I'minterested in people's faith and how far they believe/adhere to their religious book(s) and dogmas. I am not interested in a slanging match, belittling anyone or getting Al's forum bombed.
How far do you believe/follow doctrine? Do you take your holy book literally and believe it word for word or do you pick and choose the parts to follow and parts to ignore? How do you justify these variations?
For example, a good friend of mine is Jewish, when we were in school he loved a bacon sandwich and used to sneak round to a friends house before school to indulge. He's now Kosher, except for when he has a burger-it has to have cheese on it. I asked him about this and his response was "You can't follow it all without becoming Orthodox" so I asked "Why eat cheeseburgers and not pork?" he replied "I accept not eating pork while eating cheeseburgers is odd, I know not eating pork was to prevent food poisoning and is no risk now but it is not so bad to have a little cheese on a burger as you can eat both separately"
This left me a little flummoxed and spawned this thread. I look forward to hearing what anyone has to say.