Logic and Reason

I was surfing around yesterday, and via one of the newest blogs I read, Preemptive Karma, I found a site about Deism. It interested me because I've never been religious, thought I have always been curious about faith. I wasn't raised with religion as a part of my life, and somehow in the back of my mind I have always thought it to be a bit intrusive and contradictory. Nonetheless, I have tried to at least educate myself to a point where I can understand it when others talk about it. In fact, I'd like to delve a bit deeper into each of the major world religions to further my understanding.

I'll admit, I have some opinions about religion (which I won't fully go into in this post), but the thing that strikes me most is that from what I have seen the most fanatically religious people are also the most close minded and the ones who tend to give up reason and logic at the hands of their faith. Not to say that these people aren't educated, but they have a blind faith that I could never personally accept for myself. I've had conversations with Christians who in explanation of something will say that they know because it's the truth. I will say, but how do you know? Well, because it's in the Bible. And that's where my doubts lie.

Especially most recently with the election and the discussion of controversial topics such as abortion and gay marriage. And the people who most oppose those things are those religious people who are guided by their morals and their faith, ironically also those who supposedly should by "loving thy neighbor"... But anyway that's not my point. My point is that in visiting the Deism site I found an interesting quote:

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei