I've seen Richard Dawkins discuss this subject. He likes to say that a person's religion is an accident of birth. One of his pet peeves is when a child is described as a Jewish child or a Mormon child or a Christian child, etc. The kid was not born with those beliefs, he/she was indoctrinated. I was brought up in a very fundamentalist church, and I was most certainly indoctrinated. All my family was from Kentucky and had that old time religion. Even though it all seemed a little crazy from an early age, it was hard to shake off. It took me years to "come out of the closet" as an agnostic at first, and then an atheist. I am often cynical now about True Believers, and how they can ignore the contradictions. But I also know that indoctrination by the people you love can be very powerful. This is one of the many reasons people believe weird things.

Fallen Mormon, agnostic here...born in Idaho and raised in Provo, Utah. Would have been voted most-likely to not be agnostic!

Fallen Mormon, agnostic here...born in Idaho and raised in Provo, Utah. Would have been voted most-likely to not be agnostic!

Okay, I need to clarify this. Yes I know that there are many authors of the Bible. I only referred toe god being the one author, since fundamentalist Christians claim god inspired the whole Bible. The point that I was making is that if really was a true god who loved us as the Christians say, we wouldn't have this mass confusion. I was also insinuating that all religions seem to be a cultural and man made tool. Where you are born means a different belief system, which is what one finds in a world of man made, not god influenced ,beliefs.

Ah yes, the old "Go along to get along" syndrome.

So True, you don't choose to accept the normality of a particular religion, you are simply born into it. This fact alone should make any normally intelligent person realise that there is a thousand reasons to indicate that they can't all be right and that all religions must be fraudulent.

Right...religious choice is closely aligned with geography.

Greatest piece of fiction ever written.

It is up to each of us to unlearn what has been taught. To learn we are all on our own journey and take a positive roll in this world, because it may be all there is, takes time. How to have compassion for those who never question but follow as if they are roped together through their Sunday brainwashing. The mob mentality rules in most churches. I think the bible can be used for anything the mob boss wants. No one is going to question the good book.

It is a good thing that peoples' parents, parents, parents, parents, parents, ect...chose the right god! Otherwise, they would be fucked and going to hell with us Nons!

All religions started out as regional concepts, and many remain so today. The advent of free and easy movement of tribes and races caused me religions to spread ever wider, causing wars about land and between cultures.

Also your assumption about Indians mostly being hindu is incorrect. South India has a lot of Muslims. You're also forgetting Sikh, Jains and quite a few others.

There is no one author of the Bible. And at least in terms of the new testament there are multiple revisions and omitted chapters.

At least if you are born into a Christian family you can leave without being condemned to death. What a benevolent god some religions have...

im not sure i understand your point. for one thing the bible had many authors and was rewritten so it would be reasonable to assume that it would eventually be less than clear on some things. and at least 2 of the groups you mentioned don't even use the bible, they have their own books, so i think it would be difficult for the author/s of the bible to clarify much of anything for those folks that don't read it or follow its beliefs. also, i think at the time these books where written, they did at least attempt to clarify things, but they had so little knowledge back then that some things were misinterpreted. they each came up with their own stories to explain why things happened. natural disasters, plagues, starvation, rape, murder. they just wanted to try to make sense of these things. the thing is tho, people tend to get very attached to their beliefs. now that we have science to explain a lot of these things, some of us look to that for our answers, but some folks are just set in their ways.

Here is a question I pose to theists of any stripe and any denomination. I'll use Catholicism in this example.
You maintain that you are Catholic and believe completely in the Catholic Church as the one true church.
If you were born in a Jehovah's Witness house hold, all your family members were Jehovah's Witness, you were totally indoctrinated in the Jehovah's Witness dogma, you never heard anything about any other dogma or denomination, you spent your entire life under the influence of the Jehovah's Witness dogma, do you think you would be a Catholic right now or a Jehovah's Witness?
Hopefully it might get them to thinking as to why and what they believe.

Actually 1/2 the population is Zororastrian in Iran...and India has a large population of Catholics, then Muslim...Utah also has a largish population of christians and other religions.

I don't think there was just one author, because it is not clear. One author would have doen better to claifiy.
The groupsing of various religions based on where you live is human nature - we're herd animals and tned to congregate with our own kind.
the major cities that were first settled had there germantowns, south phillies (Italian), Harlem in New York.
I guess we can be glad it's not as bad as the fight between the sunni and shiite.
So trump is heeler herding his base and the rest of us can't believe and are really tired of the chaos.