Date sent: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:25:13 -0700 (PDT)

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Roger: This is why I did not choose to become religious:

When I was deciding these issues I did give careful consideration to becoming religious.

In fact, this was during the time when I saw the science exhibit at Expo, and talked with the Moody Institute person.

The feeling I developed was that a lot of arbitrary choices were being made. People would tell me, "This is so because God/Jesus says it's so." and I would ask, "How do you know this?" and get the answer back, "The Bible says it's so." and I would ask, "And what makes The Bible such a good authority?" and get back the answer, "Because it's holy." and when I asked, "What makes it holy?" get back the answer, "God does, and you have to take that on faith."

Toby: Not good answers by Moody... certainly incomplete. The bible has great authority and history behind it. it is certainly NOT a science book.

I read parts of The Bible, and found it totally unsatisfactory as a reference source. It was hard to understand in the first place, and subject to multiple interpretation in the second place.

So... what I found I was looking at was a belief system dominated by people who were more than willing to tell me what to believe, but they had no more authority and no more insight than I did, and the authority they claimed gave them the right to tell me what was right and what was wrong was a book filled with fuzzy logic (in the layman sense, not the IT jargon sense).

I agree with you. Those who claim it is a logic book are also wrong.

**This lead me to the conclusion, which I still hold, that I would be betraying my own ability to make good choices if I was to "surrender to God" and let some human-thinking-dominated religious institution tell me what was right and what was wrong.**

You are right, I left the "free", protestant church because of that attitude, and ended up home in Rome, the real Catholic Church is understood by few, you have to be a thinker, misquoted by many. And not soundbite material. It is where faith and reason come together.

The years have not changed my conclusion about this matter.

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