amigojapan's current opinions about religion

These are some disorganized ideas I wanted to write down on my current ideas about religion.... let me add that my ideas change constantly, so there is no guaranty they will be the same tomorrow as they are today.
some of my ideas have been best expressed in chats with other people. so some of my notes are just logs of chats I have had with those people. that is why they may appear to abruptly begin....

On the origin of the bible:
amigojapan	Ross: and then, people must habe approached the bible writer with questions like "why do we need to do all this hard work? , so he came up with the idea that we did not need to do it before "eden" but we got thrown out of it
amigojapan	fred__w: if you looked at the world with no scientific knowladge, I can see why you would think the sky was also water, same as the sea... it would make sence
fred__w	i didnt say that what i said was the language used may not have adequately conveyed the idea and waters came closest to the writers intention thats a point of view one take
amigojapan	Ross: fred__w : the story of adam and eve, almost sounds to me like what a parent would tell a child that is constantly asking "but why daddy, why is the sky blue? why do we feel pain? why are there thorns? what are the stars in the sky? etc" after being bombarded with a ton of questions. the writer did his best with the little knowladge he had
amigojapan	I can almost hear the child in the background constantly asking "why why why!?"

on the bible commentary:
Then came the sages, and still do now, after the bible was made, they came in with annotations and commentary, and formed our current views on the bible, like the doctrine of original sin, and connected the OT with the NT, rendering the serpent Satan.... and came up with all this, which now carries the more useful purpose of defining our ethics....  this is done by commenting on the bible and comming up with ideas that sometimes even contradict the text in the bible....  but progress is made.
bible commentary is a necessary and continuous job that is never finished.
in fact this domunet itself is a piece of bible commentary.

on evolutionary theory and religion:
religion like everything else, comes under the laws of evolution,   when an idea helps the tribe survive, the number of believers increase, so must be helpful in some way..... and when an idea is bad, it could lead to the death of the believers, like with suicide cults. they have gone extinct.

on benefits of religion:
+William Snell well,   the thing about religion is that it has some benefits whether it
is true or not... and I think it is a necessary enterprise....let me list the benefits
that it has: #1 "mind police that cannot be avoided" the believer thinks that God is
always watching over him, seeing if he is doing good or evil. thus he does not think he
can get away with a crime even when someone is not watching, if they did not believe,
they might think they can get away with things when they can't be caught, this also has
the added benefit that people thinks that doing good deeds is commanded by their God
which is what leads to religion being one of the major sources of charity, having
charity works in places where charity would not reach otherwise, this is all achieved
by the idea of hell.
hope for the future, the idea of heaven provides a hope for people that fear death, and
also for people that have lost a loved one to have a chance to meet them again.
it provides a sense of purpose in life...  believers think that God has a plan for
their life and that what they do is not in vane.
A community of people to be with. Religion provides this which is not available to
people that do not go to a religious organization.
all of these things are true whether God exists or not, all that is necessary is that
the believer really believe it.
I am not religious, I am just listing the things about religion I think are important
and beneficial, and should not go away.... there are more beneficial things I can't
recall at the moment.
Of course there are negative things about religion, like religious people wanting to
teach creationism in science class.
all I can say is that I hope religions follow the path of reformed Judaism, where
science is set up to be even more important than the bible. but of course this took a
very long time for Judaism, can't tell how long it will take for other religions (if
ever), but it is the fact that religion will probably not go away which makes me think
we should work with what we have of religion and try to reform it to something better.

Should people believe the bible literally?:
in some cases, I rather people believe in everything literally, for some people, their belief in the bible and in god, is the only thing stopping them from commiting attrotious crimes..... it would be better if such people where in mental institutions, but it is hard to find them