[tntn]

I like to think of myself as intelligent, and I am religious. I'd like to gain some insight into exactly what kind of serious cherry picking I'm doing. Could you provide some examples of what you had in mind when you wrote your comment?

I have a hard time understanding how someone can get a degree in religion without noticing how unfalsifiable most religions are.

I'd also be interested to hear what great new evidence has arisen since the 19th century that makes religion so foolish. Take Maxwell for example. He knew about the age of the Earth and recognized the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution. Yet he was by all accounts a very religious man.

[bleachedsleet]

I think your example of Maxwell makes my point. Let's assume Christianity for a moment, since Maxwell was a Christian. In order to accept the consensus of evolutionary theory while still maintaining one's faith, one must either cherry pick ("the Genesis account was wrong"), compartmentalize ("I accept evolution as true and ignore the conflict with my faith") or appeal to the problem of interpretation that all religions face ("Genesis was obviously not meant to be taken literally and is mere metaphor"). The last option tends to fall under cherry picking itself since it changes with time. Until evolution was accepted as fact, it was mostly taken for granted that the Genesis account was literal. Now days, unless you adhere to creationism, you must assume part of your theology to be metaphorical under no rational basis or risk being outed as a fool that believes in fairy tales. Thus, while Maxwell was a great scientist and definitely had smarts in that area, it would seem to me that he compartmentalized, accepting a philosophy as true that his own scientific pursuit would otherwise find false. A modern example would be William Lane Craig who I find to be a very eloquently formed speaker and obviously quite learned, but for some reason, ignores basic scientific truths in order to preserve his faith.

[svskeptic]

Lets start with why you think the particular religion you practice is the one?

If you think, all are the same, then you are now moving towards existence of a superior being and possibly creationism.

[erikpukinskis]

Pretty much all major religions are compatible with each other. You can move towards a particular sect if you have specific needs. A polytheist Christian would tend towards Catholicism, etc.

I don’t think you need to adhere closely to one single tradition in order to be “religious” if that’s what you’re getting at.

To answer your question directly though, I was raised in a Christian church. I adhere to some basic form of that. Humility, forgiveness, we were made in Gods image, the original sin of the knowledge of good and evil, etc.