Town Las Cruces, NM under fire for official town symbol

[chuck]

And to respond to your argument for the existence of God in more detail moose, I direct you to .

[damian]

[Andy]

[Andy]

[Kzinti]

[sandmann]

[Andy]

[James S]

[Andy]

You're right, James. My disbelief for a phenomenon with zero supporting evidence is stubborn. Do you believe every bizarre concept proposed to you? Why not?

I may be condescending, James, but on what part of the IQ distrib'n do you think you'll find the most people abandoning their faith (by %)? It seems to be the people that have the brain power to spare are the ones leaving their faith. Draw your own conclusions.

I don't think rational thought can be used to prove whether or not a God exists. I think it can be used to disprove specific, absurd God theories.

Interesting mostly unrelated, read:


One final thought:
Primitive religions came about from people who looked at the most basic operations of the world as supernatural. Sea gods, rain gods, etc.

As the world became less mystical, but still very much populated by demons and the occasional divine intervention, religions like Christianity and Islam became favored.

In our current, demystified sort of world, what do you think the next generation of religion is going to look like?

[Caesar]

Unfortunately, Judaism was around when polytheistic religions were still the vast majority.

[sandmann]

[Andy]

I'd consider Buddhism more of a life philosophy than a religion (depending on the flavor, I guess).

You say religion answers the questions of existence and purpose, but consider how it answers them. It doles out the answers in essentially an arbitrary way. Why shouldn't I eat pork? Because God says so. Of course, it's hugely unlikely God ever actually said so.

It's easier to understand where things like "thou shall not kill" come from. If there is a decent God, he probably wouldn't want us running around killing one another.

So, it seems that your Utopian religion is just a utopian dogma. A group of people agreeing on a reasonable life philosophy, possibly with some spiritual 'justification'.

I guess my question is, what benefits does "Thou shall not kill because God says so" give you that "Thou shall not kill because its bad for society" doesn't?

I can think of a few benefits that the latter gives you over the former.

[Caesar]

[sandmann]

[Andy]