Simtropolis Religion Thread

[LexusInfernus 908]

General question to Christians - or anyone else, really, if you wish to answer:

 

Upon what foundation do you base your beliefs about Jesus and the faith - your own authority, or the authority of the church and Scriptures?  How did you come to believe what you believe?

Though Im not strictly a Christian anymore, I must say I kinda like his teachings. Whether Jesus was real or not and really did all the things the bible claims he did are irrelevant to me. The story remains a good story, and the lessons you can take from it are good lessons. Enough for me to say that I think Jesus is a cool guy. 

[Mr Saturn64 742]

General question to Christians - or anyone else, really, if you wish to answer:

 

Upon what foundation do you base your beliefs about Jesus and the faith - your own authority, or the authority of the church and Scriptures?  How did you come to believe what you believe?

I have put my beliefs on a personal experience I had, though beforehand I still believed.  It only streghens faith.

 

BTW, you shalt not put the LORD, your God to the test.

[IL. 1,043]

Interesting idea, but I'm not Muslim, so I believe what I want, you all believe what you want. No need for any debate

Yeah I know, I just wanted to express my idea, and this topic is not only for muslims, it's for all beleivers in God, just an idea about the creation of humans, and evolution to a better understanding.

That's true it's not really a debate since it's not based on scientific and facts that you can touch and observe, but it's an idea.

[lhrob 213]

Well, to be honest, it would be hard for me to address your post because I'm a devout Christian, and as such I don't consider the Quran to be authoritative.  The fundamental differences in our beliefs would make it very difficult for me to contribute to this thread.  But I'm sure others will chime in. 

[IL. 1,043]

Well, to be honest, it would be hard for me to address your post because I'm a devout Christian, and as such I don't consider the Quran to be authoritative.  The fundamental differences in our beliefs would make it very difficult for me to contribute to this thread.  But I'm sure others will chime in. 

 

I understand

But I hope that you appreciate the idea of our creation and evolution.

[lhrob 213]

I absolutely believe in creation.  I'm just not as convinced about evolution. 

[timmie 988]

General question to Christians - or anyone else, really, if you wish to answer:

 

Upon what foundation do you base your beliefs about Jesus and the faith - your own authority, or the authority of the church and Scriptures?  How did you come to believe what you believe?

 

I do not believe (and never have). I just never saw a reason why I should do so. Maybe there is a God, but it's not quite the impression I get, and there isn't quite a lot of proof. In any case: out of all possibilities available, the possibility of a God seems highly improbable. To me, it seems incredibly odd to believe in something that's based on so little and that's so incredibly improbable. In other spheres of life, we would never accept this situation of lack of proof and very low probability, but when it comes to religion, that's not the case?

[IL. 1,043]

I absolutely believe in creation.  I'm just not as convinced about evolution. 

 

What about both together? But evolution as God's steps for creation, in other words, doesnt matter if it's random or not, since God made the laws.

[Bdub01 201]

General question to Christians - or anyone else, really, if you wish to answer:

Upon what foundation do you base your beliefs about Jesus and the faith - your own authority, or the authority of the church and Scriptures? How did you come to believe what you believe?

Well like I stated before I grew up southern baptist and I was a Christian. I believed in the literal interpretation of the bible. However bout 10-15 years ago I started having second thoughts and as former president Bush would say, There was some fuzzy math going on with the bible. One can't pick and choose what to believe in the bible. It's either all true or not as far as I'm concerned. So now I tend to be a cross between a Diest and an Agnostic. I believe there is I higher power that set things into motion but its so far beyond us that we can't truly talk about god rationally.

Like when peeps say (and I used to say as well) I know the will of god. Now that sounds so ludicrous to me now. It's like an ant saying it knows my will. There's no way possible.

Anywho that's my thoughts on it.

[Meg 368]

This is abit interresting since it makes things make more sense.

I figured out lately from some quotes from the prophet Mohamed (pbuh) and the Quran, that says that Adam was not the first human being that God created him and then created Eve and then here we are, but rather chose Adam (pbuh) as a prophet from other people, but in arabic, there are two different words for humans, the first one is "Bachar" wich is a more general world that is used for living things that are like humans (that walk on two legs, have a skin, infact "Bachar" comes from the word "Bachara" wich means, skin) and the second word is "Insan" or "Ins" wich is used for us, modern humans, who are the decendents of the prophet Adam (pbuh), effcorse you can still say that we are "Bachar" but we are also "Insan" or "Adameyin" as "the related to Adam", "Adam descendents", etc..

