this it is a difficult topic to address with brevity.

Seeing Things Properly: Vision, Imagination and Reason in C.S. Lewis's Apologetics
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/seeing-things-properly-vision-imagination-and-reason-in-cs-lewis/10094742

Few would now dispute that C.S. Lewis is one of the greatest Christian apologists of the twentieth century. So what is his approach to apologetics, and why has it been so successful?

Many Christian apologists have assimilated Lewis to their own way of thinking, presenting him in thoroughly modernist terms as an advocate of rationalist defences of faith. Yet to get the most out of reading Lewis, we need to approach him on his own terms. Here, I want to explore Lewis's distinctive understanding of the rationality of faith, which emphasises the reasonableness of Christianity without imprisoning it within an impersonal and austere rationalism.

I came to appreciate this distinctive approach when researching my recent biography of Lewis. For reasons I do not understand, the importance of Lewis's extensive use of visual images as metaphors of truth has been largely overlooked. For Lewis, truth is about seeing things rightly, grasping their deep interconnection. Truth is something that we see, rather than something we express primarily in logical or conceptual terms.

The basic idea is found in Dante's Paradiso (XXIII, 55-6), where the great Florentine poet and theologian expresses the idea that Christianity provides a vision of things - something wonderful that can be seen, yet proves resistant to verbal expression:

From that moment onwards my power of sight exceeded

That of speech, which fails at such a vision.

Hints of such an approach are also found in the writings of G.K. Chesterton, whom Lewis admired considerably. For Chesterton, a good theory allows us to see things properly: "We put on the theory, like a magic hat, and history becomes translucent like a house of glass." Thus, for Chesterton, a good theory is to be judged by the amount of illumination it offers, and its capacity to accommodate what we see in the world around us and experience within us: "With this idea once inside our heads, a million things become transparent as if a lamp were lit behind them." In the same way, Chesterton argued, Christianity validates itself by its ability to make sense of our observations of the world: "The phenomenon does not prove religion, but religion explains the phenomenon."

For Lewis, the Christian faith offers us a means of seeing things properly - as they really are, despite their outward appearances. Christianity provides an intellectually capacious and imaginatively satisfying way of seeing things, and grasping their interconnectedness, even if we find it difficult to express this in words. Lewis's affirmation of the reasonableness of the Christian faith rests on his own quite distinct way of seeing the rationality of the created order, and its ultimate grounding in God. Using a powerful visual image, Lewis invites us to see God as both the ground of the rationality of the world, and the one who enables us to grasp that rationality: "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else." Lewis invites us to see Christianity as offering us a standpoint from which we may survey things, and grasp their intrinsic coherence. We see how things connect together.

Lewis consistently uses a remarkably wide range of visual metaphors - such as sun, light, blindness and shadows - to help us understand the nature of a true understanding of things. This has two important outcomes. First, it means that Lewis sees reason and imagination as existing in a collaborative, not competitive, relationship. Second, it leads Lewis to make extensive use of analogies in his apologetics, to enable us to see things in a new way.

For example, Lewis's famous apologetic for the doctrine of the Trinity in Mere Christianity suggests that our difficulties with this notion arise primarily because we fail to see it properly. If we see it another way - as, for instance, an inhabitant of a two-dimensional world might try to grasp and describe the structure of a three-dimensional reality - then we begin to grasp its intrinsic rationality.

Lewis's apologetics thus often takes the form of a visual imperative: "Try seeing it this way!" Lewis rightly realized that many people frame their accounts of things analogically, using a process that Hilaire Belloc called parallelism: the "illustration of some unperceived truth by its exact consonance with the reflection of a truth already known and perceived." Lewis does not try to prove the existence of God on a priori grounds. Rather, Lewis invites us to see how what we observe in the world around us and experience within us fits the Christian way of seeing things. Lewis's genius as an apologist lay in his ability to show how a Christian "viewpoint" (or, to borrow a term from Plato, a synoptikon) was able to offer a more satisfactory explanation of common human experience than its rivals - especially the atheism he himself had once espoused.

