Thank you for bringing this topic out of the cybernetic morass, as it were, Lindy.
Those long, seemingly endless lines of posts in some topics just get to be too much sometimes.

That having been said, I want to comment on this particular topic. I have to ask this to REB and all others who have changed their views because of extraordinary events, actual or perceived: Are you doing it out of love for your beliefs, or fear?

I was raised Roman Catholic. While being taught that God and Jesus were all about love and how much they loved us and wanted nothing but the best for us, I was simultaneously told that if I didn't love God and Jesus back and do what I was told to - via his appointed authorities on Earth, of course - that I was going to suffer forever in Hell. And apparently even if I didn't do something really terrible, I could still end up in Purgatory suffering until the end of time, when I would supposedly be "cleansed" and deemed right and pure to enter Heaven. I think this is also known as torture and brainwashing.

This is a being who "loves" me? I didn't even want to think about what would happen if I really p*ssed him off!

Like most humans when confronted with such negative situations, I focused on the unpleasant parts far more than the love part - in large part because the negative was foisted upon us far more often. And the images of God were not all hugs and care bears and roses: I got the definite impression of a massive, powerful being sitting somewhere way up in the sky knowing my every thought and watching every action I did and keeping intricate tabs until the day I got to visit him in person, where he would judge me and I'd either be picking up a halo and wings or trying to find an asbestos bodysuit real fast.

So the situation boiled down to Love God or Suffer Forever. So I decided to try and be really good and not even linger on bad thoughts, to say nothing of actual deeds. Some times I would question why the situation was the way it was if God really loved us? I could understand a parent teaching a child a lesson who didn't understand or did something naughty, or punishing them if they really got out of line, but endless torment after just 70 to 80 years on planet Earth if I didn't get my act together seemed kinda a tight schedule - and even moreso as I got older.

Can you say "paranoid neurotic"?

So what it came down to was the fact that while there was some love of God in there, most of my "relationship" with him was fear of his authority and all-knowing presence, his ultimate fate for those who didn't fall into line by the time they died (what about poor babies who didn't do anything wrong but didn't have time to get baptized either - Limbo, according to the Earth Reps, where they were watched over by angels until the end of time), and fear of the seemingly humorless authority figures who told me what God wanted cause they had special access and clearance to the Big Guy Upstairs, which I as a mere unwashed mortal could not.

Wait a minute, where was I? Oh yeah, fear.

I caught a bit from one of those Christian fundamentalist programs on the radio the other night. It talked about how Satan was created by God as a kind of filter to trip up all the people who weren't going to get in lockstep with God, so he could separate the wheat from the chaff and through the latter into the Eternal Fire, cause God really loves us and wants the best for us - unless we don't do what he says, of course.

And I was thinking, if God loves us all and wants only the best for us, why did he make an Agent of Evil to trip up a whole bunch of people who will end up having a really bad day for infinity? Is this a Universe created and governed by a crazy being? Am I in the Matrix? What the heck can we do about that?

So what it's really all about is fear, a far more powerful motivator for social control and group mindthink than love. Is there a God? Is he really like what I said above? Don't have any real proof, but I better fall in line because I am surrounded by people who do believe in him and like his style. And now there's the added fear of my entire nation going down the drain if I don't follow their view because there's another group who have a similar view of God but with just enough differences to cause all kinds of problems. And of course they think they are the only right ones with the "right" God, too. So you know this isn't going to end pleasantly.

I'm just waiting for the human race to grow up and get past its childhood fears.

Will we live that long for that day to happen?