[lumberjim]

Don't start getting personal. I don't presume to know your motives, stay away from mine unless I tell you what they are.

Nothing personal about what i said. no more than you intimating that i'm not intelligent, anyway:

We have different definition of intelligence.

hell, noodle, i dont even know your name. ( i dropped the "mr" because that is a term of respect, and right now, my respect for you is slipping)

i find it highly unlikely that :

I believe in God because of faith, which I came by independently of any organized theology.

independantly? really? I. myself, have a kernel of doubt about this because of the information I was given all of my life about this. Even though logically, I feel that if there is a "GOD", then it's just as likely to be any of the available religions' god, or pagan gods, or the force as it is to be the god that lives in heaven. My parents are christian, my school taught us the christian faith, although they aren't supposed to. Our leaders and government, the TV, the people I talked to growing up. all calmly accept the christian faith as a given, and are surprised when they encounter someone who disbelieves.

how can you say you were not influenced by organized religion? it's insidious. it's everywhere. unavoidable. you claim to take credit for arriving at the same conclusion by coincedence? that's why i said "bullshit"...because it is. you may not have noticed, but you were taught to believe in god.

You all might be right, noodle. but, so might I be. and so might the Jews, the Buddhists, the Muslims.

and I don't summarily dismiss your belief. It is every bit as likely as mine. I reject your pity:

If I'm wrong in my beliefs, I haven't lost anything. I'll die and there will be nothing but oblivion. But if you're wrong, you've lost everything.

if i'm not a christian, what makes you think i've lost anything? hubris, i say. you ASSUME that everyone wants to go to "heaven" and praise the Lord for eternity. sounds like a real picnic.