I do believe in A God, some greater being that created all this stuff we are a part of. Something or someone, that is far beyond our comprehension, started this. I was raised Catholic and find no qualms with MOST of the morals, but I do find some of the rituals a little pointless in the grand scheme of things. I guess with me, tradition and symbolism of your "faith" and "dedication" are a lot less meaningful than your entire body of work of life.
I don't understand your argument. There are more atheists in the world who commit crimes (some might say they believe in god as if it is some kind of protection blanket from god's eyes), but don't do anything to support it. They just say they believe in god to conform to one popular belief. If they are so willing to succumb to peer pressure chances are they have done some bad things in their lives and will continue to do more. Every second someone gets mugged, robbed, carjacked, beat, jumped, raped, etc. Those people must all be religious types. No way an atheist would do such a thing. Only brainwashed people in the name of god. In this thread you see mostly the atheists making fun of religion and being assholes (similar to reddit). One guy points it out and you are the guy who comes in out of left field saying it is bad both ways. I don't think thats what he's talking about.
"Do you believe in God?" I don't believe in any mystical God, as described in the popular world religions I'm familiar with. But my intuition is that our understanding of nature is limited, and even with the best scientific/mathematical tools and most brilliant minds we likely will never truly comprehend it. So I tend to ascribe a God-like quality to nature. I don't know if that makes me an atheist, an agnostic, or a believer. It really just depends on what one means by "God".
Einstein advises that the Bible is a great source of wisdom and consolation and should be read frequently. http://www.christianpost.com/news/albert-einsteins-bible-sold-at-nyc-auction-for-68500-99052/ ------------ I believe in the God of the Bible.
I totally agree. There's no way of understanding the western culture/history without reading the Bible.
That's not the point. The point is western countries have been influenced by Bible for hundreds, if not thousand of years. Christianity has played huge parts in their history and it's undeniable.
I've always liked the idea in theory of making the study of the Bible mandatory in high school, just as we study the Greek gods and other cultures' stories, and the Bible is far more important in culture than those sorts of things. Obviously it's far too impractical to work, which is a shame.
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Whomever wrote whatever parts of it, didn't know much about science but they were long time observers of natural human behavior and the psychology of influencing it.
That's why it's A-theism, as in not believing in theology. Many so called atheists are in reality achristians. To add on to that, they are drawn away from the idea of God because the only way they've thought about the supernatural is through a Western/Abrahamic prism and then group anyone who does believe in the divnie as a person who views God in the Abrahamic way.
As I said before, you can't really define a person by what they don't believe. I have a personal peeve for those who are dismissive of traditional religion and then went to sell me a magic crystal, do a tarot reading or promise to solve all of my problems with their knowledge of astrology. Los Angeles was thick with people like this and it was the thing I hated the most about living there.
Its one thing studying a dead religion. Its another thing studying one that exists today. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