So the people who were before Adam were not "Insan" but "Bachar", that God created, and then then chose Adam and gave him a soul and made him was we are.

 

 

 

Interesting.   I've always wondered what got lost in translation.    I'd like to hear more about the different definitions of "human" in Arabic.

 

 

Well, to be honest, it would be hard for me to address your post because I'm a devout Christian, and as such I don't consider the Quran to be authoritative.  The fundamental differences in our beliefs would make it very difficult for me to contribute to this thread.  But I'm sure others will chime in. 

 

Which is how some people react when the Bible is quoted.  

[Cobraroll 138]

To elaborate on Ihrob's question to Christians, I'd like to ask a question to everybody who adheres to one specific faith and consider its tales to be The One Truth (creation myths, miracles, prophets, all that faff):

 

On what grounds to you dismiss other religions? Could you walk up to a Hindu, a Sikh, a Muslim (or even a Christian if you aren't already) and tell him/her why what (s)he believes is wrong? Without involving your own religion, if possible, could you explain to a Zoroastrian why his religion doesn't tell the accurate account of Life, the Universe, and Everything? Can you convince a Hindu or a Jain that the Puranas are constructs by man, telling of false gods and made-up stories? There are hundreds, or thousands, of gods people have prayed to, lived in fear of, and died for throughout human history. They have wildly different explanations as to why we are here and how we should live. How can you be absolutely sure that they are all wrong?

 

And why, objectively speaking, can't the same be said about your religion?

[IL. 1,043]

 

 

 

This is abit interresting since it makes things make more sense.

I figured out lately from some quotes from the prophet Mohamed (pbuh) and the Quran, that says that Adam was not the first human being that God created him and then created Eve and then here we are, but rather chose Adam (pbuh) as a prophet from other people, but in arabic, there are two different words for humans, the first one is "Bachar" wich is a more general world that is used for living things that are like humans (that walk on two legs, have a skin, infact "Bachar" comes from the word "Bachara" wich means, skin) and the second word is "Insan" or "Ins" wich is used for us, modern humans, who are the decendents of the prophet Adam (pbuh), effcorse you can still say that we are "Bachar" but we are also "Insan" or "Adameyin" as "the related to Adam", "Adam descendents", etc..

So the people who were before Adam were not "Insan" but "Bachar", that God created, and then then chose Adam and gave him a soul and made him was we are.

 

 

 

Interesting.   I've always wondered what got lost in translation.    I'd like to hear more about the different definitions of "human" in Arabic.

 

 

 

 

Alot of meanings get lost during the translation of Quran from arabic to other languages, because the Quran is a built text, all words and lines are meant to be written in a certin order, changing them or translating them can change the meaning, in interpretation in the same language can be changed if you only focus on few sperate lines from around here and there, for example when some extremists bring some quotes from the Quran saying that you have to kill the infidels everywhere you find them, while they ignore the part that it says only if they attack you, that's an example.

 

Also in arabic some words have a specific meaning that you need multiple words to express the same word and get to the same meaning, and in arabic Quran, you get to have some words that at some time you have no hard explenation for, but later with science progress, you get to know it's meaning, for example when the black home is mentioned in the Quran, it is called "Al-Jiwar Al-Khonnas" those are two words, to translate them that would be the invisible (object/thing/...) that is very strong that move in high speed and swallows everything, huh, it doesnt even sound like a nice poetic sentence to read, the quran is also something to enjoy reading, it's coherant sentences and vocabulary that in most times, you have to be a scholar to get a full understanding of it, so the translations are rather translations of a certin interpretation, but for can still also get the general meaning when you translate it, it's going to change everything.

 

As for the definition of human in arabic, well it's not different than any other language, and generally you can call a human "Adami", "Insan", or "Bachar", as for most muslims, they beleive that Adam was the first human and here we are, but this one is a different and more precise interpretation, it's not very popular, and as for the "Bachar" and "Insan" are some more precise words, "Bachar" are for our ancestors, those humans that are not very different from the rest of the animals in the way they live and in the way their minds work, but "Insan" are us, the modern humans (does not neceserly mean that we modern humans are just 200 000 years old, can be millions or more, effcorse evolution still occur in our history, since it's adaptation and changing to fit best to the changing environement and ways of life, but generally we are us) who are special and different from animals, whome God gave them a soul and "Akl".

