My parents, none of whom are illiterate and are reasonably highly educated chose to spend serious time and commitment in some church's bible study class. There is homework and a lot of analysis of the text. As such, I don't think it is so much of "I am lazy" as "I want an answer". For many people, an answer of "I Don't Know" is not acceptable. They want an answer. Any answer that isn't IDK. There are questions to which there will be no answer at this time. Since waiting for say 100 years is not possible, they will accept an answer today that will not have them repeat the phrase IDK.

Intimidation is a function. Giving an answer is another.

What part escapes you? That you will never know the TCO of a religion till you are deeply entrenched in it? That no deity has met the challenge of showing themselves? Or that people in religious organizations are going to try to show that their brand is the best brand?

http://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/science-asks-how-religion-asks-why/

Not the old gunfighter Palladin.

Does religion ask why or does it give you a packaged answer?

I suspect that is a big part of it, I also suspect there is a social aspect too. It is probably comforting to belong to a group of like-minded people who all agree on simple answers to complex questions.

LOL, I knew I read it someplace recently. :D

< laugh >

None of the above is escapeing me, it just takes me longer than you guys to process the info provided, therefore I really will have to fawn in terms of being able to weigh in much in this conversation. I didnt go in far in school as you fella's have..better that I listen..and not speak, maybee I can learn something that way.

I did not mean to sound Pelagian.
I firmly believe, with the Reformers, that God, in His sovereignty rules all his creatures and all their actions. Scripture teaches that God is sovereign over all His creation, but it also teaches that every person is responsible for their choices. Choices are real; not contrived.
I understand that that appears to be contradictory.

Perhaps an example will help. My knowledge of higher math is minimal, but I have done some popular reading. I have read that some problems that are complex in 2 or 3 dimensions become simple in higher dimensions. My feeling is that the apparent problem of divine sovereignty and human choice also resolves itself in the mind of an infinite Creator.

gee, no offense, but that sounds like a cop out.

i must ask how you came by your beliefs? (though you, of course, are not required to answer.)

Here is a short answer that will, in all probability, not satisfy you, but you asked about MY faith.

It is simple, orthodox reformed theology; nothing new. Read Calvin, Luther, Zwingli or any of the other reformers.
The short answer is:
1) All Scripture is God-given for our instruction.
2) Since God is the Author, and He is consistent, All Scripture must, of necessity, be true.
3) God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His Being, Wisdom, and Power.
4) The Scriptures teach that God sovereignly controls all His creatures, and all their actions for His own purposes.
5) The Scriptures also teach that every person is responsible for their own actions.

Notice that none of those points say anything at all about humans having free will to choose and are responsible as a result of having such a free will. Hence the Pelagian/American/Non-orthodox nature of your previous post where you wrote something like 'The choice is yours'.

It also says very deftly that the bible justifies itself. Kinda like me writing a math book that says 2 + 3 is 23. Further on in the book, I have proof. Also, the book is not wrong according to itself therefore 2 + 3 is 23.

I'm sure that you can see that (to an objective outsider) this is an exercise in circular logic:

1. I have a book that claims to be written by my god.
2. Because the book was written by my god, it must be true.
3. Therefore, the book was actually written by my god.

Is it necessary to point out that your items 4 and 5 are mutually exclusive, and that your item 3 was written by people who lived at a time when most educated people thought the universe was infinitely old and unchanging; avoiding the infinite regression paradox that we would have today?

Wouldn't it be easier to say that you simply believe what you have chosen to believe, or that you believe what your parents taught you to believe. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a matter of pure faith, not logic.

I would say that humans universally do this. Not just believing parents but the whole set of beliefs of the previous generation. I'd say the evolutionary success of the species depended on children accepting the authority of adults in order to survive in their environment. Each generation does not have enough time or safety to relearn from scratch the knowledge their parents/tribe had to survive.
It's only with great effort and the help of modifications to our social and political institutions that we've been able to develop practices which function by doubting and testing the knowledge of previous generations. Even now, there's only a small proportion of accepted knowledge that is under scrutiny at any given time.
We've discovered pretty good methods of doubting and testing a lot of previously accepted knowledge. But what typically counts as 'religion' is traditional knowledge previously widespread for which we have no means of testing its truth. Given this situation, there aren't a lot of choices. One can continue to believe it without thought--an option followed by many. Throw it out completely as nonsense--an option followed by fewer. Or defend it with self-deluded arguments like--it's in the book we've always read so it has to be true. This last choice is clearly a response to a crisis in the case of Christianity since no early or medieval Christian would ever have thought to make that argument.

Since the second option of throwing things out requires the pyschological state of affairs in which one rejects the authority of the previous generation including one's parents and families it seems highly unlikely that it will ever predominate. Hence we will be stuck for a very long time, if not forever, with a set of ancient untested beliefs nested within a society built on tested knowledge. That might change if we ever had a generation of parents who were able to convince their children that it was their job to disobey the previous generation. But if there's anything that religion does, it teaches children to obey their parents.

Some claim that it's actually due to evolution favoring those individuals who are "hard wired" to defer to authority. The argument is that those individuals who, as children, were most likely to obey their parents or other adults were more likely to survive and reproduce (i.e., they didn't get eaten by saber tooth tigers as frequently). Although this personality trait may not be useful for individual modern adults, it is firmly entrenched in the modern human gene pool. It makes sense that adults with this trait would invent gods to be obeyed, and/or that leaders looking for leverage over people would encourage the masses to obey gods who just happen to have the same agenda as the leaders (I strongly suspect that most leaders, even religious leaders, are missing this gene).

Who knows, maybe this legacy does have some positive effects in modern society; it does provide a basis for a fairly universal set of acceptable behaviors. Just because it's based on nonsense, doesn't mean it's not a useful tool.