Throughout his apologetic writings, such as Mere Christianity, Lewis appeals to shared human experience and observation. How do we make sense of what we experience within us, or observe outside us? Lewis's apologetic approach is thus to demonstrate how an observation or experience fits, naturally and plausibly, within a Christian way of looking at things. Take his "argument from desire." This is not really an argument at all. It is more about observing and affirming the fit between a theory and observation. It is like trying on a hat or shirt for size, and looking at yourself in a mirror. How well does it fit? How many of our observations of the world can a theory accommodate, and how persuasively? It is basically about seeing how our experiences of desire fit a Christian framework.

Lewis thus argues that we experience desires that no experience in this world seems able to satisfy. And when we see these experiences through the lens of the Christian faith, we realize that this sort of experience is exactly what we would expect. Christianity tells us that that this is not our true home, and that we were created for heaven. How does that framework help us see these experiences? For Lewis, the answer was clear: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Lewis's appeal here is not so much to cold rationalism, as to intuition and imagination. It is not a deductive argument, but an imaginative dynamic of discovery. Lewis invites his audience to see their experiences through a set of Christian spectacles, and to notice how these bring what might otherwise seem to be fuzzy or blurred into sharp focus. A pattern is thereby seen for the first time. For Lewis, the ability of the Christian faith to accommodate such things, naturally and easily, is an indicator of its truth.

The same approach is found in Lewis's "argument from morality." This is sometimes portrayed in ridiculously simplistic terms - for example, "experiencing a sense of moral obligation proves there is a God." Lewis did not say this, and he certainly did not think this. As with the "argument from desire," his argument is rather that the common human experience of a sense of moral obligation is easily and naturally accommodated within a Christian framework. The Christian lens brings things into focus. It enlightens the landscape of reality, allowing us to see how God, desire and morality are all held together within a greater scheme of things.

Lewis helps us to appreciate that apologetics need not take the form of deductive argument. It can be presented as an invitation to step into the Christian way of seeing things, and explore how things look when seen from its standpoint: "Try seeing things this way!" If worldviews or metanarratives can be compared to lenses, which of them brings things into sharpest focus? This is not an irrational retreat from reason. Rather, it is about grasping a deeper order of things which is more easily accessed by the imagination than by reason. Yet once seen, its intrinsic rationality can be appreciated.

Lewis's explicit appeal to reason thus involves an implicit appeal to the imagination. Perhaps this helps us understand why Lewis appeals to both modern and postmodern people. Lewis gives us a synoptikon which bridges the great divide between modernity and postmodernity, insisting that each outlook has its strengths because it is part of a greater whole. Their weaknesses arise when they pretend to offer the full picture, when they really offer only part of the whole. Once the "big picture" is seen, they are both seen in their proper light.

Lewis enriches our vision of apologetics, allowing us to affirm that Christianity makes sense, without limiting it to the "glib and shallow" rationalism that he himself once knew as an atheist. Reason and imagination are woven together, using a rich concept of truth which emphasizes how we come to see things properly, and grasp their inner coherence. Truth, beauty and goodness all have their part to play in Lewis's apologetics.

Such an "imaginative apologetics" allows us to affirm the reasonableness of faith, while at the same time displaying its power to captivate the imagination. The Christian churches need to ensure that their preaching, witness and worship express this same rich vision of reality, and lead others to wonder how they can go "further up and further in" to the landscape of faith.

Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University. He is the author of two substantial studies of Lewis: C.S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet and The Intellectual World of C.S. 
Theology

[Indictus]

As I noted above saying humanity was created in the image of God may have a more nuanced meaning then is commonly appreciated.
Nevertheless I do accept the existence of the creator as a starting point. Here is why this is the most reasonable place to start.

An Argument for God

You did not just put your own message from another thread as a reliable source did you?....I think you just tried to do that.....It's like asking why is this pen blue, and you give me a piece of paper written on it "This pen is blue because I said so". Your source of information and the building argument for it is flawed on so many levels that I am not even sure where to start... you are way into deep to be pulled out .....I wish you well 

[CoinCube]

You did not just put your own message from another thread as a reliable source did you?....I think you just tried to do that.....It's like asking why is this pen blue, and you give me a piece of paper written on it "This pen is blue because I said so". Your source of information and the building argument for it is flawed on so many levels that I am not even sure where to start... you are way into deep to be pulled out .....I wish you well  

Sigh I grow so weary of rabid atheist who cannot seem to string a coherent thought together.