Again, in arabic for the mind there are two different words "Mokh" wich is the biological mind that we need it to move and breath and to controll the body functions, generally all animals have it, but the "Akl" or "Akel", something around that, is the mind that have consciousness and free will to do bad things or to do good things, we have the choice to desobey God (by doing bad things, that all humans relatively agree what are those) or Obey God (doing good things wich also all himans relatively know what are those,  we exclude the fanatists and twisted minded, and sick people), and in other word, it means "sanity" , to be sane, not insane, and that's how we are special, we have the free will. 

 

But in science there is only one word wich is "mokh" or "brain as you say, also for the human, any word can be used from the ones I mentioned above "Insan","Bachar","Adami" but this one is not really used in science because you see that this one have a relegious background.

I'm not sure about english, but you also have two words, mind, and brain, does they have two different meanings too? Like brain is the biological meaning, and the mind is the one that sane people have and etc..?

 

  (P.s.: not only humans are sane creatures that have free will and here on earth to be tested, who are the Djins, they live on Earth, but in a completly different world than ours, we cannot see them or visit them, but they can visit us, they are just like us, have relegions, countries, but it is said that they are much more developed than us (Not sure about this one), I know it sounds like sci-fiction, also God says that he(when I say he, doesnt mean that God is a male or have a sexe btw) creats what you don't know, also there are many quotes in the Quran that says that there is actually an extra-terrestial life, and we will meet(or find them) if God wants to, and when God wants to, I'm not translating quotes here, I'm trying to translate the meaning), but this is off of our topic.

 

 

 

P.s.: My understanding and those who share myne can be errored, and it is discussiobale no one have the absolute truth. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I absolutely believe in creation.  I'm just not as convinced about evolution. 

The two are not opposed.  Creation is the start of evolution.  There is no denying that after the singularity, things developed apace.  No one, clerical scholar or otherwise can possibly set the time scale of the creator.  "Day" could easily mean eons in the terms of the creator.

 

Surely you don't believe the creation myths in the Bible.  They are old shaman's tales.  Look at some of the other creation myths.  All of them are attempts to explain man to man.  Every one of them tends to make "gods" in anthropomorphic form.  If anything is "made in God's image" is is the soul or spirit, not the physical form.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

To elaborate on Ihrob's question to Christians, I'd like to ask a question to everybody who adheres to one specific faith and consider its tales to be The One Truth (creation myths, miracles, prophets, all that faff):

 

On what grounds to you dismiss other religions? Could you walk up to a Hindu, a Sikh, a Muslim (or even a Christian if you aren't already) and tell him/her why what (s)he believes is wrong? Without involving your own religion, if possible, could you explain to a Zoroastrian why his religion doesn't tell the accurate account of Life, the Universe, and Everything? Can you convince a Hindu or a Jain that the Puranas are constructs by man, telling of false gods and made-up stories? There are hundreds, or thousands, of gods people have prayed to, lived in fear of, and died for throughout human history. They have wildly different explanations as to why we are here and how we should live. How can you be absolutely sure that they are all wrong?

 

And why, objectively speaking, can't the same be said about your religion?

I can, but I shouldn't

Objectively speaking, I believe that the same cannot be said because it doesn't dismiss a million belief systems and accepts one, rather it dismisses a million and one belief systems. I know that's a rather simplified view, but it speaks true.

I disagree with all religion, yet to say it is a waste of time and brings no good is foolish. For some people when times get tough, it's easy to find comfort in a deity or perhaps their local religious community. For me, that isn't the case as I simply cannot believe in a system where I will get what is just, nor belong to a community of people who think such. Also don't quote me on this as I don't have a source, but I heard somewhere that the Catholic Church was the second largest provider of worldwide aid. And what was that organisation founded on. Bam, religion!

[timmie 988]

I can, but I shouldn't

Objectively speaking, I believe that the same cannot be said because it doesn't dismiss a million belief systems and accepts one, rather it dismisses a million and one belief systems. I know that's a rather simplified view, but it speaks true.

I disagree with all religion, yet to say it is a waste of time and brings no good is foolish. For some people when times get tough, it's easy to find comfort in a deity or perhaps their local religious community. For me, that isn't the case as I simply cannot believe in a system where I will get what is just, nor belong to a community of people who think such. Also don't quote me on this as I don't have a source, but I heard somewhere that the Catholic Church was the second largest provider of worldwide aid. And what was that organisation founded on. Bam, religion!

