Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutt
This always gets reduced to 'God works in mysterious ways', 'some things are beyond our understanding' and it all comes down to 'faith'. The greatest theological minds today and throughout history, brilliant people, but in the end the best they can come up with is 'faith', which I admit is better than the crazy ones who actually try to cobble together explanations based on some fucked up understanding they have of science i.e. Intelligent Design
I think strident atheists have their own issues, there are too many unsolved mysteries beyond our understanding and knowledge to claim we know the truth, saying there is nothing is no more fact than saying there is something. Atheists work on faith too.
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I don't have an opinion on religion really. I believe its an important step in the evolution of man and necessary. Monotheistic religions (as i've said in the past) are at their core, simply a collection of laws (namely, moral laws), rules on food safety and cleanliness. These are important as man became sedentary and we went from small groups of 40-50-100 to large cities. These rules and laws are many times more effective when coupled with the shared belief that not only is someone that you can never hide from watching you, but that in case you thought you were getting away with something, you'll still have to answer for it in the end. Of course there are many added benefits as well... for example, its a way of telling the people and Pharaoh, he's not only not a God, but he'll answer to someone bigger and subverting his power. Monotheistic religions tend to provide a lot of simple and comforting answers to troubling and often unanswerable questions.
At the end of the day, there is no possible way to prove there is no God. As the great James Randi said, you can't prove a negative. Therefore, from a simple perspective of logic and reason, the existence of God, cannot be fully dismissed. If you chose to, that is also a matter of faith, not fact.
To me, if it makes you a better person, makes you want to be a better person and makes you happy and doesn't affect me.... then why not.