Sorry monte, I've had too many unproductive conversations with religious fanatics that simply tell me "I'm wrong" over and over again until I want to shove that Bible up their ass broad side first. This has led me to using quips and stereotyping when confronted with a philisophical discussion.

But by all means, start a religious thread. I'll participate.

ill participate too.

On a purely logical not concerning religion.
well maybe not purely.
Even if there is no God, religion still serves a purpose. It provides hope and comfort in times of despair. There have been several studies that suggest the more religious a culture the more industrious its population. i dont have time to go into it right now since im sitting in class but ill post something tonight.

i will also participate.

@ detinmile...the dark ages, the crusades and the inquisition would all serve to dispute your claim there. i'd like to see you link something that supports the assertion you make...preferably not from a skewed source like the christian coalition.

@ monte...i agree. the point is...i don't know if god is real or not and no theist or atheist knows any more or less about the subject than i do. its all subjective speculation.

the one that is interesting is that theist will tell you that they DO know for fact and as soon as they say that, i know they are lying. usually right after they tell you they know for fact, they will try to peddle you salvation for around 10% of your income. crock of crap.

i do know that if an all powerful being existed and wanted us to be aware of his existance, he would have the omnipotence to let us know. the fact that we don't know....well....absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

"walk with those seeking the truth, run from those who claim to have found it"

Religion was also the original form of government. 10 commandments (or laws) or other religions as well. Then when government came into play there were people so use to religion they couldn't give it up as they feel foolish or don't want to believe they devoted their whole life to a false believe. That's when governments teamed up with religion to gain mass conformity. (hence the church and england) Also, I took classes on this. All of the major religions started as cults. Christianity formed as a cult from Jewdism. Many were shunned. It's not until enough people were brainwashed to believe it, to make it a "respected religion". It has to deal with group consciousness. If the majority believes it, then it is accepted. If not, it is outside the realm of accepted. If all religions claim that their path is the only way to "heven" then there are going to be a lot of people in hell. or reincarnated into bugs. I like to believe in the Joe Pesci, he gets shit done. I pray to God about my neighbors dog barking, nothing happens. I call up Joe Pesci, that dog shut up immediately. It's amazing what an Joe Pesci and a baseball bat are capable of.

"..no theist or atheist knows any more or less about the subject..."

Philosophers, both theist and atheist, who have devoted their lives to this subject would probably disagree that you know as much on the subject as they do.

The bottom lines is that people, outside of the nutters on both ends, try to make a rational decision based on what they know, experience, and can determine to be most accurate.

This particular article takes a humorous approach to things, but contains several good nuggets of wisdom: http://www.cracked.com/article_15663_10-things-christians-atheists-can-and-must-agree-on.html

I can write more later but if this post gets any longer no one will read it.

sure verms. they might claim to know more.

but that is like saying that if some guy started counting to infinity and he got to 2302305820 and i started counting and i got to 100 and gave up...who is closer to infinity? neither of us is closer. we're both still infinitely far away from the answer.

assuming these questions remain unanswerable to hairless apes' intellectual capacity, any amount of contemplation (while maybe enriching and stimulating philosophically) is essentially an exercise in futility and equidistant from reaching any desired truth.

I would assert that someone who has studied this topic seriously does in fact know more, not just claims to know more. They would appreciate the nuances, better understand the arguments, can avoid less obvious inconsistencies and fallacies, and contribute more richly to human knowledge on a whole.

It's true of any subject that you cannot know it all. You will never have perfect understanding of any topic. There comes a point where you analyze what you do rationally understand and it in turn affects your world view.

As an aside, I couldn't even prove to you that George Washington existed - but what I could do is make a rational argument for it. (And to use your own example, I can make arguments and logical 'proofs' for infinity that do not involve counting towards it manually.)

The bottom line - I understand the point you are trying to make but you are overstating your case.

while it may true that one can never know everything about any specific topic, you can (through the scientific method) develop knowledge about tangible things.

hypothesis, theory, law....these sorts of concepts.

no matter how long anyone historically has contemplated god, no one has yet to develop a testable hypothesis on the matter...much less a theory or a law. in short, unlike pretty much every other aspect of knowledge humanity has compounded over time, we are no closer to knowing the realities of God. years of contemplative thought on the subject have left us with only one rational conclusion: we really don't have a clue.

you can fact check george washington. you'll find him in french and english historical accounts to verify our own historical records. as opposed to "the Bible" which essentially uses itself as its own bibliography. I once turned in a paper in college like that. i'll let you guess how well i scored on that paper.

George Washington facts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA

they're fucking FACTS scrap, don't try to fuck with me on this one.

You could not scientifically prove Washington existed. Historical proofs have a different standard for burden of proof than the scientific method.

However, that doesn't make those proofs invalid for the topic at hand. Again, we may not be able to scientifically prove events in the past but we can meet a rational standard and debate/discuss differences of opinion within that framework.

The key point here is that blindly stating "science can't prove it therefore we don't or can't know it" is nicely overstepping the bounds of science. Science is awesome for understanding/analyzing the repeatable physical laws of the universe but in no way capable of understanding history, the arts, or philosophy (only a small subset of which is theology.)

I haven't made an argument one way or the other in terms of theology, merely clarifying some key points that are necessary before you can have a real discussion on the subject.

Perhaps having a philosophical discussion regarding determinism vs free will, or the existence of objective truth, would be a better place to start and less rife with the emotional baggage that typically gets brought into it.