 

 

On the other hand, religion (or better: the existence of several - organized? - religions and gradations of religion) also has the potential to put groups opposed to each other. Proselytization and the belief that only your group is right can lead to horrible things (we've clearly seen that through history). It seems only fair to me the Catholic Church compensates for what it did - and sometimes still does - (very) wrong. So it brings good things, but also bad things. The question is: what is the balance (more good than bad or the opposite)?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Since most religions provide an ethical framework for the predatory man, they probably are more good than ungood.  Where things go astray is that point at which some zealot insists that he has the "revealed" truth.

 

Some of the more radical Christian sects go around "saving" people.  Theologically, that is impossible to know.  I side with Joan of Arc on that one.  When asked if she was in a state of grace she said "If I am in a state of grace, I pray that God will keep me there.  If I am not in a state of grace, then I pray that God will put me there."  If she had said yes, it was straight to the stake.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

However Nonny, it is a great misconception that one needs religion to have morals.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

However Nonny, it is a great misconception that one needs religion to have morals.

Many religions provide a moral framework as well as a set of ethics.  However, morals are a community thing that arise from the social environment.  Some tribes don't consider it immoral to kill and eat people.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Indeed. I know my morals, despite not being religious. I do have a sense of right and wrong.

[Bdub01 201]

^ ahhhh but what is right and wrong. For me I have no moral problems about eating meat, for others they may find that morally reprehensible. (And not to start an abortion debate, just making a point) I find abortion morally reprehensible while others have no moral problem with it. Morals are in the eye of the beholder!!!

[Duke87 1,070]

General question to Christians - or anyone else, really, if you wish to answer:

Upon what foundation do you base your beliefs about Jesus and the faith - your own authority, or the authority of the church and Scriptures? How did you come to believe what you believe?

 

Might be a little late on this since I don't frequently poke my head into this thread and it's been moving kinda fast, but here goes anyway:

 

My mother and sister are fairly devout Catholics and are also very smart people. So, I have a couple of "experts" that I can consult with regards to Catholic teachings. They of course differ in some ways from Protestant teachings but, Apocrypha notwithstanding, both groups read the same bible so the general gist is the same even if the specifics of flavoring are different (or at least that's my impression of it).

 

I myself have effectively been a lifelong non-believer in anything spiritual or supernatural whatsoever, so I see it all from more of a scholarly perspective that "this religion teaches this" rather than as a participant. 

 

As for what foundation do I base all this on, I suppose you could say its my own authority, although I view it as simple logic. My lack of faith then, is a particular aspect of my personality - I am far too cynical and skeptical to have faith in anything that has not been proven to me. If, when I die, Jesus appears to me and says "here I am, do you accept me?: I would have no problem saying "yes", but unless and until something like that happens I see no reason to believe he was anything more than a man, because it just seems more logical. After all, there are many religions out there in the world, and they cannot all be right. On what basis am I supposed to pick one? There is no basis for me to do so, and it would add nothing to my life to do so (indeed, any religion is going to introduce "rules" which would specifically interfere with the way I want to live my life), so I just go with "none" and do my own thing.

[flatron 83]

I was raised in a somehow catholic way (communion, confirmation, etc.) and what I find extremely scary is the way some people treat religion as some kind of commercial service and churches as firms. A church is no simple firm, it is something more. Sects that are only wanting you to give them all your money cannot realy provide you with religion. I will accept every form of religion, but a sect, that is based on the wet dreams of a successless science fiction writer is no religious group for me, it's dangerous. I think that religious freedom ends where human rights and the dignity of mankind start. If someone says for example:"kill all the fags!" , he is acting against human rights and should be brought to justice. Funnily enough, the USA, proud for religious freedom, is controlled by some ultra-conservative sects called "evangelicals"... where should that lead. I mean, here, we are allready concerned about the fact that the chancellor is the daughter of a protestant pastor and that the federal president is a pastor...

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Also along with the previous discussion, I would like to throw another one: are you currently following the religion you were raised in? Why/why not?

[flatron 83]

I think that if I would live in lets say the US, I'd goe to masses because it would be something to remind me of home. Here, I'm usually too lazy to get up early on sundays... There are some things that are hilarious or even dumb about the roman catholic church, but I like the rituals and so on...

