[no_said_date]

I believe the chance there is a god (or mini-Fedor) is very unlikely. I would, however not try and educate people on why god does not exisy. It's a fucking headache, let people figure it out on their own.

By the way without religion the world would not go to the shitter. If you need religion to regulate your life then that is sad and you're the true "evil" in the world.

[Sportman]

The most logical pro religion retort has been that "God is like love, I can't prove it, but I genuinely feel it".

This is the most plausible, but you have to realise. Thousands of religious practitioners, each from a different faith FEEL THE SAME WAY! THEY TOO GENUINELY FEEL THAT THEIR GOD EXISTS. And Many of these religions are monotheistic. Guess what!? That means that if a God does exist, the majority of religious practitioners are going to be, tragically VERY WRONG!! Either their god didn't exist to start with - Or, in the case of Jew/Christian/Islam, somebody is interpreting Gods wishes completely wrongly.

[Sportman]

Also I'd like to add that I see religion as a game of probability. I have no more chance of being 'right' as an atheist, then does a christian with his beliefs. Or a muslim, etc etc etc. So if somebody wants to believe, and have a 1 / *however many possible religions there are chance of an experience after death, by all means take it. But I don't like your odds.

I'd rather take myself out of the game altogether, and enjoy my life now, the way I see fit.

But looking deeper, even if a religious person is wrong ... if they have absolute faith, and CONVINCE themself that they are right .... no matter how slim the odds ... will they, overall live a happier life then a nihilistic atheist? I would say yes, definitely. But A lot of people these days can't make that 'leap of faith' ... which may be why we see so much depression in our generation.

[repetitio]

Originally Posted by Old_Fogey

For fucks sake, why can't you religious people understand that you are all being conned. It's perfectly simple. All religions, and there are thousands of them, rely on people having FAITH. Not faith in their own abilities or anything like that, but FAITH in something that cannot be proven to exist.

In the sciences and in Law, proof is incumbent on the person making the assertion. i.e. "If you want me to believe something exists that I can't see, hear, touch, taste or smell, then you'd better give me some proof that you are not just making it all up !!!"

But this doesn't apply in a religious context. If you ask a 'believer' to prove that God exists, he will probably say "You prove that he doesn't exist". Here the 'believer' is taking advantage of the logical impossibility of proving a negative. For example, I say to you "Mr MMA fan, there is a miniature Fedor Emelianenko sitting on your shoulder at the moment. He is definitely there, but he exists in a 'higher' dimension which is completely undetectable to any human or animal senses or any methods of modern science. If you do not believe that this mini-Fedor is sitting on your shoulder, please prove to me that he is not there".

This is the basic con that all religious people fall for. And they fall for it because they don't realise that it is a con. They rationalise something like "Well, I can't actually prove that god (or mini-Fedor) DOESN'T exist, so I suppose it's possible that he might actually be real".

It does not occur to them that it is TOTALLY ILLOGICAL AND IMPOSSIBLE to prove the non-existence of something which cannot even be proven to exist in the first place !!!

You can only prove that something DOESN'T exist if you already have a method of proving that it DOES exist !!!

Think about it. If God (or mini-Fedor) DOES exist, but he is completely undetectable by ANY METHODS WHATSOEVER. Then what fucking methods are available to you which will allow you to prove that he DOESN'T exist? There aren't any are there? This is why, in the sciences and in Law, proof is incumbent on the person making the assertion. It would be totally ridiculous for it to be any other way !!!

This leads us back to FAITH, which is the second part of the 'big con'. Basically, the insistence that "YOU MUST HAVE FAITH" which is common in all religions, is a deceptive method which is designed to prevent people 'twigging-on' to the argument I have just given above. They will tell you that "FAITH can move mountains" and that "The truly FAITHFUL will attain a higher place in Heaven" etc, etc. This is all designed to prevent you questioning their ridiculous premise that you should believe in (and WORSHIP) something of which there is no evidence of its existence.

Finally, please realise this, the basis of all religions is the accumulation of POWER and MONEY. They want to control your minds, and they want a share of your hard-earned cash. If you don't believe this, then simply check it out for yourself. Consider the products of religion:- Billy Graham and the "send me your money for salvation crowd", child suicide bombers, countless millions killed in religion-based wars, and numerous other things that I can't be bothered to mention here.

Even if you look at the most passive of religions, you will find the twin elements of POWER AND MONEY accumulation lurking in there somewhere.
Anyway, as I said, if you don't believe me - just check it out for yourself. If anybody can find a LOGICAL fault with anything I have said in this post, I will be very surprised.

Oh, I'm sorry. Religious people use a "HIGHER" form of logic, don't they? Scientific logic, (i.e. The process of non-contradictory identification), is not sufficient to understand the existence of GOD, is it? Perhaps I will need get to grips with the "HIGHER" form of religious logic which is based on BLIND-FAITH, intuition, visions and "feelings" etc.

Well, I've had enough of ranting on now. Religious "true believers" flame away. But don't expect me to reply unless you have something LOGICAL to say.

I am an atheist and agree that accepting something based on intuition instead of logical reason doesn't lead to progress. If someone tells you to beleive in something without logical reason you should always ask yourself what is most probable; that what he says is true despite lack of any evidence (except alleged miracles) OR that he may be simply wrong and that what he and many others beleive is based on the human desire to have simple explanations for everything. There are things that humans will never be able to comprehend but that should not lead to us beleiving in a greater being and assuming things about what that being wants us to do. Without going into things like moral reasoning and such I think that if you need a book telling you what to do "or else" it is better to go by what works and is known to be successful "treating others like you would ike to be treated yourself".

Excuse my bad English

[DesertEagle]

Originally Posted by DangGaDa

Faith is subjective and just because it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean it can't mean something to someone else. You also don't need to belong to a religion to believe in God.

Best and most logical post I've seen in this forum.