Why I Raise My Children Without God

You said you wanted to rid the world of religion.

I said I don't support that cause.

You said "oh so me wanting to not be negatively affected by religion is a shitty cause."

Your second statement is different than your first. I disagreed with the first statement, not the second. strawman.

You can't see what I was doing there?

I should have known this would go over heads.

then I guess I misinterpreted what you meant when you said that your goal was not to change the views of the religious but to castrate and gain freedom of and from religion.

I still don't see how our opinions differ.

well they aren't.

I already said that I misinterpreted what you said and thought you meant "rid the world of religion." When you said that isn't what you said/meant then we no longer disagreed. 

Sure, I'll get a cheeseburger with you. Just accept my love Arabian, you know you want to.

I don't think the point of religion is to give those who believe something power over those who don't, yes it's been used this way historically but in my opinion it's wrong. I think that's abuse. You're using the bible as a scapegoat when you choose to do something and then state that it was done in God's name. I think many churches and religious groups as a whole are guilty of this. These are just my opinions. You can certainly disagree.

right I mean this is what it boils down to.

People say (those with no religious affiliation from what I've experienced) that if you don't accept the bible as the word of God and everything in the bible as the word of God, in its most literal form, then you're not a Christian.

To pick and choose you're sometimes called a "Cafeteria Christian" but some people have a problem with the word Christian being used by anyone who is willing to take liberty with the interpretation of the bible.

To these people I say give me whatever label you want. I only use Christian because it's what is on the door to my church. Label me whatever the hell you want.

I'm not out to prove that anyone is wrong. People can believe whatever they want. It's when they turn those beliefs into actions against other people that I think is wrong, like showing up and protesting someone's funeral, etc. People just need to stop pushing what they believe onto others.

Do people who aren’t religious or don’t believe in a “God” of any kind understand the concept of someone having a genuine relationship with God (whatever God is to them)?  I read things like “God will become useless.” As if people only say they believe in God because it provides an explanation for the “gaps” in science.

Can you wrap your head around someone believing—actually believing, not just having faith, or saying they believe for a specific reason or to explain something or to calm fears, but actually believing? Believing and trusting in God’s existence as reality in the similar sense that one accepts their physical surroundings as reality? A God that isn’t explained by simple human theories, stories, or explanations? 

Because I believe in God, and there isn’t anything anyone can tell me that would ever make me not believe in God because I do not tie God’s existence to any biblical story or to creationism or anything of the sort.  When I hear things like “evolution is scientific fact.” All I think of is “great, well I never tied my belief in God to some story of creationism anyway.”  I call myself a Christian not because I believe in the bible as the word of God, but because I have a relationship with God, and many of the basic principles that I strive to live my life by are taught and promoted in this church. 

There is no house of worship that perfectly describes the God that I believe in or my relationship with God, because houses of worship are created by men. I can just choose to either not attend church, or attend the one that comes the closest to spreading and embracing the positive messages and principles that I experience and attribute to my relationship with God. In reading the bible and attending Christian church, I have embraced many of the positive messages and lessons that can be found in the bible, but as someone who doesn’t subscribe to the belief that the bible is the literal word of God, it is my choice to not embrace the parts of the bible that I don’t advocate or associate with God as well.

I know that many people will read this and say "well then you're not a Christian at all." But my point is that I think there are quite a few Christian (and possibly other) churches that are likely partially filled with people similar to me. This is why I defend and persecute the religious simultaneously without hypocrisy and is the best response I can give to watts.