Some atheist I respect. I disagree with af_newbie utterly and on just about everything that matters but I respect his intellect and the logic of his thoughts. You not so much.

Let me simplify this for you.

You stated:

it's (Gods) existence is accepted by you as a starting point.

And I replied that you are correct I do accept Gods existence as a starting point.

I do accept the existence of the creator as a starting point.

Then I linked to my prior arguments on why this assumption is reasonable.

An Argument for God

I hope this exercise in basic reading comprehension has proven useful for you.

[pozmu]

I would NOT agree that the ten commandments are good... since you brought it up, lets talk about them:

It was just an example showing that most atheist are willing to act "good" and "moral" without any religious rules telling them to do so.

Exactly!... now you get it!

People do not need religion to be good or moral... it is 100% unnecessary

Most religious people have never even read their holy book(s)... most christians can't even name 5 of the 10 commandments...

Their religion did not make them good people... they were good people before they were duped into believing religious nonsense

People are good... religions are bad...

"Without religion, good people do good things, and bad people do bad things... but it takes something like religion to make good people do bad things"
(example: flying planes into the towers on 9/11 would not have happened without religion)

I agree with you, but in some regions religion is needed, e.g. in Africa, there are tribes killing each other, if you Christianise them they'll form a new Christian tribe and they'll kill less. I think it would be difficult to get into their head without using religion.
I don't really get why these tribes fight, it may be because of their different religions 

[BADecker]

As compared to what?  Your dream?  Life originated in liquid water.

You are just trolling me.  You cannot be that stupid.

If you want to discuss the origin of life and how a man was created you have to use evidence other than what the Bible says.

Bible requires faith.  Faith is not a reliable way to discover the truth.

LOL! You don't even realize how stupid that is, do you?... that anybody would think he can figure out what happened hundreds of thousands or millions of years in the past. Let me show you how stupid it is.

Today, right now, we have hundreds of thousands or millions of smart mathematicians trying to figure out where the Forex, the stock market, the derivatives market, the nations, elections, and thousands of other things are going in life. What do they use to do their calculations? Statistics from literally yesterday, on back through the well-documented history of the last hundred years.

What are the results of all their calculations from the well-documented statistics history? Good guesses. Why guesses? Because they all flub it good, on a regular basis. They all get it wrong here and there.

And you think that some self-styled scientists can take a look at some vague history that they think relates to hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, and determine how life originated back then? You think that they are way smarter than the mathematicians who are using accurate statistics from the last hundred years - statistics that are right close to today - but still caqn't figure out what is going on today? LOL! You can't even understand how stupid that sounds, can you?

If you had any brains at all, you would be scientifically checking into why the Bible is a solid, eye witness record, of things that happened in the past, and how it is the Word of God given to people by God, so some of them can be saved.

[Moloch]

As compared to what?  Your dream?  Life originated in liquid water.

You are just trolling me.  You cannot be that stupid.

If you want to discuss the origin of life and how a man was created you have to use evidence other than what the Bible says.

Bible requires faith.  Faith is not a reliable way to discover the truth.

LOL! You don't even realize how stupid that is, do you?... that anybody would think he can figure out what happened hundreds of thousands or millions of years in the past. Let me show you how stupid it is.

People would probably like you more and read your posts if you didn't start every post with a personal insult

Today, right now, we have hundreds of thousands or millions of smart mathematicians trying to figure out where the Forex, the stock market, the derivatives market, the nations, elections, and thousands of other things are going in life.

You can't compare studying the history of the universe to predicting the future of the stock market, etc... that's not a proper analogy, and nobody is going to be stupid enough to believe that makes sense

If you had any brains at all, you would be scientifically checking into why the Bible is a solid, eye witness record, of things that happened in the past

Please stop beginning and ending your posts with insults... try to use facts and evidence to convince people you are right... insulting someone only proves you are angry and wrong

[BADecker]

As compared to what?  Your dream?  Life originated in liquid water.

