I HAVE studied my opposing views as I mentioned my upbringing already. My profile will tell you where I'm from but I don't see what being an Aussie has to do with this discussion.
I've mentioned before than I waver between Atheism (denial) and Agnoticism (apathy) depending on what I've been drinking and what mood I'm in. I am well aware that a distinction exists between the two and I almost never pay religion, the churches or God any consideration until they start to annoy me somehow. I have some spiritual belief based on what I've experienced but that too I have researched the origins of and found it to be similar to a near death or a K-holing/third-eye type experience.
I know I can never convince someone that the things they believe are bunk, although it would be nice. I know that a great many people turn to religion because the world is too complex and religion softens the hard edges of reality. I know that religion offers a moral compass to those who otherwise get lost in life's great maze. It can be a crutch or a pillar of strength for those people and that's fine, good for them. I would like more people to understand what they believe and question why. To question if they believe that those things that are thoroughly untestable, not just unprovable but completely unfalsifiable because they cannot even be tested, things that have no impact on the world should be the genesis for laws that discriminate and promote ignorant hatred (jimbo) toward others for reasons unknown and nonexistent.
I'm not a hostile person at all I just get argumentative in discussions with people who don't think that morals can come from anywhere except the bible and that there is one true belief and that this true belief states that this kind of person is right and this kind of person is wrong and the wrong person will be punished in death so we are free to legislate against them in life. That kind of idiotic thinking is what disgusts me.
Religion is my pet peeve and as I said before I make sure I don't associate with many of their type (the bible wavers) in my life as they only end up pissing me off with their high and mighty attitudes and life's too short to share a drink with a tongue-clucker. I don't mind what anyone believes as long as they know why they believe it and why they shouldn't NOT believe it and as long as they keep it to themselves and out of government and legislature.
The internet is a different place it's like a really big "right room for an argument". If you're a Monty Python fan you'll get the reference.
Anyway arguing that black is white with people who believe otherwise may be pointless, especially when so many of them just give up.
I have said before I don't know if there is a God or not and I don't care either. It has no impact on my life one way or the other. I have looked back far enough to see that the bad elements were put in later to scare people and keep them in line. If there is a God He has no power on Earth and everyone meets Him. But then I don't really think there is a God and so except when arguing about it on the 'net I don't think about it much.
I think I got to this point in the thread because Bush is a dangerously stupid Theocrat who believes in things I'm sure he has never questioned. I don't doubt that he believes as I know from first hand experience what a powerful thing a drug-addled born again experience can be, but in my case I continued to question it until my sanity returned and Bush likely did not question the root causes of such a vision. It's a common enough occurence but there's nothing divine about it so far as my inquiries and research can ascertain. But then I'm still looking, is Bush? Or is he going to smite the heathens because his vision commands him to do so?
That's what scares me, that this organisation that has been built out of a thousand lies and one possible kernel of truth has so much power in the greatest (not a value judgement just a statement of financial and economic greatness) country on this tiny blue dot.
Ultimately both sides believe the same thing and see the other as evil and that's idiotic. The fact that they will fight to the death to ensure that their bastardised version of the same story will be the winner is sickening.
EDIT: Just saw some transposed letters.