People will always find a way to have faith, and that's not a bad thing. I've met people who will renounce anything scientific if it remotely challenges their faith. I've also met people who have blended science into their religion, using it fill the voids. Then there's people who grasp onto science and use it as a religion.

Religion is subjective, and cannot be proven with "evidence" ( I really like Kierkegaard's writings on this subject; thru faith existence is evident), and science is proven only until the next breakthru comes along and proves something else.

A lot of people need something higher to hold on to; that guiding light that gives meaning to life. If that belief focuses them and puts the world in order for them, that's a good thing.

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What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.
Henry Ford II (1917 - 1987)

can you explain how not? most people only believe in a religion because they want to live forever. the desire for survival is probably every living things strongest one. in the interest of self preservation, id imagine its pretty easy to reconcile religion and reality. plus, a lot of them think people are only decent individuals because of religion -- if thats really the case i dont want to make too many waves.

ill argue with a couple on forums every now and then, but i wouldnt try to start a movement against them, lol.

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Remedial English - Rule #2:

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Well put.

I went through a fierce atheist phase for a couple of years. I looked at all the bad things that religion was responsible for. It made me quite bitter. Then I watched a documentary about these fairly radical atheists and saw myself. I had become the venomous, hate filled vindictive person I was accusing religious people of being. Not all atheists are that bad, but I was looking for vengeance for a religion that had given me nothing. After I watched this documentary I changed to what I am now, a agnostic. Here I am happy until I get proof either way.

If there is a God and he/she/it/they are so good, then I feel certain my questioning their existence is not going to condemn me to eternal hell fire.

Religion, and really atheism and agnosticism are in a way included in that shpere is only bad if people use it for bad.

Which leads to the real problem. People doing what other people say.

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Manu Chao - Bongo Bong

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." - Oscar Wilde

"Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise." - Sir Francis Bacon

It is so hard for me to understand how one could not want to give up an obviously baseless concept.
There is no proof against any form God and there can't be in the nature of things. There just isn't any evidence for a God or Gods. Just as there is no evidence of invisible dragons living in my garage or china sets in orbit about distant stars. This does not make me want to believe in these things. Why would others do so? It makes no sense.

Could you explain in what sense some people grasp onto science as a religion? In what sense it a religion for them?
Science is never proven. It can't be as we are talking here about how the Universe works. But this doesn't mean that new theories "come along and prove something else". This has never happened in the history of science. What happens is that every now and then new observations are made which are not explained by the previous best model for how things work and scientists then start working at how this new observation can best be explained. No new model ever explains less than the previous model. Each model explains more. For example, Newton's Laws explained so very much of how things moved and why an apple falling was so much the same as why the Moon showed phases. What Eisntein did was not to show that Newton was wrong as such, but just that his Relativity Theory explained more when the things moving got close to the speed of light. Einstein's theory expanded Newton's Laws.
How can they possibly need something bigger to hold on to than the amazing knowledge we already have about the incredible world we live in? Black holes, galaxies, pulsars, quarks, quantum tunneling, neutron stars, colliding galaxies, etc, etc, etc. So much incredible fascination about our Universe, and yet so much to learn. It boggles the mind!

We all would like to live forever. We all know it ain't gonna happen. So are you saying those who believe in some god or other are just delusional?

we dont know it aint gonna happen. it may not sound probably, be we dont know for sure. no, im not saying that.

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Remedial English - Rule #2:

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By using it as the explanation to everything, same as many of the fanatically religious do. Science can explain what has happened in the past, and help to predict what might occur in the future. It can not tell us what could have been or what will be.

You are absolutely right that science is never proven. And science continually disproves earlier findings. Science was used to prove both the earth was flat and then that it was round; that the earth was the center of the universe and then that it was a satellite. How many supported theories of the dinosaurs and the creation of the universe have there been?

Because we are human. We are individuals, and we find our own truths. Just because you can find absolute truth in science doesnt mean that everyone has to. There is so much out there that science doesn't prove, that the world's brightest minds have no idea about; religion is a logical choice to light the darkness, so to speak.

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What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.
Henry Ford II (1917 - 1987)

Indeed, my residual belief is not based in logic that's for sure. I assume you've been reading The God Delusion?

What you also have to consider though is what God actually is.

For example...

Some theories have it that the universe created itself. Technically that would make the universe and everything in it God. Including you and me.

Is there an old looking white dude with a bead standing on top of clouds?

Not whenever I've flown anywhere no.

There is an answer to just about anything, it depends on how you phrase the question.

What makes "God" such a difficult thing to perceive is that it's different for all people (even within the same faith).

So "does God exist?" Is an invalid question really. Does your God exist? would be more appropriate.

Then, to really mess with your head. If your God doesn't exist to other people does it not exist at all? Example. If you're considered crazy, but truly believe God has spoken to you, the God that exists in your mind does exist, just not to people who don't share the same delusions.

Therefore, God both does and doesn't exist no matter what has or has not been proven.

So specify what you mean by the existence of God and it'll make finding the answer a lot easier.

(I can explain that so much better when I haven't had a few beers.)

__________________
Manu Chao - Bongo Bong

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." - Oscar Wilde

"Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise." - Sir Francis Bacon

lol .

__________________
Manu Chao - Bongo Bong

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." - Oscar Wilde

"Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise." - Sir Francis Bacon