You are just trolling me.  You cannot be that stupid.

If you want to discuss the origin of life and how a man was created you have to use evidence other than what the Bible says.

Bible requires faith.  Faith is not a reliable way to discover the truth.

LOL! You don't even realize how stupid that is, do you?... that anybody would think he can figure out what happened hundreds of thousands or millions of years in the past. Let me show you how stupid it is.

People would probably like you more and read your posts if you didn't start by insulting people

Today, right now, we have hundreds of thousands or millions of smart mathematicians trying to figure out where the Forex, the stock market, the derivatives market, the nations, elections, and thousands of other things are going in life.

You can't compare studying the history of the universe to predicting the future of the stock market, etc... that's not a proper analogy, and nobody is going to be stupid enough to believe that makes sense

If you had any brains at all, you would be scientifically checking into why the Bible is a solid, eye witness record, of things that happened in the past

Please stop beginning and ending your posts with insults... try to use facts and evidence to convince people you are right... insulting someone only proves you are angry and wrong

One of the greatest facts is that people can't figure out how to determine the future of tomorrow, from the clear statistics of the last hundred years.

A second fact is that they think that they can determine today from vague ideas that they can't even agree on, of history from hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, when they know they can't even predict tomorrow from the clear statistics of the last hundred years.

A third fact is that I am not insulting these people. They are insulting themselves by using great math in their works, and yet not being able to put two and two together to see how stupid they are acting. All I am doing is pointing out their stupidity to them in the hopes that they will realize just how foolishly they are acting... so that they can see it, and then change.

[Moloch]

Do you see how stupid the religious ideologies are?  Not only they teach you nonsense, but the moral code they espouse is abhorrent.

Have you checked out Buddhism?

As much as I abhor religion (and you know I do), I can't seem to find these flaws with Buddhism...

[BADecker]

As compared to what?  Your dream?  Life originated in liquid water.

You are just trolling me.  You cannot be that stupid.

If you want to discuss the origin of life and how a man was created you have to use evidence other than what the Bible says.

Bible requires faith.  Faith is not a reliable way to discover the truth.

LOL! You don't even realize how stupid that is, do you?... that anybody would think he can figure out what happened hundreds of thousands or millions of years in the past. Let me show you how stupid it is.

Today, right now, we have hundreds of thousands or millions of smart mathematicians trying to figure out where the Forex, the stock market, the derivatives market, the nations, elections, and thousands of other things are going in life. What do they use to do their calculations? Statistics from literally yesterday, on back through the well-documented history of the last hundred years.

What are the results of all their calculations from the well-documented statistics history? Good guesses. Why guesses? Because they all flub it good, on a regular basis. They all get it wrong here and there.

And you think that some self-styled scientists can take a look at some vague history that they think relates to hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, and determine how life originated back then? You think that they are way smarter than the mathematicians who are using accurate statistics from the last hundred years - statistics that are right close to today - but still caqn't figure out what is going on today? LOL! You can't even understand how stupid that sounds, can you?

If you had any brains at all, you would be scientifically checking into why the Bible is a solid, eye witness record, of things that happened in the past, and how it is the Word of God given to people by God, so some of them can be saved.

Imagine 5000 years from now, people will discover the Apple OS 31.0 source code.  It will contain a significant AI breakthrough code and some people will claim that John Smith wrote it, others will point out that it was Jane Smith, while others will claim that it was their son Josua.  They will argue about it, write e-books about it, start new political AI movements based on it, and eventually start wars to reaffirm the superiority of their beliefs.  Meanwhile, the code in Apple OS 31.0 will be invalidated by computer scientists, many bugs and security holes will be found.  Basically, that code will be used as an example to teach kindergarten kids how to not write the AI code.

This is what people do today when they claim that Talmud, Bible or Koran are revelations from God.