[MandelSoft 2,769]

I was never actively raised by my parents to a certain religion. We went to church (a protestant one) once or twice when I was little as far as I can remember, but we didn't find it satisfying enough to return to it (at least, I think so, because I've never been to church for at least the past 15 years). I did go to a christian primary school, but this was more for the reason it was specialized in children with autism, ADHD or relating issues, rather than its christian background. The majority I do know from christian religion was from that period.

But frankly, I never really got hooked onto religion; I'm just a too rational and analytic person who can't find satisfying answers in religion and even the religion itself raises even more questions. On the other hand I find science much more interesting and it does give me answers that I look for and it makes me happy and impressed. So in the end, I've become an agnostic atheist; I don't completely eliminate religion, but I think there's probably no higher power(but I can't know for sure).

Best,

Maarten

[Alejandro24 575]

Also along with the previous discussion, I would like to throw another one: are you currently following the religion you were raised in? Why/why not?

 

I was raised into the catholicism, with the basic sacraments: baptism, first communion, confirmation. In some conservative way, but with an idea of tolerace against to those who think different. I live in one of the most conservative places in Mexico, so I'm used to hear religious references oftenly, not as those protestant people who takes the Bible to the exact word, but with certain secularism.

Today I just simply don't have the interest to follow a religion. I don't consider myself as atheist, but I have just no interest on it.

[VanGioRobNelli 29]

I was raised Methodist, with a Catholic grandfather.  My grandparents are very religious as my parents "went to church on holidays..."

 

When I was 17-18, I really gave putting every ounce of energy I had into believing and trying to interpret the Bible. The problem was, the more and more I read... the more and more questions and problems I had with the stories.  I basically came to the conclusion that is is only a book with thousands of stories passed down for years and years.  Yes, Jesus may have been a real person... same with Moses and other Biblical figures... but the fictional stories behind each person are just outrageous to me.  No one lives 900 years...  No one walks on water...  No one cures leprecy or blindness on touch.  Moses did not part a sea...  I began to rather see religion as a way of healing and providing emotional/moral support in times of need.  The stories provide a framework for which the believer/reader can relate. 

 

I cannot and refuse to ever tell anyone that their religion is "wrong."  There are almost 7 billion people on this planet.  Not a single person has the right to tell another person that their faith is wrong.  But with that being said, how could I EVER pick a religion?  Who is to say that Christianity is above Islam?  Who is to say a Hindu's beliefs trumps a Scientologists beliefs? 

 

Oh, lastly, for some comedy and philosophical thoughts... when a Christian tells me I am going to "Hell" for my lack of believing... How can I go to a Heaven or Hell if I don't believe in the two entities in the first place?  

[Bdub01 201]

Also along with the previous discussion, I would like to throw another one: are you currently following the religion you were raised in? Why/why not?

Short answer: No!

I grew up southern baptist and did follow it till bout 10-12 years ago before I started have questions about the bible. After some self learning by outside (non baptist) sources I decided the literal translation of the bible wasn't accurate and then decided the Christian faith as a whole is based off a book written not decades but centuries after Jesus. So now I'm an agnostic. If there is a god it's so much different than us we can not talk rationally about it.

[astronelson 339]

To answer the first question: no. I was raised Roman Catholic, I no longer subscribe to that or any other faith.

 

To answer the second question, "why not", is a bit longer. I didn't lose my faith overnight - I believed in God when I was 10 and didn't by the time I turned 20, but I couldn't tell you at what point I stopped believing. I was certainly questioning it at 16. It was a long process, which I suppose started in my childhood.

 

When I was younger, I read a lot. Even more than I do now, a state of affairs I should rectify. I spend too much time on the computer now. I read widely, fiction and non-fiction. Space, and science in general, were always my favourite things to read about, although I would read about other subjects too - history, geography, mathematics, among others. There was a little philosophy in there too - I read Jackie French's The Little Book of Big Questions several times over.

