In regards to God, Religion, and Faith: You're doing it wrong.

Before I get started on the actual entry, I’m going to spend a few moments talking about things... specifically, the types of things that always come at the beginning, or the ends, of all my more serious entries.
Geek-stuff...

Hardly do I ever play video games; more of a Traditional gamer. Previous journals show that I react like a horny school-girl to Poke`mon, without the horny or the schoolgirl. My Poke`mon are coming to understand exactly what Natural Selection is, and are embracing it nicely. Those who are competent enough are the ones that I will chose to love. They understand this, and some of them are doing a nice job at accepting my favoritism.
Otherwise, my gaming goes back to the simple, story-tellin’ kind. I’m still looking forward to playing that Psion... it’d be great if WotC would release Psionic Power before Summer ends, but... ehh. I’m also waiting for The Dresden Files RPG to be released. The books are good enough, but you can play just about anything in the DFRPG....
As always, I feel out of place on Mibba, going on about this sorta thing.

So, I’m moving on to things of greater importance: rambling.

I’ve always been annoyed when “religious debates” come up online – specifically places where people are old enough to know better, but too stupid to really comprehend. Sorry, Mibba – I’m looking to you as a prime example. I wouldn’t be posting this here, otherwise.

Let me start by making a truthful statement: I am not religious. I have very little faith in a higher power, and if you ask the right people, you’d find out that I’ll refer to myself as God, before anyone else - it’s not blasphemy – if you’re curious, ask me sometime. I can show you how skewed my logic is.
I go to a church, but for mostly all the wrong reasons. I’ve been told by people of all sorts of religion... what sorta person I am. Not just Christians, so this is not about that.

Although, maybe it is – it seems we all forget that there is anything beyond Christians and Satanists. Go figure.

Anyway, with that noted... I want you guys to follow me on something. It’s simple, and to-the-point. In fact, it’s so simple that most of us must assume it’s stupid, because for something so easy – we sure as Hell can’t pay attention to it.
Religion is not God. Religion is not faith. Faith is not logical.

Okay. Understood?

No, probably not, because we’re all going to be assholes at some point or another. Probably during a heated ‘debate’, where we’re really just hoping to prove someone wrong by poking a hole in their argument, and that’s the problem. You cannot approach the actual concept from an intellectual perspective. I know, I know – all we want to do is prove ourselves as geniuses, but it just doesn’t matter, here.

You can debate religion all you want, guys. I have no problem with it – I find it a very interesting pastime. But, we’re overlooking something usually, and it leads those who are actually open-minded to shake their heads in confusion. Religion is man-made. We all know this... religion was created as man to be an organized way of worshiping one God or another. Polytheism is becoming less and less common these days, but there’s another time for that discussion. As I just said – it’s man-made. This is what we can debate. A set religion with guidelines, rules, and teachings... not all people will follow all the doctrines of the religion they associate with, so we shouldn’t assume they do. We can generalize, but we are way too fucking quick to accuse people, due to their association. Christians believe this guy died on a cross for their sins, and their sins are no longer theirs to bare – if you notice, that’s all a Christian is. They don’t have to believe anything else noted in the Bible, or anything else that any preacher tells them. Just that. Same goes for any religion – it’s common for people to follow the doctrines and embrace a belief, but they don’t always. So, when they say “I’m a ____”, the first thing we tend to do is start to point out all the flaws of their belief – while assuming that they are one of those.

Muslim or Christian – we tend to automatically assume that they are one of those people that embrace all the faults of a man made system created for people to gather as one and appreciate whoever it is they believe is responsible for existence – and those doctrines in that religion? Yeahhh, the man-made thing means corruption. Something can start pure, but we’re human – we tend to fuck things up to impose our own beliefs on others. The Catholic Church did it to the bible, even! Assuming there is a God, we have to understand in these debates that our arguments against an ‘unjust god’ might just be our arguments against people who fucked up what was meant to be a pure... thingiemaabob. It’s not really cool to suddenly put down their God, because that is actually their faith, and faith is something that’s a little bit more complicated than what I’m covering in this little block. Let’s not insult the people we’re disagreeing with by making accusations, assuming they follow everything a book ever said, and hate people just because that book (edited by humans!) said to.

Assuming, because of a person’s title, that they will say/do/think certain things? That’s a no-no, guys. That’s called profiling – I think we could just call it ‘pretentious’, and ‘holier-than-thou’.
...Sweet Holy Jewsus, Batman! Is that irony I spot there?!
Why, yes, young ward... I do believe it is.

Which leads onto another interesting thing – Faith. The concept just equals a metric fuckton of confusion for everybody. It is not our responsibility to tell people they are wrong for believing in a higher-power, no matter what they think that higher-power is. No matter what they think that higher-power says, either. It doesn’t fucking matter, but there’s a way to debate Religion and Faith – do it as a learning experience, aye?
We can think people are wrong, but wile you’re debating that, it’s better to look at the whole thing as a learning experience. Think they’re an idiot all you want, but if you go in there thinking they’re wrong and it’s your obligation to show them why – not cool. That goes for all of us. None of us have the right to accuse someone of believing gin the wrong thing. Especially if it’s pretty much believing in life.

I don’t have enough faith to believe in a God. Some people do. Am I going to fault them for it? Hell, no.
But, it’s become apparent in a lot of ~debate~, Mibba – that we do fault them for it.
Would anyone care to tell me why that is?

Seriously, I’m curious. Why do we think it’s our responsibility to prove someone wrong on something that surpasses all intellectual and logical thought? Faith, and therefore God, is not meant to be looked at logically. It can’t be, because you can never justify anything you cannot see, touch, or hold onto. Let’s be honest, here – we can’t. We can strongly believe that something exists, but without seeing it and using some form of scientific process (sensory, I mean), we’re basing it all on our faith and willingness to believe.
“Wrong” and “faith” – they don’t go together. They can’t. It’s a relative thing. Faith is the ability to believe – you might as well call God “faith”, and in that – you are throwing out the need for reason. In fact, reason does very little when it comes to this – humans are weird like that. There are some things that reason can’t justify... emotions being a lot of them, and... get it?

You can argue Religion – religion is something set. Religion is a system. Religion has rules. It has doctrines. It has something documented reference material. aka: Organized Religion. I feel dirty using that phrase, because everyone knows Organized Religion is sick and twisted.
The moment you start assuming a person’s faith is purely based on religion is the moment we fuck up. An atheist can still believe in something, and it does not have to be God. A Christian can still believe in the bible, but not believe that Homosexuality is a sin, or a lot of the other things that The Westboro Church teaches – God knows they’re the fucking easiest to criticize, so every Christian must not only support them, but base all their morals and views on people from what they teach!

No, guys. No. Let everyone actually say what they believe before you jump the gun and assume they’re a terrible person because of a title they give themselves. Because they’re an individual, they can develop their own moral stance.

God is not religion – the beauty of a “God” is that it’s based purely on feeling, and therefore... God is what you want him/her/it to be. Justifying faith strips it of its meaning. So, in the end - a person is not wrong for believing in God, or in higher-powers, or for not believing in one. We can't look down on people as if they were, or at accusatory when speaking to them.

Let’s stop being stupid. We can easily be open-minded, but what’s the fun in that? It’s so much easier to keep doing what we’re doing, already. Looking like jackasses? Ehh, it’s a price...

But, hey – Jackass is synonym for Awesome!, online.

(Long entry was long, and I probably didn't say anything new.)

(...On a random note, anyone read any webcomics? Recs, guys? If you want mine – Something*Positive, Girls With Slingshots, and Questionable Content.
Hell, even Penny Arcade is pretty good... S*P is best, though.)