The only problem is that Dawkins takes an even smaller-minded view of the world than most ultra-orthodox people. He selectively quotes various religions without actually looking at how they're practiced - the scriptures are only a small part of any religion.

As for my own views, I'd describe myself as a very accepting agnostic. I grew up in an orthodox Jewish family and went to an ultra-orthodox school but I ultimately found that I don't believe in god anymore. That said, my background has given me respect for people who do believe in god so that I see military atheists (see: Dawkins) as being just as bad as missionarising theists.

I agree except that I find Military atheists to be worse. At least the religious masses that proselitize think they are doing it to save your eternal soul. The atheists just want to prove that they are the smartest in the room.

I've just never seen any concrete proof of a god, therefore me no believe in a god.

I've been raised as an Orthodox Christian, but as I grew I kind of broke away from it, because I believe science makes sense and I feel uncomfotable with the aspect of an all-powerful being watching everything I do from the sky, you know? In the words of Modest Mouse, "Who would want to be such a control freak?"

So yeah. w00t for atheism.

"Norse Paganism" is the correct term, I think.

Asatru, actually.

I don't know shit about them anyway, gents.

I grew up in a fairly religious background - Christian, obviously - but my spiritual and political beliefs have very little basis in what I was SUBJECTED to as a child+. Very little. This makes me an individual, y'know.

This idea holds very little weight for me. I don't know how people think scripture was compiled - religious or nay - but at various points there have been people saying what is in and what is out. People have been picking and choosing since forever.

EDIT: Spelling.

You're right. I base my dislike of picking and choosing on all the orthodox christians I have known who would thump their fists up and down on the collection of canon scriptures known as the bible and pronounce it the infallible word of god. I don't understand how those people can blind themselves to much of what the bible actually says.

However, people who go into the faith understanding that much of it is compiled, translated, recompiled, thrown out, and retranslated should be able to try and find what makes sense to them.

Yes read the Bible, I know you don't believe at it.

Abe Is Now! Do you use babelfish?

I hope this is going where I think it's going.

Holy crap a religious discussion and for once I have no clue what people are talking about. Freaky... :D

I'm a Christian.
It seems like there are a lot more athieists these days, but you'd be wrong to say the world is dominated by them, America is funamentally Christian, a woman who tried to change that was assasinated, and lets not forget the muslim extremists.
However, as I am aware, Athiesists is split into those who believe in science, and quite simple those who do not believe in anything, or simply do not hold an opinion on it, and do not care, as you Athiesists have pretty much explained what you are already, so owell.
I was brought up Christian, with my parents not heavy christians, but my dad obsessed with churchs.
I would say I've made up my own mind, but it's more the influences of me growing up in a christian society as to why I'm Christian.
I believe in God, because if he doesn't exist life is pointless, and I can't except us, and all of the proof of jesus, however, I do not believe the Old testament 100%, or didn't, as it contradicts the New testament, but I assumed it is made up of stories in which their meaning is true, and God changed his mind in the New testament. That being said I haven't read the bible.

Anyway, Science and religeon can go arm in arm together, and believe me, most of the Science we know is wrong, as it has been, and will be proved right in the future, but that is how science works, it gets closer and closer to the truth with our increasing technology.

I used to believe that God appeared to many groups of people, the jews, muslims, hindus, Christians, etc. but in different forms, and through the different groups different situations, they say him in different forms, or perspectives, explaining the diveristy of religeons, however, forgive me if I'm being Blasphmous, but many people and groups need religeon, and it is also a source of power.
So I'm not so sure of that theory, but I'm still christian.
*Edit* Havoc is that because no one believes in a tiger God here?
As responce for above, of course it is subjective, as the Catholics who added the pilgrimigages and limbo or whatever it is called has showed us, but I don't feel it has effected the bible so much, sure, the Old testament is favourable of Jews, and one can assume the Jews writing it made the jews stand out and such, but that's not to say it isn't true, and besides, I take the old testament for more stories and facts compared to the New testament of more solid facts.
As with proof of religeons, isn't the religeon existing alone proof, the existance of Jesus proof, and several other things I have learnt in religous studies that I cannot be bothered to go over, but there is actually a lot of proof out there. Of course, you can call a lot of things coincidences, like the Aztecs meeting the Spannish, but then that's more of a cowards way of saying "I don't know".
Why are there so many believes in religoens, and so many people who claiming to see their God/s? Are they all liars hallucients?
I didn't see the Root of All Evil, becuase from hearing about it I head it to be subjective, one sided, and he blantantly avoided addressing ideas from the other party or going into things were he would easily be proved wrong.
That being said, I respect all peoples choices of religeon, with the exceptian of satanists, which I feel is not what they actually believe in, but they do it for personal reasons like to rebel, remind me of emos which I also don't like as a group.
Other than that, if you have reasons for your religeon I can understand, I accept that, rather some of my freinds and peers at school which I can't understand their logic like, I don't believe in God becuase I have a screwed up life, and what to seem different and popular because being atheisist is so in right now, ok so noone actually says that but he meant the same thing.

