***CLAPS***

YES , it makes much more sense to believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth 5000 years ago; christians are absolutely right
 

You hit the core issue right there. They CAN'T all be right. In fact, they are all implausible, except maybe Zen Buddhism, which is more philosophy than religion anyway.

It's only because our society has this illogical nonsensical notion that for some arbitrary, STUPID reason, religion should be exempt from the same kind of critical analysis that is leveled on ANY and EVERY other discipline of belief. People of different political affiliations can go at each other's throats, and say "You point of view is stupid and reprehensible because of A, B, C, and D!" And that's ok. Same with medicine, western medicine can attack alternative medicine (rightly so) and say "Alternative medicine is complete bullshit because of A, B, C, and D!"

Yet when it comes to religion, oh noes! Can't do that! Religion gets a free pass from critical thinking in today's society when NO OTHER type of magisteria is immune from such criticism. This is BULLSHIT. Religion deserves the same scrutiny and ridicule as people who believe the earth is flat, or people who believe the holocaust never happened. This is a completely irrational, arbitrary boundary that has remained immune from reason for FAR, FAR too long.

This must be stopped before any society on Earth can call itself truly "civilized". Religion is an archaic, outmoded, irrational, ridiculous belief system that needs to be completely eradicated.

Spirituality can (and does) exist without religion. The two are not mutually exclusive. The universe is wonderous enough AS IT ACTUALLY IS without having to invoke an invisible, logically contradictory bully like the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God to make it a spiritual place. Its time humanity grew up. ALL religions are stupid.
 

Religion IS stupid, unequivocally. Sorry. After reading a little further down, however, its obvious that what you're advocating is SPIRITUALITY, not religion. These are two COMPLETELY different things. One requires believing in things that are patently, PROVABLY false (religion). Spirituality is a more generic idea, represented by the terms you mentioned: a "higher power", or a universal spirit. That is spirituality, not religion. It is entirely possible, and infinitely better, to be spiritual without being religious.

The "wisdom" you say can be found in the bible may indeed be there but, the bible is by no means the BEST source of wisdom or morality, even though it is A source of wisdom. Compared to philosophy and other historical texts, the bible falls incredibly short in this department. Sure, there are good things in the bible, but you are cherry picking when you say something like that. You have to remember that the bible advocates the very thing you seem to have the biggest problem with - persecuting those who have non-traditional gender roles and sexual preferences. The bible also advocates slavery, and polygamy, and even MURDERING anyone who doesn't accept everything in the bible in its totality. It's not the BEST source of wisdom and morality. In fact, its not even a GOOD one. Saying there are a few good sources of wisdom in the bible is like saying there were a few good Nazi's. In some fucked up way you may be correct, but so what? On the whole, its evil, on top of being implausible and ludicrous.

I would recommend that you read "The Spirituality of Imperfection". This will give you a better delineation between the concepts of religion and spirituality. One is good, the other wholly bad.