Do you see how stupid the religious ideologies are?  Not only they teach you nonsense, but the moral code they espouse is abhorrent.

I am telling you that faith will lead you into the moral abyss of the Bronze Age/6th century.

When you abandon reason you become as ignorant as Jesus's disciples or Muhammad's companions.

People refer to things that include the Talmud, Bible or Koran, as religions. The Talmud, Bible or Koran are from less than a hand full of thousands of years in the past. So, how much more foolish the science religion of today that claims they understand things from the ancient past of hundreds of thousands or millions of years in the past. That kind of science is one of the stupidest religions around.

Get back on track. If you can't properly determine tomorrow from the statistics of the last hundred years, and if you won't agree with the statistics of the Talmud, Bible or Koran, how do you think that you can have even the wildest inkling of what went on hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago? You are deluding yourself.

Wake up.

[Moloch]

Do you see how stupid the religious ideologies are?  Not only they teach you nonsense, but the moral code they espouse is abhorrent.

Have you checked out Buddhism?

As much as I abhor religion (and you know I do), I can't seem to find flaws with Buddhism... just saying

I am intrigued by the meditation and the inner reflection aspect of it.  I think I read in Sam Harris book that there are some monks that can dissociate their own ego from their mind and see the world in a completely different way.  

I have a hard time accepting the rebirth idea because I cannot prove that animals (humans) have a soul and I cannot prove that there is life after death.  It is all too supernatural to give it a serious consideration.

I think you have to put your secular glasses on when you read the Buddist doctrine as this ideology is not immune to violence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence

You have to cherry pick the good bits but the moral code is better than any of the Abrahamic religions.

Buddhism, quite simply, is a path to inner wisdom... dissociation with the ego is normal and expected... you can't see the truth when you blind yourself from it (ex. BADecker)

Reincarnation is a bit sketchy, and usually just used as an excuse similar to "god did it".  I'm fairly convinced this is used as a tool, not meant to be taken literally.  Buddhists say things like, "When you want to enter a house, you might pick up a brick to knock on the door, but you don't carry that brick into the house with you"... or "When you want to cross a river, you use a boat to get across, but you don't carry the boat with you once you get to the other side"... basically, once you get it, you get it, and don't need to use those tools anymore

There are no violent teaching of any kind in Buddhism... if a Buddhist is violent, it simply shows that he doesn't understand... people from any religion can be violent, particularly if they don't get it

I haven't had to cherry pick anything from Buddhism... I can't find much that I disagree with beyond perhaps Rebirth since there is no scientific evidence for it (though it does make a lot more sense than having 1 life to find the correct religion or whatever)

[Moloch]

I think what you are looking for is Buddism, less the supernatural BS.  Do not harm others, control your urges, etc.

I am more of an animalist myself.  I used to hunt, which I regret to this day.  When you kill a sentient being, part of you dies with it.

I always lived below my means, did not need to have the latest greatest toys, retired early, so I guess maybe I am a Buddist LOL.

What annoys me the most about religions is their supernatural claims and their moral standard or lack thereof.

I see Buddhism more as a self-improvement manual.  It teaches you how to explore the cause of 'suffering' (i.e. mental anguish, stress, fear, anger, etc) in order to take control of it and rise above all that nonsense... the woo-woo is optional

I'm not a fan of supernatural claims either.  I tend to gloss over the parts where people talk about gods, past lives, etc.  I don't believe in chi or any supernatural energy.  IMHO, a good Buddhist teacher doesn't even mention these things.

I'm a big fan of Alan Watts.  He is very theatrical, makes a great performance and speaks a language I grok.  There are plenty of other teachers if he doesn't strike your fancy.  Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Chah are also good

[IndeecV]

Do you see how stupid the religious ideologies are?  Not only they teach you nonsense, but the moral code they espouse is abhorrent.

Have you checked out Buddhism?

As much as I abhor religion (and you know I do), I can't seem to find these flaws with Buddhism...

If you cleanse Buddhism of religious peels, you can see that this is a very useful guide to psychology and self-improvement. I think that then all the research needed to be tied to religion in order to give them significance.

