reply to post by Alienmojo
Sorry thought you were refering to organised religion and not just attempting to follow the virtuous human attributes of benevolence,compassion and
empathy.
I think some of the founding fathers of the US had it right about organised religion when they said:
“In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return
for protection to his own.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal
establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and
servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
James Maddison
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption,all of which facilitate the execution of mischeivious projects"
James Maddison
“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if
there were no religion in it.’”
John Adams