 

With reading came learning. I learned a great deal about beliefs throughout history, not only religious ones but beliefs about the order of the universe, how diseases come about, how divisible matter is, and more. I learned that for thousands of years people believed that the Earth was the centre of everything, with the Sun and all the planets orbiting around it. Then technology progressed to the point where we could make good observations of the planets, and a new model, with the sun at the centre and the planets orbiting in circles arose. With better technology came better measurements, and with further scientific developments better models arose. We found the planets do not move in circles around the sun but rather ellipses; we found that the bright points of light in the night sky are much like our own sun; we found that the distances to even the nearest stars is so vast that they are beyond our reach even to this day; that our galaxy is just one of billions upon billions in a humongous and incredibly empty universe, which had a beginning 13.7 billion years ago and will continue expanding onwards into the deep dark future, until not only after all the stars that exist have burned out but after all the stars that ever will exist have lived and died, and their burnt-out cores of heavier elements have cooled until they cannot be detected in any way other than their gravitational influence, until after the fundamental pieces of matter as we know them have decayed and annihilated each other, leaving absolutely nothing left but electromagnetic radiation zooming through the dark cosmos, it too stretching out and cooling as the universe relentlessly expands.

 

As I learned I thought and felt a great deal. This last point was particularly unnerving for me, I will admit it frightened me. It took me years to get to grips with it, and I still feel somewhat uncomfortable thinking about it. Not as much as the visceral unease I felt back then, but I do get a little queasy feeling.

 

While I was reading all about these things I was in a Catholic school. Religious Education was a compulsory subject. In that I learned about the miracles performed in the Bible - the stopping of the sun in the sky, the great flood, things like that (this was more primary school than high school - in high school RE was more of an ethics class and studying world religions).

 

There were many thoughts on these matters going through my mind at various points, and they drove me further and further away from belief until there was nothing left of it. Abandoning the creation story of Genesis came quickly. For a while I held the belief that the days were not literal days but rather millions or billions of years, and maintained the cognitive dissonance between what I learned about the early earth and what the Bible said. But this did not hold, especially after I was introduced to evolution, and I eventually dismissed it in favour of what we have learned through scientific study.

 

In addition to this were the miracles - such a massive event like the great flood, where the entire world was covered in water, should surely have some geological evidence. But there wasn't any. For that matter, where did all the water come from, and where did it go? The Sun stopping in the sky is perfectly fine if the Sun orbits the Earth, but we know the opposite is true, and the Earth revolves on its axis. To stop the Sun requires we stop the Earth spinning. And I suppose an infinitely powerful and capable God could do that, and hold everything where it was, and start it all up again later, with the only noticeable effect being the fact that the day did not progress for some time. But it's a bit unbelievable. If you're stopping the day to ensure your side wins a battle, and you're infinitely powerful, why not just eliminate the opposing force? It would require much less effort than stopping the entire planet. And why don't we see anything like that any more? The extent of miracles nowadays seems to be the spontaneous remission of disease or people surviving disasters.

 

Then we have the contradictions of omnipotence, best expressed in Homer Simpson's dilemma: "Can God microwave a burrito so hot even He cannot eat it?". This is in addition to the various other problems of theodicy and the trifecta of omni-powers God is endowed with (omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence). Why would an omnibenevolent being flood the world and kill off almost everything anyway?

 

The final nail in the coffin was this line of thought, though: A long time go, what we knew was little and the rest we ascribed to God or gods. The rising of the sun and moon, the tides, everything in nature (and many human constructs) were thought to have divine provenance. Sacrifices were made to ensure the continued smooth running of the universe, whole pantheons constructed and fervently believed in, just as strong if not stronger than faith now. But over time, what we knew covered more and more, and hence God's domain shrank. Diseases were not punishments, but rather spread by germs. The sun rises and sets because the Earth turns, the moon's gravity controls the tides. Humans were once so sure these were controlled by God, but now we know how they work, the laws and principles governing them. Surely, if God actually does control something we would have uncovered it by now. Maybe... just maybe... He doesn't control anything. But if he doesn't control anything, then why would I even believe He exists? No-one can prove He doesn't, sure, but there's no independently verified and verifiable evidence that He does. Could this whole thing just be another idea that rose to a position of power, believed in for thousands of years because not many people thought otherwise? There have been a great multitude of faiths over the millennia, each contradicting quite a lot of the others, yet each honestly believed in. Can I be so sure that the one I believe in, that I only believe in because I was raised in it, is right, especially about a subject no-one can check the accuracy of?

 

And that's about where I lost it. In the process I went from a believer to an agnostic deist to an agnostic atheist. Agnostic in the sense that I believe the existence or non-existence of God is fundamentally unprovable, atheist because I find the idea of God fundamentally unbelievable.

[Mr Saturn64 742]

I don't know why you think banning yourself is for the benefit of anyone here.

I find fights over religion to be a dumb idea as the majority of religions practice and preach peace.