Quote - > Quote - I think that some of the conclusions being jumped to on both sides of the coin are...well, at best, demeaning.  People of faith are not inherently followers any more than atheists are inherently amoral.

There is part of the above statement that I find hard to understand. I thought (rightly or wrongly) that the essence of a religious faith was that you followed the teaching of some prophet (Mohamed, Jesus, Moses, etc), or the teaching of some some religious leader (Gandhi, Billy Graham, Kohmani, the Pope, etc), or some religious text (Bhavagad Gita, Torah, Qur'an, etc).

If people of religious faith are not inherently followers (and I'm not knocking being a follower of something), then what are they? I am not asking out of a desire to be argumentative, I really want to know. It has always seemed to me that being of a religious faith is synonymous with following some religious teaching. If I am mistaken, could someone please set me straight?

What I meant was, not all of a faith (any faith, I'm not just talking Christianity here) follow blindly, but do so by choice.  I know people in my personal life who HAVE taken the step to question their faith, and found that, for them, the answer was within their faith rather than outside of it.  

I'm going to be perfectly honest, my intentions aren't to put anyone in a box.  I am neither a true believer, nor a true disbeliever.  My personal thoughts are...whether there is a God or not, none of us can ever know for sure, and that fighting and debating over it isn't going to solve the question.  Which, I guess, would make me Agnostic.  

In any case, it's never a bad thing to have a little discussion once in a while.  That's why this thread was left open, and, I have to tell you...with the lack of fighting, and the respect shown by you guys...I'm pretty amazed that the thread has gone on as long as it  has.  And pretty proud of you guys (I know it sounds facetious, but it isn't).  

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Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.