btw, congrats dete for stealing cambs thunder ;)

heh

100 posts. and yeah, if i ever come off condescending, that is not my intention. its easy to come off a bit cold in these types of discussions when you don't have a belief system of your own.

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent."
~Thomas Jefferson

You guys are getting off topic...

Brass tacks.....why religion?

Is it because that's what Mommy and Daddy taught you? Is it because you had one of those "moments" where you realized He was with you? Is it fear of burning in Hell?

While most decent Christians will say they choose God because they want to have a relationship with him and serve him, I always feel that this is simple PC bullshit covering up the real reason for faith, which is fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of no afterlife. Fear of eternal damnation. Fear, fear, fear.

Fear is the main reason any of the historical religions have begun.......for control purposes. Religion was the law. People behaved properly because if they didn't Ra would punish them, or Zeus, or Thor, or God, etc.

Any other purpose for having faith is some misguided need for life to make sense, have meaning, and end in a resulting afterlife.

oh, and ya, nice 100 poster dete

Well said Thrax. Fear does seem to be the common denominator.

Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if there be one, he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
~Thomas Jefferson

No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
~Edgar Allen Poe

and by the way, I'm looking for answers to the question I posed at the beginning of my post.......the rest was just my take on why people believe

for me it was a "moment". if youre interested in the wall of text, i can post it tonight when son is asleep and wife is at some new moms crying club.

I'm always interested in a wall of text.......you'll never get a tl;dr out of me

Monte its just the wiki but at least it has some info, of course nothing is even close to being known, my question was more of an excercise in what if?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation

i too will open mindfully read and respond to wall o' text.