# What is your biggest problem with religion that prevents you from believing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 10, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500 "2016-05-10T19:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/101 "2016-05-13T19:41:58Z")
And speaking to the ignorance of certain sets of Christians about their own faith, the single most delicious question that a student has ever asked me in thirty years of teaching is: “What’s the difference between Catholic and regular?” :dubious: :eek: :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/102 "2016-05-13T23:37:51Z")
Catholic has less calories? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/103 "2016-05-14T00:54:57Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > \*\*What is your biggest problem with religion that prevents you from believing? \*\* > > A strangely worded OP. Religion doesn’t prevent me from believing anything. But the problem might prevent someone from believing. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/104 "2016-05-14T02:37:52Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Interestingly, Mel Gibson caused a bit of a stir some years ago when [he said basically the same thing about his wife:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#Religious_and_political_views) Gibson, along with his nut-case father, is an adherent of a radical traditionalist sect. He may or may not align himself with the Society of St. Pius X, Latin-Mass traditionalists, I’m not sure. He may be a sedevacantist. But nothing he says should be taken as an accurate statement of Catholic teaching. But to believe that anyone who is not Catholic is doomed to Hell is _not_ consistent with Catholic teaching. ---
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/105 "2016-05-15T12:45:27Z")
For me, the first indication that there was a problem was God’s inability to handle money well. Really. I was required to hand over a portion of my allowance to the church. But, hey, if God is all-powerful, why does he need help from a 6 yr old child? Now, that didn’t set me off into non-belief. But, I knew that something, somewhere, was deeply flawed. It was best said by George Carlin some years later - “Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!” ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/106 "2016-05-16T11:15:49Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Catholic has less calories? I thought maybe Catholic was Hi-Test…😃 ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/107 "2016-05-16T13:16:03Z")
At the moment, the preponderance of evidence tends to support the Big Bang and evolution. Every religion seems to have faith healers who claim that they can cure cancer. Yet every religion has adherents who die of cancer. The religions cannot produce predictable, replicable results. Oddly enough, reading about quantum mechanics makes me more inclined to believe in a deity. But any god who would create quantum mechanics must be a trickster, like Coyote or the Monkey King. Certainly not the grumpy old curmudgeon of the Abrahamic faiths. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/108 "2016-05-16T20:52:19Z")
I’m not an Atheist, though I’ve gone through those stages, but my problem isn’t so much with belief than organized religion itself as well and most of the people I’ve experienced that are part of it. Greed and Ego seem to sit in the driver’s seat. Greed on part of the church “owners” and Ego on everybody that goes to church and vies to be the most holy and pure, but turn around and treat waiters and other service works like trash after church, every Sunday. There are some good ones out there, but most are like my parents. Good people to those like them, and maybe nice to the “other people’s” faces, but are judgmental and petty based on their comments behind closed doors. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/109 "2016-05-16T21:18:28Z")
Sorry to double post, but just wanted to add, that while I’m not really an Atheist, I do not believe in the standard religions like Christianity, in that I mostly refuse to believe in that God. I can’t believe a true higher power would be so vindictive as to create Hell, and condemn those that don’t grovel at his feet to a supposed eternity of damnation. He created the rules, made the adversary, and then made us culpable for our supposed ancestors for their mistakes and sins. Even if I could bring myself to believe in such a petty creature, I couldn’t worship it. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/110 "2016-05-16T21:22:52Z")
Where did our ideas about Gods and other supernatural entities come from? I mean, it’s obvious that Zeus was just some idea that people made up. It took centuries, but first you start with the idea that thunder is scary, then anthropomorphize some sort of personality to the thunder. Thunder happens because some invisible entity makes it happen. And he’s probably angry, because it’s thunder. And then you start making up more ideas about what this thunder-being is like, and you tell your kids about it, and they tell their kids, and centuries later you have Zeus. And it’s obviously a fictional character. And when we study thunder, we find out that thunder does not have a personality, and is not like a powerful person at all. And the stories from the Bible are all the same sort of thing. YHWH is a fictional character. And yeah, the character of YHWH over centuries has morphed, in some people’s minds, into some sort of impersonal creative force, or the ultimate ground of being, or the uncaused first cause. But if there was an uncaused first cause, it doesn’t seem likely that it had a personality, any more than thunder and lightning have a personality. So using the name “God” doesn’t help anything, in fact it confuses things, because some people think you’re talking about YHWH, which leads to all sorts of confusing shenanigans and comical misunderstandings worthy of an episode of “Three’s Company”. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/111 "2016-05-16T21:51:43Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > . . . And it’s obviously a fictional character. . . . And the stories from the Bible are all the same sort of thing. YHWH is a fictional character. . . . There’s a kind of progression here. We watched J.R.R. Tolkien make up Elbereth. We know how H.P. Lovecraft made up Azathoth. We know how the Norse and Icelandics made up stories about Odin and Thor. We know how Hesiod made up stories about Zeus. (Hesiod’s list of Olympians differs from other lists: Eileithyia doesn’t appear in all lists.) We can see how the writers of the New Testament made up interpretations of Old Testament prophecies to fit Jesus. What possible reason is there to imagine that only Jehovah is exempt from this fable-making? ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/112 "2016-05-16T22:08:19Z")
I am on record on this board as a non-traditional theist. I believe that Something is going on, in a big way - and I mean a REALLY big way. I subscribe to the idea that any “god” we can picture is only vague and fragmentary, despite claims of “revelation” - any god I can believe in must be, _by_ _definition_, greater than anything I can possibly imagine. And this god definitely does not give a rat’s ass about whether or not I eat shellfish, or what I, or anybody else, might want to do with our reproductive organs. All of that is sloughing away over time; the best is yet to come. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/113 "2016-05-17T18:01:05Z")
The fact that people just made it all up. I’m not saying religion doesn’t have a lot of positive attributes, but so does Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/114 "2016-05-17T18:09:45Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > The fact that people just made it all up. I’m not saying religion doesn’t have a lot of positive attributes, but so does Star Wars. At least in _Star Wars_ killing off every living creature on a planet except for a handful was seen as an evil act. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/115 "2016-05-17T19:49:05Z")
Reality. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/116 "2016-05-18T20:21:36Z")
There could be a god out there someplace but if there is it is nothing at all like what anybody thinks it is. And it doesn’t give a shit if we worship it. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/117 "2016-05-19T09:11:00Z")
‘Rose again on the third day.’ I just can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500/118 "2016-05-19T11:38:00Z")
Republicans. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-biggest-problem-with-religion-that-prevents-you-from-believing/754500.md?page=5)