If god doesn't exist life is pointless. I would love to hear the logic behind that. How does one form a conclusion like that? "This person, based on something I believe in and doesn't HAVE to be true, is my entire reason for living". What, are you friendless? Did all your family die? Don't you have a pet or something? You're saying that if tommorow, science would ultimately, somehow, proove that god does not exist, you would just off yourself because you don't have anything to live for anymore?

And let me stop you right there with the proof of jezus. There is not proof of jezus. All there is proof of, is that there once lived a man named Jezus. They didn't find a note there saying he the man was the son of god and that he had special powers. Should they ever make that out from the writings on his grave then I'm with you but untill then, don't change the facts to your liking.
And why is not believing in god because your life is screwed up not a valid reason? When I was back in school at the age of 7 or so, I still half way believed in god. But since the guy was supposed to be all loving I didn't think an all loving person would put me in with an alcoholic mom who is passed out half the time so that the 7 year old has to try and get by on his own. Excuse me for hating the cunt up there in the sky for giving me hell on earth and later for simply not believing he's there. Because if he IS up there, he's not all that loving.

I am a Christian and i do believe in God.

That...is kind of offset by your sig.

ALSO:

JOSHY?!? Haven't seen you in an Age.

Ok, if God doesn't exist, or a God doesn't exist, or religeon doesn't exist, then what's the point of doing good, what's the point of doing anything? What's the point of existing?
Even if you make a difference in our soicety, we're eventually going to crash and fall so why bother? Why bother doing anything? Why bother working when you can robb someone? Why not? Is that wrong? But it doesn't matter because according to you God doesn't exist, so who is judging you? Your freinds and family? Then get new freinds and "family"? Or hide it from them, why should they care anyway, they do wrong things all of the time, and who are we to know what is wrong? God should know what's wrong? But according to you God doesn't exist, and according to our moral codes of acceptability, which was made under the influence of reliegon anyway, everyone is equal to us, and therefore their opinion equal, so if they think killing someone is right, who are we to say something is wrong?
What I'm trying to say is God not existing is like doing the Olympics with no referee, no coach, and no medal, the only reward is that if you win you may do something speacial, but then again, why bother winning when you could do something speacial anyway?
That is my point Havoc, it's a bit weak in some points so I'm sure you can find a way to disagree.
And on to the second part, yes there is, sorry to bore you with this but I just had a religeous exam, which all of my freinds and more thought they needed to study for and filled my mind with these sorts of things. Also I happen to pay attention in class, don't ask me why, I don't know.
But basically, several people who did not believe jesus became Eye wittnesses (Mathew who was Jesus's brother I believe, making Mary not a virgin I guess, and someone else, think it was either pual or peter). There is definate proof that there is a man that was supposed to have resurrected out of a tomb walking around afterwoulds, who was supposed to be jesus, why do we know this, because none of the people against Jesus's ressurection at the time said nothing happened, as it quite obviously did, then I could go into each of the theories and deny them, like it wasn't the wrong tomb becuase Jesus's family and freinds wouldn't make that mistake on the third day, and Jesus's real tomb would be checked, and if Jesus didn't die, it was stated that it was checked (By checking the colour of his blood, which I believe was white at the time), and if you don't believe the bible, how could a man roll over a stone, get past the guards, manage to escape, surving from obvious blood loss and wounds, aswell as starvation and lack of water, while looking healthy enough to everyone to persuade them that he had been ressurected.
And Havoc, I'm goign to say this becuase you accosed me of quite a few things, are you an idiot? If they made out the writings on his grave, then doesn't that mean he didn't ressurect and assecend to the heavens? So you're saying, if a grave says jesus ressurected when he quite obviously didn't, you'll believe in Jesus and God.
And if you mean if they find an empty Grave, he was in a tomb, and any grave that was empty was probably reused if not sold peace by peace becuase of it holding Jesus who has been ressurected, or damaged by skecptics, and even if say he did die, wouldn't the grave be empty anyway? Since he would have disintergrated by now (I know, he could of been rapped up or something, but I'm still skeptical of your idea, oh look, now I'm a skeptic)

