I hear you, Peter. I was raised Lutheran. I have left organized religion and can't foresee ever becoming involved with it again. I'm still a spiritual person who believes in something beyond this life but I have no idea what that might be. Reincarnation? Maybe. It's been difficult to challenge the belief system that was instilled in me but I have to be honest with myself. One would think a person would have settled on something by age 66 but the road I'm on has lots of twists in it.

If there's a silver lining to the last 8 years of madness, it's that MAGA people have opened my eyes to how easily people can be manipulated. Willingly manipulated. I now see all of religion as a man-made construct for a civilized society to help maintain a sense of order. It's not divine. I look at the gospels that tell the story of Jesus and I have to question their authenticity. They weren't written for between 40-110 years after Christ's resurrection. I have to believe that after that much time, they had become folklore. I question biblical authenticity throughout the book. And I'll never be able to reconcile God of the OT with Jesus of the NT. They are two opposing supreme beings with one calling for vengeance and suffering and wiping out anyone who got in the way, and the other telling us to love our neighbor. it makes no sense. 

I had an acquaintance on Facebook until recently. Every day Jim would post biblical scripture on his Facebook page, usually NT stuff. A few days after Hamas attacked Israel, Jim posted something from Deuteronomy about vengeance. I waited a few days after his post had received many likes and I posted in the comments some scripture from Matthew 5 where Jesus is said to have implored us to love our enemies because anyone can love their friends. Jim saw the post and proceeded to make a half dozen separate posts of animal videos, effectively burying the scripture I had just posted. He buried the scripture he loves to hold up for others to see but not when it actually matters. And then he unfriended and blocked me. He's easily the most dedicated Christian I've ever known but he's lost the plot and I don't see how he ever gets it back. I've never actually met Jim in person (he friended me 15 years ago when a mutual friend passed away) but I had recently reached out to him more than once to meet for coffee. He always turned me down, saying he was too busy. He's not at all interested in having his beliefs challenged or in trying to see another person's perspective. He's content in his make-believe world and nothing I say will ever change that. He is a lost cause, something I'm sure he thinks of me.

This MAGA craziness is a cancer on our country and has to be taken seriously.

Kevin g