i was raised Church of God, and had to attend every Sunday until i reached 16 (for whatever reason it became my choice then). Heaven was where you went if you were a good, god-fearing christian, as defined by COG standards. Hell was for everyone else.
i started questioning the whole religion thing while in high school, and ID'd as agnostic for a couple of years, until i finally "came out" as atheist. One of my first questions was, "how do we know the bible wasn't written by people sitting around the campfire, passing a pipe around?" my next one was, "If god made us, who made god? Where did god come from?" and "if every single person on earth all came from one couple, then incest was accepted and widely practiced back in the day, huh?"
And for racist christians, including most of my bio-family, i point out that according to their bible, we all came from Adam & Eve, so.....
i believe people use religion as a crutch. All good things that happen to them are because they're good christians. All bad things aren't their fault, it's the devil trying to tempt them.
Miracles are credited to god. Bad things are the work of the devil. If your belief strong & true, you'll do just fine. If you misbehave, you'll burn forever.
It's like the police, or laws. Religion tries to keep people from doing "bad" things.
Only religion is much more judgmental & hypocritical. i don't need a book or a person to tell me how to behave or live.
i try to do the right thing and try to live by good morals & ethics. i try not to hate people or be mean to them, even if i don't like them. i try to treat others like i want to be treated. i wish more christians lived like that.
i believe when i die, i die. The end. Like someone else said, i've got it set up so that the medical community can take what's left that is useful, and cremate the rest.
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