I know I already said this, but I never said that God did exist. I said he was possible. You said otherwise. The person stating the absolute has the onus of truth.
then why bother believing it? if it has no implications at all then it just kind of seems like a ridiculous superfluous belief to have, if god’s just chilling there in the sky aint doin shit he might as well not exist
I had concluded that a long time ago 
It is rare for such a complicated word to have a “very clear definition”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence#Meanings_of_omnipotence
By the way, I liked item number (1) a lot. God can do anything he chooses to do. He won’t create a rock that is so heavy that he cannot lift simply because he doesn’t want to. It’s not that he can’t, he just won’t choose to do so, and it is impossible for us to convince him otherwise. He does not need to prove his omnipotence, and, honestly, I don’t think he would ever try to prove himself in any way. And I believe 100% that he won’t punish anyone for not believing in his omnipotence. That just makes no sense at all.
A thousand time yes!
I just happened to have learned a lot of shit which helped me understand my entire life basically - not from a mystical, magical point of view, but from a human, psychological point of view. It is hard to think of an alternative theory that would explain everything that this shit explained - and, yes, I tried, but I couldn’t come up with anything. And it is hard to accept this shit without accepting the existence of a God, or at least some being that was intelligent enough to design the universe and powerful enough to create it. Again, I tried, and I couldn’t.
It is hard to explain what the shit is and explaining it badly will make me look bad. My only point is saying that physicis not the only things that can be used to give you a hint of the existence of God. I know, however, that the shit is not any proof of God’s existence, just a hint.
You’re acting like this debate has any meaning. I’m only trying to draw attention to the extremism expressed by some forum members about the possible existence of God, and how they should rethink that.
whether or not people follow religion actually does have a lot of meaning. christianity actively tries to remove peoples rights, and the more people follow that religion and believe that “god” wants peoples rights taken away, the more likely it is to actually happen.
I’m not denying that. However, what I said had nothing to do with actual existing religions, so that has not relevancy.
you’re saying it doesn’t matter if we debate about religion and belief in god, which means one of two things. either it’s not an important issue, or we should never ever discuss anything ever because it doesnt ~mean anything~
it doesn’t matter if one side has extreme opinions, having an extreme opinion doesn’t make it any less valid unless it’s uninformed.
O RLY?
It would be meaningless if people believed in god and kept it to themselves, but the world in which we live people try to change the way other people live based on their beliefs.
People try to change history, try to say that the U.S. has always been a “judeo-christian” nation built on that belief system, introduce laws that take away peoples rights, etc.
All when their own beliefs are so different from the original teachings and writings of the bible (look up non-pauline christianity) in the first place. Religion has really done nothing good for humanity, it makes good people do bad things, and gives the already bad people power.
It has been the foundation for (relatively) modern civilization. Ultimately, that argument is meaningless, as we don’t know what a world without religion would be like.
Actually, humanity is the foundation for religion.
Yes, which in turn became the foundation of much of civilization in the post Christ era.
Which means that it is still relevant and should control our every day lives. In fact hunting and gathering is the foundation of humanity, so we should make that the cornerstone of the human race.
I don’t agree.
Then we appear to be at odds with each other.
Why are you people so incredibly talented at taking a statement and making an entirely unrelated conclusion about the view point of the speaker.
To me, humanity has been the only thing that has advanced, well, humanity. Some try to countenance it under the umbrella of religion, but it’s always been humanity. From “Thou shalt not kill” in the Bible to “Act justly” in the Qu’ran to the concept of Karma in Hinduism, these are all extensions of the basic foundations of humanity.
To try to say that religion is somehow separate from humanity or that religion teaches humanity is just plain ignorance of the facts.
Maybe because you’re not expressing yourself well enough so that everyone that responds to you misconstrues your posts?
Well, unfortunately, religion is there and we must live with it.
Here is my 2 cents: trying to convince everyone that their religion is wrong is not going to work. Instead, make people think, and use their language whenever possible. Try always to agree with them on something and make more questions than arguments.
I’m not saying that humanity necessarily benefits humanity. I am saying that we don’t know if it does. The entirety of pre-revolutionary Europe was based upon religion. The teaching of religion and the institutions of religion (the catholic church, most absolutists, etc.) formed the foundation of our modern society. Without religion and specifically christianity, that all goes away, and we cannot know what would replace it, and so we cannot say whether or not religion was a bad influence in history. It should also be noted that religion is debatable something of a necessity in many nations and to the formation of civilization. Its laws are based on logical human ideas but it provides a reason others should follow them, and a punishment if they do not, which is a major tenant of civilization.
Also, I would like to note that in the above paragraph I at no point mentioned the modern world. This means that I am not commenting on modern religion, so oblivion, do not hastily post an irrelevant response to this post.
So basically you said it is a good thing that people are controlled through fear and falsities.
We easily could have made governments, laws, and societies without religion justifying it as appeasement to an invisible being.
Also saying religion wasn’t a bad influence on humanity? You obviously don’t know your history. Religion and its institutions were and are an extremely viable way to put corrupt people into power without needing to explain the benefits to the society as a whole.
Prove we could have easily made government. There has never been an Atheistic society in history. With that simple reality your arguments fall to pieces. You are stuck in a world of the hypothetical, with no actual evidence for your views. The the closest thing I can think of is revolutionary France, which was a total failure.
I will repeat again because you seem particularly thick: I don’t know what a history without religion would look like. It strikes me that it is progably impossible, as God seems to occur naturally in human society repeatedly, but if it is possible, and happened neither of us can say whether the world would be a better place.