What is the Point of Believing in God Without Religion?

[Anomalocaris]

They are only willing to give up the icky parts of the delusion but still get to hold on to their lottery ticket.

Except the lottery ticket is itself the supreme ickiness from which all other ickiness flowed.

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"spiritual but not religious" ....
Just another way of saying "I'm into mindless woo" in my opinion.

Just another way of saying "I am mindless".

[robvalue]

As long as they don't expect me to respect them any more than I do the Westboro Baptists, the Taliban or that church two doors down from where I live that creates a significant traffic hazard for me when I try to bike through that intersection on weekends, they can call themselves whatever the fuck they want.

If you can't defend your reason for believing in what you do any better than anyone else with an irrational system of belief, really, you're no different. They may have gotten 2+2 = 5 instead of 2+2=11 like some of the fundamentalists, but they're still wrong.

I base the respect I extend on behavior, not proclaimed faith. I think there's a big difference between a deist who keeps his faith to himself, and a fundamentalist who tries to enforce his religion through the law, or a terrorist who kills nonbelievers.

They may all be equally wrong theologically, but I think respect encompasses a lot more than that.

Absolutely. It's actions that ultimately matter, not beliefs. If people are not trying to impose their beliefs on others, then I'm cool with them, religious or not.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You mean "I'm not cool", right?

[Edwardo Piet]

[...]Not to say all religion is bad, it is almost certainly necessary for most to establish a relationship with God.[...]

My bold.

So many many people claim to be in a relationship with God.

I sure hope all these people know God is getting it on with others too. I hope it's just the largest open relationship ever. It would be so humiliating for millions upon millions of people to discover that they are being cheated on by someone nonexistent.

[vorlon13]

as noted in the 'represent god' topic, nominal Christians outside of any of the 70,000 schisms theoretically would have a better chance at appeasing their deity, assuming they could shuck off all the heresies they have been subject to during their lives

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for more than 1 or 2 of them to turn up, and that would be in the entire world of 7 billion people.