And I find most athiests are athiests (well at least in my school anyway) because they are mad at God, and believe their life is so painful that God couldn't possibly exist.
My life is painful, but then I find I tend to pray more to God and such through my suffering, as I think my freinds are tiered of me telling them how much my life sucks everyday.
I hate to be an arswhole, but what country do you live in? (I know the answer), is it at war, are you extremly poor? Why would a missionary bother going to help a boy or girl in africa, with nothing, and convert them, if what you said was true.
People who are religous live longer, why? Becuase they have something to live for.
Becuase they have someone who will help them no matter how hard their problems are, someone who has been through worse than you (Jesus), or through pain with you, God lives through pain every day because the people he created and loved do not believe in him, do not love him, no matter what he does, even through Jesus.
I know I'm not going to convert you, I just am merely showing the other side to your arguments.
And Havoc, one more thing, science would never and could never prove the existance of God.
But Havoc, if God was one day proved to exist what would you do?
The same as you have been, because he has through Jesus, like anything proven, over the ages people are skeptical, the lock ness monster has been admitted as fraud yet people still believe.
If God was proven not to exist there would be skeptics, and there would be the same arguments reversed, but how can he be proved to not exist, that is impossible, becuase since he hasn't existed according to you, then how prove that, you can prove that something exists, easily, but you can't prove something doesn't exist.
Like say you didn't exist, you ask your realitives if they know you, they say no, you look in the government records, there is no record of you, but yet you are here, but it could be anyone else, so you are proven not to exist, yet you exist, that is my point.

Joshy, in responce to your sig, there is are severak answers.
God enables suffering because through suffering we experiance empthay for others, God doesn't help all of our problems, when we would be better off fixing it ourselves (Think of it as your brother stole your teddy bear, and you beg your parents for help), God wants to test how we react to suffering, and if we can remian faithful to him and his desicions, and therefore become like jesus (This of course is only the christian way of thinking, but I'm sure there are other versions, also, The Bible states we should become like God, Jesus, and forgive, which is also a way with dealing with suffering), God wants us to appreaciate life for what it realy is, and we can only do that knowing there is worse (Then why is there heaven, I guess the option not to go to heaven explains that), there are more I believe, but then there is of course, God knows much which we do not understand, and do not need to, like the meaning of life.
*Edit* Didn't read the end of your sig, basically agrees with the last statement, and also there are all of those statements against religon, when you can say Why not, so I do agree.

And this is the reason why I'm not doing religious studiesnext year, lol.

You are operating under the failed idea that morality and ethics is something exclusive to the religious. You didn't come right out and say that but it's what you meant. It's a matter of personal pride, mudling. When I go to sleep at night I don't want to be ashamed of the things I did while I was awake. Does it really matter in the long run? No. It doesn't. You are just one person among billions trying to make your way through your meaningles life until the day you finaly expire. Sure, some people will cry about your death but they'll get over it and live their lives until they expire. It's all about how you feel about yourself while you're alive. You say why not steal or rape? Well, guess what. People really do those things. And maybe they hate themselves and maybe they don't. Those of us who are self aware would have a hard time explaining to ourselves why our lives are more important than anothers, however.

Is it not far more admirable to do good for the sake of doing good, as opposed to doing good for a rewards and avoid the punishment? If we needed God to "referee" us, we would have laws that we enforced ourselves. The very existence of our legal system demonstrates that we can take care of morality ourselves.

