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It's slightly easier to do debate from a Roman Catholic standpoint, than a scientological one.

I acctually read the bible just so i could learn what they are all talking about. and so i could know what to prove wrong. It's easier to kill someone's debate if you know all their resources.

I find that I love studying all religions. I've always loved reading about the escapades of Greek deities, and have a particular interest in Hinduism and Shinto. I just find what people believe in to be interesting. My latest interest is Wicca. The worship of nature seems natural and primal to me.
Makes me want to dance naked around a camp fire.


(By the way, I just joined. I lean mostly towards science when I want to know how the world works, but sometimes a bit of the metaphysical can be really inspiring. Bah, I'm a writer at heart.)

This is probably one of the most interesting replies I've gotten. Might I suggest you take a peek at Satanism?? (NOT, might I add, the typical view of it. I mean the actual satanic bible.) It's a very intersting religion, to say the least, in the way of fictions since you dabble that way.

woahness. Natural habitat huh? How funny.

As much as I detest the idea of organized religion, let alone obviously conformist cliques of any kind, I enjoy reading into religions.

My reasons are simple: As someone mentioned earlier, the best way to kill someone's debate is to know their side of it. But also, I like to try to compare, and weigh the pros and the cons. As much as religions generally stink, there is usually some redeemable point in a religion. Take, for example, the Ten Commandments, excluding the first four (and a half). What do I mean, you ask? Simple: the first four commandments are

1. "You shall have no other gods before Me." This one is useless, and can be used all too easily to comdemn people of other faiths. *disgard*

2. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any other likeness of what is in heaven above or on the Earth beneath or in the water under the Earth." Once again, virtually useless... sure, it's a great argument to say it will keep people from making asses of themselves... it'd be a great argument if that was true. Look at Popey-pants. He's made an idol of himself (well, did... but now he's all gone) and I saw no God coming down to smite his a**, nor any Christians using this Commandment against him. Not only these reason,s but also the fact that heaven cannot be 'above', because when I point up and someone in Australia points up, it's a different up. Above is physical, and heaven would be metaphysical. Also, the water is not "under the Earth", for the same reason. 'Under' is relative to where you are standing... also, 'under; would imply that the Earth is flat... need I say more? Nuh-uh. *disgard*

3. "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunsihed who takes His name in vain." Another bad one. Let's look harshly at this. Let's say that someone drags some poor unsuspecting kid into an alley, slits his throat, and beats his body ruthlessly with a shovel until nothing is left of it. Because of the way the Christian religion works, all this sicko needs to do is beg for forgiveness from God, and God'll do it, because he's realized what he's done wrong. But, on the other hand, if someone happens to see this happen and they blurt out "Oh my God! Christ all ******** mighty! Jesus, he's killing him!!" even if they had done nothing wrong before or after this, they would go to Hell. Yeah, way to run a fair moral system *disgard*

4. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." This implies many faults in the dogma. Not only will you have sinned if you don't keep the day holy, but it specifically says "Remember", meaning if you woke up and thought it was Saturday, but it was actually Sunday... guess what... you just broke a commandment! biggrin I have nothing against having a day off work for contemplative thought and rest... in fact, I need to commend this commandment for making the week easier for many people... free day off every week, just 'cause some asscrack in the sky says so! W00t! What I do have a problem with is "keeping it holy", and it being a sin not to. *disgard*

4 1/2. "Honor your mother and your father, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you." I'm all for having respect for the parent-types. It's just a good rule of thumb. They feed, clothe and house you, so the least you can do is show them some courtesy. The problems are, once again, the sin aspect, and the mentioning of God, and the unusual connection from parents to the land God apparently 'gives' you. What, is God a real estate agent? A landLORD (haha! oh, my puns own! domokun xp ) But no, seriously, this one loses points for the sin aspect, and the incoherant mentioning of land and Lordy. *mostly disgard*

The rest of the Commandments are pretty useful, once the sin aspect is dropped. Not killing, not stealing and not cheating are pretty good moral concepts, all around. So, they could be considered good writing, even though they're ridiculously simple and not followed enough by religious-folks.

In Satanism, there are also some good and bad things... I don't really remember every Satanic Commandment, but they basically tie into combinging logic and instinct. It tells you to not deceive yourself, not harm people, especially small children, since they aren't mature enough to know better, to not kill any non-human animal, unless it is self-defense or food-oriented (blah blah)... they're just decently logical precepts....

So yes, that is why I read into religions... to both knock down the religions and the fanatics within them, and to keep all redeemable aspects and weish them with the useless ones.

Religion is a fasinating thing to study for 3 reasons,
1: It makes for super sweet debates with addicts(believers)
2: It makes it easier to go on forums and write disgustingly-scary-fanatic comments to genuinly offent people of other fanatical faiths.
3: The grammer in the bible is ******** hilarious!!!