1. I'm agnostic, I'm not exactly sure whatever entity, being, organism, or whatever incomprehensible thing put the rules in place for existence to have spontaneously sprung forth from the multi-verse, what could have created the strings in string theory, what could have set things in place for all these marvelous science things to be going on, so on and so forth. I sincerely hope it could be a god, an interesting being to meet and relate to probably after death, or something of the like, but I don't really believe it's my right to say what is and isn't. I dabble in Christianity, because I believe, if you focus on the "be nice" part of the faith, it's pretty much a good set of guidelines to follow, and I've studied up on other beliefs, because they're interesting. I've even looked up all of the hells, and many unholy symbols, and I've noted that Illuminati was just originally anyway, a scientific organization based on purely innocent beliefs that the natural human drive to know everything should be endlessly pursued, most of the Christian unholy symbols were simply bits of other religions they deemed unworthy, or, in the case of St. Peter's cross, actually quite holy things that people took the wrong way. I sincerely doubt there is a hell, as a perfect entity like a god that would create a heaven would be so sadistic, if anything, a temporary rehabilitation center. I also don't necessarily believe in evil. I don't even think Hitler, though while he was one of the sickest bastards in history, was evil. To be Evil is to be outwardly for the downfall of everything, to be completely and utterly selfish, to want to destroy everything and anything you can get your hands on. He was selfish, and did want to destroy certain things, but not all things, and not everyone. And even Hitler was capable of caring, albeit barely, for a handful of human beings. Cruelty, lust, wrath, rage, sadism, everything we have wrong with us is inspired by brain chemicals, wants, needs, and senses of morality that we have, nothing is designed to be 'evil' although people that have been twisted the wrong way can get very close to it.
2. Religion makes me feel very assured, positive, and faithful in humanity, that though we are naturally bigoted, as a race built on natural selection, we can feel glad that we are possibly being created or guided by something superior to us, although people can take it the wrong way and be sincerely twisted and creepy, we're always trying to find out what does what, how it came to be, and why, and if there's a god or something behind it, then I'd be glad to know who or what it is, so long as he or she or it does not rain fire and lighting down on my head, or a series of giant woman-headed locusts to bite my sorry ass for being equally skeptical.
3. I don't really care, it's good fodder for intelligent discussions like these if both parties are open minded enough.
4. There's really no such thing as total agreement, unless you've been indoctrinated to one person's belief to the very letter, but then their belief might not be the same as someone else's, we all have slightly different beliefs, different personal thoughts, different preferences, and that's wonderfully interesting, how all these beliefs can intertwine.
5. Because I was raised Christian, I never really felt Christian, (perhaps I'm slightly sociopathic?) and I slowly withdrew from it, though I still go to church and learn about it, because it's interesting, and provides pointers on which way to look to find the sentient being everyone's looking for. I also find scientific theories and such very interesting, because it gives pointers on which way to look to find whatever non-sentient entity it could be, or if it is a sentient entity, just how the heck it's managing to pull it all off. Perhaps it's even just a simulation, like someone behind us is playing the sims and finding us to be immensely simple life forms, and they unimaginably complex, and perhaps there could be another incomprehensible being beyond them, and onward and onward? It's an interesting universe, full of interesting ideas, and I'd like to consider all of them.
6. It was hard for me to accept that I'd lost contact with that faith that I believed in so much, but mainly I realized it was because of my horrendous fear of hell, and my horror any time I realized I was doing something wrong, I didn't believe a perfect deity would have wanted to hold me in his list of followers that way, and I decided I'd take a few steps back and look at everything everywhere, all of the ideas I could find, all of the reasoning behind it, even Satanism, even the Pastafarians, and see what god was, if it was god, or simply a law of physics, or some other thing that put the rules in place for existence to spontaneously begin, if it even knew what it was doing at the time, and knows we exist.
7. the most important thing in religion, or any belief, is the value and meaning you give to things, in the scenario of St. Peter's cross, he died horribly because they hanged him upside down to mean the inverse of christianity, but Catholics or others who follow that particular saint's belief used his cross as a symbol of their role model, or the belief they follow. Then others had in fact taken it to mean the inverse of Christianity despite St. Peter, and used it to invoke ideas of demons, and of other things that Christians mortally feared at the time. The whole of any idea ever, is not what a thing actually is, but the perception that people have of it.
8. With all the things I've listed above, I think it should be perfectly natural to have a religion, even if it's Atheism, and I'd go on longer, but I think you've had enough of my long, babbling text.