I happen to think that morality, altruism etc. is evolutionarily advantageous (though this is not the reason I choose to practice it), and that religion is (in part) a manifestation of this imperative. I would be happy to explain the reasoning behind this argument later if requested.

That would be a good argument, if not for the fact that we all have the drive to bother. To do things, to make our living. Instinct? Perhaps. Certainly without this drive we would be extinct (in fact, anything that did lack this drive is extinct!). You may attribute this and other factors of the human condition to God, and I have no quarrel with what you believe in, but you can't say that there can be no point to anything without It. Especially when atheists are living examples of people to don't believe in God, do not attribute themselves to His cause, yet have the same imperatives as anyone else. They could be described as experiments of human behaviour in a world without the divine. I know, I'd be entirely atheist if it weren't for an unavoidable technicality in my logic

As I've said before, this could easily have originated the other way around.

Doing something special is the direct cause of the success, and is easily its own reward (and stems from our competitive instinct).

Excuse me if my thoughts still seem a bit unorganized. Still finding a place and crap like that. So...This post may contain stuff that makes no sense what so ever. It also explains why i'm so weird.

Well, I was baptized a roman catholic, and I currently live in the bible belt with my jesus freak grandmother. With her, all her explanations lead to jesus.
Example:
Me: Grandma? Why is there two full moons in a row tonight?
Her: *insert long explanation* God, honey.
So yeah, both my grandmas are jesus freaks. Including my evil grandma (who still insists on punishing my mother by sueing her for shit she didn't do, and then claim that she doesn't lie because she goes to church and stuff like that. The innocent little lady act.)
Being that i'm forced to go to church every saturday, i'm not all into this god stuff. So I decided to find my own path, like my accepting parents told me. Plus, I hate large zombie groups.
My line of thought before I pass out from the hypnotizing monotone priest, usually consists of the possibility that god might be getting tired of 2007 years of hearing the same things over and over again, from the same books. Either he has a really big ego, or he's a five year old child begging for one more bedtime story before he uses earth like a giant punching pillow or something. I believe that all religious scriptures are just accounts of what they experianced when god-like stuff was happening in that area. Some see him as a wise man, others, a powerful being. Some people believe that his creations represent him, and he is in each of them somehow, and another group, mostly teenagers, believe that we were here for some kind of sick entertainment of his, or that it's all just a computer program (not a matrix referance, I swear to whoever you believe in).

So I loath those who entrust soemthing as valuable as thier soul to this person, and repeat his legend every day. It's annoying. to quote from josh's sig:

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.

Baisically, I know he's there, but I refuse to worship him that way. I follow the basic rules, respect his creations, and try and keep the peace if I am able. Me and my screwed up juvinile tendancies have me believing in magic at his point in time, so now I find myself going down the nature spiritual path. My biggest revelation was at the zoo, wandering through the miniature bamboo forest. I felt like I was home, that I needed nothing else. Now I have the urge to go into the woods out back and live in a tree house.

But yeah, I'm also planning on shooting the tyrant principal with an arrow and bow I made from the bountiful sacred pecan tree in the backyard. He tore up a petition that a student made for changing the dress code, instead of telling her politely that it wasn't in his power to do that. She got detention, and now I'm godzillah pissed. He broke the peace, and blood must be spilt. All this wanting to keep things peaceful, wanting to live solitarily, and without social interaction has me believeing that my spirit is posessed by a dragon. Now i'm constantly thinking about the meaning of life, and I got really close during a long thinking session, but someone had to sit next to me and fart. I might be a decendant of a dragon, but I might ust be imagining my father's silver hair and green eyes.

So me in my 'adult brain in a kids body' situation is not really good. Especially when I was treated as an adult all my life, but my imagination was expanded. So I just might end up making my own theory for life (and a possible new lifestyle) out of a mix of videogame themes, mythology, baisic 'right under your nose' logic, too many replays of 'what the bleep do we know', and various religious wisdom from both fictional and real races. I got some good use out of some alien quotes, and it taught me how to manipulate adults (mostly by not submitting or challenging).

