human minds probably (don't ask me to prove, it's what I and some scientists think) created god and heaven and earth to cope with becoming sentient beings.

The moment an organism starts thinking, making decisions, realizing it is alive, etc... it starts to wonder: how did i get here, what is the meaning of life, what will happen if I die.

The concept of God is a pretty simple way for a creature that just became sentient to deal with everything weird that happens around him..It can explain fears, answer any question, and there is a good perspective for a life after you die if you add an afterlife.

So religion is a good thing, it keeps people happy or gives hope, even in our current highly developed world. The problem is it is thought from generation to generation with a lot of social pressure to "believe". So it's hard for youngsters growing up in such a world to break free from this indoctrination and form their own unbiased opinion.

The concepts of "not killing, not lieing, etc ", so living a good life in general are not the monopoly of religions. In fact most bad things and wars in history have been done in the name of gods. But, let's say the intentions behind the rules of a religion are good (like the 10 commandments).

Only I try to live by these common sense rules to lead a good life too, only without the need for a God. There is no evidence for a god now so why believe in it. I'll just live an honest life and if I die later and there happens to be an afterlife, great! The only thing god could punish me for is not believing in him. I can't imagine a god being that hypocrite to punish me for using my skeptic mind he gave me while I was alive and he created all these laws of nature without a single good proof for himself.

you all can thank me for this thread blowing up. i just realized it had been awhile since the religion topic got smashed on kdice forums. next up, i'll goad pierce into a homosexual conversation.

still havent caught up with all the posts, but jurgs (and kreuz a little), there was some study out of boston college i think published in a peer-reviewed journal that tested the efficacy of prayer. it was a double-blind study, and the results were that people got better quicker despite not knowing or caring that others were praying for them. the medical community was a bit confused. ill look for it.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus ~33 AD

I have no problem with the idea of a divine unifying force existing. It is not a necessary condition for my willingness to accept the social contract and do my best to follow societies laws, but I can appreciate why the thought of a divine existence gives more purpose to some peoples lives. This is why I tend to not identify myself as an Atheist, if I am to demand proof of the affirmative from believes I would be a hypocrite to rely only on faith that a divine deity or force does not exist since the negative has the same problem of the affirmative as far as being provable.

My biggest problem with Religions is that they claim to be speaking the word of God, but the word of God cannot be proven. Having faith that a God exist and that living a good life brings a heavenly reward is not crazy to me, I just don't believe it but I see no reason to knock believers for that faith. The obedience to a mortal organization like a Church as a vessel for the divine to be is offensive. Religion has been corrupted just as much if not more throughout history for the political control of a population.

The desire for power and money is the root of all evil and the constant hypocrisy of the preachers of faith and piety well robbing there parishioners blind will always offend and will always be the failing of organized religion.

The teachings of Jesus, of Siddhartha and other prophets that preached temperance, love and the removing of ego have been a great boon for humanity and it always makes me sad to see how often truly great spiritual minds have had their name taken in vain for the subjection of man to serve the elite.

that looks interesting monte, if it really was a correctly done double blind study

then again, I have seen double blind studies proving that homeopathy works that were later disproven if replicated in other institutes

Nah that was debunked Monte, going to notre dame I heard about it and being the upstanding people that Catholics are they admitted it didn't prove anything. The details elude me so I too would appreciate you pulling it up.











What I find truly fascinating is that 14 billion years after it's inception the universe, full of until this time only inanimate objects, suddenly became conscious and began to ponder it's own origins and existence. Now that is truly remarkable.

maybe one day we can discuss the odds of (sentient) life existing outside of our solar system? Not that there is much to discuss, the scientific odds are very good for it ::P

sam, the negative belief never requires any proof. all it require is the lack of any positive proof.

If i said a unicorn did exist it would be upon me to prove it, you could simply say "I do not belive you" or "maybe, but it will not inform my thought or plans until you can give me some proof" and you would be totally justified in saying that.

that is what I am saying about God, I say "I have no belief in God, he might exist, but I have no way of asserting if he/she does. therefore I will just not take God into account in any of my desicions in my daily life."

^^ to me, that means I am an atheist. to me god of the bible is just like any other diety I ever heard of. it does not affect my thoughts

"What I find truly fascinating is that 14 billion years after it's inception the universe, full of until this time only inanimate objects, suddenly became conscious and began to ponder it's own origins and existence. Now that is truly remarkable."

You're assuming that we are the first concious beings in the universe. This is most likely not the case, but that's for another discussion.

i trust you on that one veta. if i find time, ill try to look up the article, but even on the bus ride into work, i was thinking damn, thats got to be damn near impossible to perform a test that proves with statistical significance that prayer works, it would be just too easy to add biases to the test.

anyways.

kreuz, i agree it's upon the theists to prove that God exists. but according to the same logic, it is upon the atheists to prove where everything originated from. i applaud their effort, we are getting closer and closer to the beginning of time.

i suck because i havent read anything on the subject for 8 years or so. as of 2003, i remember a study showing that if the universe is cyclical (big bang, collapse, big bang, collapse, etc...), then eventually it would expand infinitely, and not recollapse (the paper predicted 5 cycles on average before the infinite expansion). the one question ive never heard answered well is the obv one: where the fuck did matter/energy come from if an infinite cyclical process is apparently outlawed?

its a great discussion, and tbh, i really wish we could keep the goddamned closed judeo-christian biases out of it, and the goddamned closed atheistic biases out of it. why cant we all just be scientists who arent trying to prove our ideas, but simply explore and learn.

If God removed evil and death from the world and got us out of every difficulty we would become a bunch of wimps.