You have to redefine what religion is because what you have does not make sense. Flying horses, virgin conceptions, resurrection, spirits, 6000 year old Earth, creating woman from a rib bone, or man from dirt, talking snakes, etc., etc. All utter nonsense.
Keep re-writing it, eventually you'll get to the truth. Life is not unique in this or other universes, humans might not be the surviving lifeform in few thousands/millions of years. Humans are not special animals, we are like all other monkeys, we are just smarter and can talk.
I define religion as anything an individual structures their life around either consciously or unconsciously.
I talked about this more here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1373864.msg35126317#msg35126317
I have seen arguments like your before af_newbie. They are often followed by statements like
Life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. There is no inherent morality, accepted moral values are abstractly contrived. The universe and everything in it is entirely random. Ultimately there is no real point to life.
I am familiar with this "religion" this this type of faith if you will. I find it unpersuasive to say the least.
Many religious texts make a lot more sense then you are giving them credit for. I have found Jordan Peterson's lecture series on that topic to be particularily insightful as he goes through one of them line by line.
Biblical Series I: Introduction to the Idea of God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w
The purpose of life is to survive and procreate. It is a common purpose in all life forms, including humans.
You are over analyzing it. It is pretty simple. People fear death and develop self coping mechanism to deal with that fear.
Have you noticed that poor and uneducated people are more religious than educated and independently wealthy. Why is that?
Poor and uneducated have more to fear and need some hope (any myth will do) to help them cope with their problems and questions.
Saying that some bronze stone texts have any insights is like saying that Pinocchio fairy tale is a good source of engineering knowledge.
People are killing and mistreating people in the name of those religious texts. Even today. How can you say that slavery is a good thing?
You know it causes harm. People who wrote these texts were psychopaths.
You are simply taking things out of context. The laws in Exodus, which are repeated in Deuteronomy, are some of the best laws for living by in the whole world. They couldn't have been put together better.
Well, there is where we disagree. You base your morals on a book.
To me if an action causes harm to yourself or other living organisms (humans included) it is immoral.
That is what I base my morality, not on some ancient text written by some schmuck in a cave.
I'm telling you guys you got it all wrong. You are deluding yourself into believing that these ancient texts have any insights. Those are reflections of bronze age people, talking about life in those times. There is nothing you can use from these books other than "do not kill".
(Which the texts do not follow from one chapter to the next LOL).
Ask yourself this: Why did God not bother to update these books? They are obviously wrong on so many levels. Why not update them?
Why not post the 'correct' version on this very thread?
Because the "Gods" who wrote the Bible (about 40+ writers) are all dead. Same thing with Talmud or Quran. Same 'problem'.
People die because they have degenerated in many ways from the perfection of a little over 6,000 years ago. It could be called devolution.
There isn't any way to upgrade the best.
The correct version is a spiritual thing, existing between the spirit of the man and the Holy Spirit of God. The words of the Bible are only the way that mankind might work with the correct version. Lack of the words of the Bible makes the degeneration of mankind happen faster.