It may or may not work out, but I know for a fact that later on my studies will include the flying spaghetii monster. I might make a new religion for all I know. Oh, well. Trying to be different is hard without dying at the hands of your own species...

But my point is, how do we know what is God.
The Aztecs religeon followed sacrifice, they were a violent civilisation. They fought they were doing good, why? It was their moral code of ethics, and it is what their religon and preists dictated them to do.
The Spanish were appaled by this, therefore due to the religous clashes, even though killing is a sin, they justified this by saying they were evil, why? Because they did not obey their ethics.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a 15 year old kid, and I don't go to church or anything, but I do believe in God's existance.
But my point is, that what we think is right or wrong is through our religon, this may change and become through the government and situations, but at the moment the governments are very much influenced by religeon at the moment.
And Bullet Magnet, we don't, or we do but some to a very minor degree, that's why communsium failed and that's why there's things such as conscription ( know there are those against whatever it is concription is for but you can always oppose it if you're truley against it).
Or maybe you're right, and everyone has the drive, but the drive is some diverse in different people that still certain people won't pull their wait compared to everyone else.

My point of doing something speacial is a metaphor of satisfaction, but it is possible to get satisphaction from other means, and by distracting yourself from what you were orignally supposed to be doing.
And the reason athiests get on in our world is that it is mostly theist, my point is an entire atheist world would not survive, why not? Well lets put it this way, why is every culture that has originated that is known theist, and athiests have only developed out of it.
I guess my point is that whether god exists or not, Religeon is essential for humanity, as we have been brought up on it, and are dependent on it, and an indervidual may do without religon, but they are following people who believe in a religeon, and follow the ethics religeon has extablished, and are estiantlly following the code of the religeon, while remaining athiest.
The problem with Budhism is how he desphired what is right and wrong.
A number of ways of thinking a been devised which do not rely on God, such as Utalitarism, but they all have weak points, which again I went over in class.
The problem with things like doing the good for the majority is what about the minority? (Wasn't the good for the majority being desplayed by the Nazis and White's in America and Australia against the African american and Aboriginies?) and who decides what is good?
That is acutally the problem that I am stated, it is a devine ruler or rulers, such as God that is what decides what is good because he is not Human. It's like if a man stabbed you, would you want a freind of the man deciding what is right, or a judge deciding what is right and if the man who stabbed you commited wrong or not. (Or a freind of you which is what some people want, God favouring you.)
Also, as for our ethics being created without religeon, the chances of that is like the chances of another human race evolving just like us a long time ago, another galaxy, far, far away.
Say there is a human tribe, they are athiest, which is highly unlikely becuase their science was very religeon based (science is a form of religeon actually, as it beliefs, and there are alot of theories in science, and science has been wrong before, as I said, it relies on it'self being wrong to prove it'self more right later on.), and they have always been atheist, which in my way only seems possibly because they lack the drive to care, but according to Bullet Magnet that is impossible, so I don't know, lets say they are athiest, do not believe in the supernatural somehow, care about their surrondings but for some reason haven't explained them yet and try to put forward rules. Lets say that they decide on the basics of our ethics. They don't kill each other, all of the suddon they are out on food and there is an argument, say the leader kills her freind, his mate in unfuriated. "But I needed to" Says he in cave man grunts of course. "There's not enough food for all of us, and I'm leader, I'm more important, I also get to decide on rules, I say we do what is needed to be done, like go steal my brothers food, because we're hungry" "But you can't" Says she "it's not right" "Yes it is, I'm the rule here, what is right is what I say is right".
Eventually they turn on each other.

And Havoc, there is a serious fault in you blaming God or the lack of God for your mum being achoholic, God has given us free will, so it is not his fault she drinks excevily? What do you want him to do, make sure acholhol doesn't exist, after Jesus turned water into wine I might add.
Sorry if I'm offending you but you accusing me of being mentally unstable doesn't help.

Anyway, has anyone read 1984, the *spoiler* end but when he goes "This won't sustain, it isn't right!" or something like that and the other guy goes "Do you believe in God" and he goes "No" and so he replies "Then there is no greater force that can change this situation and we are the ones that decide what is right" Or something like it.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I may seem agreesive, I'm trying to have an intellictuale argument, and Havoc, there's no need to be so abusive, and I know it is personal, and am sorry if I am pushing on hard territory.

