[Wolfram]

Goddammit I can't believe I got sucked into debating religion...

Disclaimer: I'm not religous. I don't know what the correct definition is, and I don't much care, but I'm probably somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist. I do however have a healthy respect for other peoples religious beliefs.

re: the bible
I'm pretty sure Jay was just referring to the New Testament, which is what most Christians think of as the bible. The old testament is obv filled with tons of heinous stuff.

re: religion being +EV
This is just plainly silly. You could make the same argument for blindly believing in every superstition out there. If stepping on a crack might break my back should I go through life avoiding every crack in every single road I walk on?

re: atheistic morality
I get absolutely furious when religious people imply that since I don't believe in a higher moral authority I therefore can not be a moral person. Morality comes from inside us, not some big daddy in the sky that makes us behave. Are you implying if you suddenly lost your faith in god, you'd just run around killing, looting and raping?

It seems obvious to me that most religion is created as a giant pacifier for humans because we are conscious of our own mortality. It is also used as a means of teaching moral values (good), giving hope in dire times (goodish, can be deluded), controlling people (bad), and tons of other stuff.

Mostly I think that if there was a divine creator, he would be so beyond our understanding that blindly guessing what he is like or how he feels about us and what his "laws" are is optimistic at best. It's like saying a computer would be able to realize what a human is. I very much doubt he would be the petty, jealous, narcissistic control freak described in the bible.