Now religion is a relic of the past and my hair stands on end when I realize that someone takes it all seriously.

[BADecker]

Do you see how stupid the religious ideologies are?  Not only they teach you nonsense, but the moral code they espouse is abhorrent.

Have you checked out Buddhism?

As much as I abhor religion (and you know I do), I can't seem to find these flaws with Buddhism...

If you cleanse Buddhism of religious peels, you can see that this is a very useful guide to psychology and self-improvement. I think that then all the research needed to be tied to religion in order to give them significance.

Now religion is a relic of the past and my hair stands on end when I realize that someone takes it all seriously.

But people don't change. Get rid of all the religious people in the world, and all of their religions, and in a couple hundred years, all kinds of religions will be back.

[coins4commies]

I grew up Catholic but always had some problems and skepticism when it came to religion.  I remmeber questioning stories as early and 2nd and 3rd grade.  I felt betrayed by the santa clause lie and always saw similarities between god and santa clause. 

By high school, myself and many of my classmates started to recognize moral objections we had with things in the bible and catechism.  What kind of cruel god would destroy entire cities or trick a follower into trying to kill their son.  This sounded more like the work of a psychopath than an omnipotent being.  The rules against safe sex and masterbation make no sense to anyone and have perpetuated a lot of suffering needlessly.

Also, what happened to god?  He used to be really active then just disappeared from his interactions with humanity.  Why not bother to show up anymore?  If god was so powerful and loving, why would he only reveal himself to a small group of people for a short amount of time.  Why "chose" certain people?  Why neglect most of the world for most of human history?

By university, I studied science and sharpened by reasoning skills.  So many things in the bible are complete fiction.  These years pretty much slammed the door shut on me being agnostic/atheist. 

I don't hate religion as I think there are lessons to be learned just like in greek mythology and fictional stories.  I respect all religions equally and think there is value to be gained from all of them, even the polytheistic ones.  Religion gives a lot of people structure and discipline.  Good for them. 

[Swami74]

Being an atheist I definitely don’t hate religion, it is wonderful the hope it gives so many. For me it’s just a bridge too far and science is something I have faith in. Hope everyone is well and respects everyone else’s beliefs.

[cryptodv]

I'm agnostic. I was born Catholic and raised as an Evangelical Christian, went to church every Sunday. As I got older I started drifting away from the church. I believe that there is a creator, just not a religious one. Religion and racism have been the biggest banes in our existence IMO. So much death and hate because of it for thousands of years.  I don't judge anyone's religion, to each his own. Just live righteous and don't impose your religion on others, that's it.  

[Flying Hellfish]

Being an atheist I definitely don’t hate religion, it is wonderful the hope it gives so many. For me it’s just a bridge too far and science is something I have faith in. Hope everyone is well and respects everyone else’s beliefs.

BTW, science does not need faith.  Are you sure you understand science?

I don't hate God(s) the same way I don't hate Snow White, Zeus or Santa Claus.

I do however hate religion(s).  With passion.  Their indoctrination of children is appalling.  Their cover-up of sexual abuses is abhorrent.
Their public demands are insulting my intelligence.

I heard Snow White can be a bit of a cunt so I kinda hate her hehe.

For me I would add things to the list like the extreme hypocrisy of religion, the blinders you have to wear to believe religion, and lastly the scariest thing for me is the control the dogma exerts and the desire to be mentally subjected.

As an example I think it's disingenuous to say religion is the cause of most wars, in reality it's usually way more complicated than saying religion caused war, economic, social and geopolitical conditions all make the cause of most wars very complicated and rarely rest on a single point.

The problem with religious dogma is that it makes it very easy for them to get riled up to the point of supporting a war for the wrong reasons.

Christopher Hitchens said it best (paraphrasing here because I'm to lazy to go find it LOL):  
(Q) How do you make a good person do evil things?  
(A) Teach him religion.

Man would be a far more moral being if we never invented religion...  Animals aren't religious and we are just the apex animal no matter how much smarter we are than apes!  Animals are social and as the apex animal it's clear that we thrive in social environments, perhaps t0o much so!