Babelfish is a translator. I used it (excuse me spam). I think people have to read the Bible.

Well, people do have a point. What if there was a possibility that god didn't exist? That he's just some person we made up so we don't feel lonely and useless in the universe? That we never had a purpose, and that we were just a lucky chemical reaction? This is deep. I'm saving this bit for a really long pondering session.

Or, you could just, you know, say 'meh', and get on with your life.

Or, you could just, you know, say 'meh', and get on with your life; while everyone else has an interesting discussion. How about that?

Lol @ Rapture farms.
But going on, if we were just a lucky chemical reaction, does that mean there's even lesser chance of life.
But then again, most religeons say we were the chosen people, so why would God create life somewhere else.
I'm not so sure, I was merely providing oposition to your arguments, and using other people's arguments, I'm not neccarily that devout, I believe in God and Jesus and all of that, but I'm not like, Mary is definatly a virgin and I have to go to church every sunday and such.

Or you could just say I am a giant monkey dick and get on with your life.

Mudling- The few parts of your last two posts that were coherent argued against what apparently is your point. Either that or the entire thing was incoherent.

Or you could just say I attack people for no reason, simply because I'm too bored, and too weird to write decent posts and get on with your life.

Everyone here must be 'too weird' by your standards then.

Kastere. Stop spamming or you'll get an infraction.

Well, does everyone here randomly and suddenly "harass someone at any given moment for the stupidest things"?

Anyway, I just noticed that this little argument has nothing at all to do with religion! *gasp*

OANST, maybe my views were changing, maybe I was showing two sides of the coin, maybe they weren't my arguments anyway, maybe I'm too tiered and stressed to go through all of my previous posts and check it.
And I know this is over, but can I request people to leave newbies like Rapture Farms alone, we are discouraging new commers, even certain modderators *cough* Hobbo *cough* are doing it, please try and be polite and kind, and flexable to everyone. Rapture Far,s is one of the most adapting, if not most adapting newbies of our time, yet we are overloading him with flame and spam.
Back on toppic, that's pretty much all I got, as I said, I believe in God and such, and don't follow all of the statements I have said, just have presented them so you get both ends of the spectrum.

Actually, I was pointing out that it's better to simply stick with what you know then staring at the sky and asking deep, yet probably unanswerable questions.

Rather then your silly "I know you are, but what am I?" routine.

Stay on topic.

That's also what I don't like about religion and normal people in general. Closed mindedness. 'Sticking with what you know' will get you killed. Painfully. That's the true meaning of insanity: doing something over and over expecting the same results every time. Sorry if I seem to over react here, but my family is full of people who just can't widen thier perspective a bit, and it annoys me to no end.
I just reafuse to be a zombie who believes it's life can't be helped, that something bad happening to them was fate's idea of a cruel joke. Nope. That's just the natural course of things because said zombie was too lazy to strengthen thier mental capabilities and learn how to alter the world. I bet i'm making no sense whatsoever, am I?

I just ask unsolvable questions because: How can there be a question without an answer? and the answer to this seemingly impossible question is: only if it's hypothetical. There. Thinking loop closed. Totally useless post posted. Statement made.

Acutally, asking unsolvable questions will kill you, again showed in 1984, basically leaders like their people ignorant and obeying, like sheep, it's therefore easy to control, that's true even with a boss and employee, if you question all of the faults, the boss will silence you.
Being zombies is what saves us from being the block that juts out and has to be put into place, as does probing at things like religeon which can be answered, as I have come at pains to do.
You could stand up against it, question others, show them what is right, and what is wrong, and you could make a difference, but my point is, without religeon does it matter, if religeon exists as it does, it does.

Actually, spouting out things like that will kill you, at least it will when the biker in the bar you are talking to doesn't understand what you said and decides to stab you in the chest.

Okay, serious time now. I actually DO believe that our lives have no meaning, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I live my life without caring abut society or the world and that I live my life like a sheep. thats ridiculous and is a false view of Nihilism.

Your arrogance is without merit.

I am surprised no one has said 'Through Brainwashing' yet.