Holy crap if you're gonna be pedantic about it I'm sure there's a whole heap of people out there that do stuff many of you disagree with, but they keep it behind doors because it isn't either legally or morally acceptable. But because they conform to the 'norm' of man / wife 2.4 children then it's ok.

A person is a person is a person, wtf is so difficult to grasp with that fact.

It explains why some people are unable to accept that there are some things they just can't have.

Such as?

Ghandi liked to sleep with children apparently. As a test, of course. MLK isn't the person I was referring to earlier.

Naked teenage girls wasn't? He was tested many times

Did not know that (Ghandi).
You were referring to reformation Luther?

Where's that in the DSM IV?

I never mentioned the word King. Martin Luther was mentioned though.

The Diet of Worms.

If you're referring to the 15th century Martin Luther, that's quite interesting. A giant of religious thinking, and one who had enormous intellectual courage to challenge the orthodoxy of the day.

However, 500 years ago was a very different time: no physics, virtually no significant knowledge of biology, disease, genomics, neuro-science; alchemy instead of chemistry, very little knowledge of the universe, no computers to analyse vast tracts of data. It's understandable that a highly intelligent man like Luther would think in terms of religion.

Were he alive today, with all the knowledge we as a species have amassed in the last century (particularly the last century) I am not convinced that as a radical thinker, he would cling to his Bronze Age scriptures as a truthful representation of the world.

It's for the same I don't understand why intelligent people now don't accept a godless reality. It baffles me.

Faith.... and you cannot prove the absence of God.

It doesn't baffle me at all. It is blind faith, tradition, upbringing, schooling, and a host of other factors.

Take me as an example

I was raised and baptized a Catholic even though mum and dad were not particularly devout. So I can not say religion was drilled into me.

Through circumstances beyond my control I ended up in a boarding school for 5 years run by Australian Jesuit missionaries. I was altar boy every day at school by sheer default since 99% of the boys were Hindus and Muslims.

I became quite religious as a teenager. I suspect it was the indoctrination.

As an adult my views changed and I questioned the existence of God. It is now at the point where I do not believe in God as was taught to me in my youth.

I consider myself as quite intelligent but still can understand why other equally intelligent people will cling to the belief in God. I respect their belief.

It is simply blind faith at work and wanting to believe. it defies logic and science. But that's basic human nature.

it could also be fear just in case it turns out there is a God

Some people do turn to God late in life. No harm in hedging your bets.