Atheism is a religion

[Prof B Hunnydew]

I just realized If you don't believe in God, where do you put my faith in?  Science, Men, or nothing.  It would made it hard not to give up, when one is alone in desperate times.

PBH

To me, faith is an obstacle, and not a virtue. Some people might get some comfort out of faith, but far too often it is used as an excuse to stop thinking critically, and simply go for the answer "goddidit". I'm opposed to this answer, not just because I don't believe it, or because of my 'lack of faith', but mainly because it doesn't explain anything.

God helps those, who help themselves

and others..  Faith is one thing, believing that God helps you find the answers, but one has to get up and look.  Critical thinking is another and a must for any science or life, but it shouldn't kill one's belief in God.  I am a mortal, trying to see infinite.  It is not possible as a mortal to see it all, but it is fun to see the new things that I can discover. 

The more, I seek of God in nature or even proof of him, the more I find that He believes in freewill.  He setup the rules of the universe, so he knows how to perform miracles within those laws.  He gives us enough "proof" that we may think he might be out there, but he leaves enough doubt that we must have faith that he is there. 

That is what, this really boils down to. Belief.   Faith

PBH

Thanks for the great reading material and videos.

[Mao]

I think if you want to consider yourself any sort of 'scientist' you have to be open to any and every possibility, even the seemingly absurd.  To me, most faiths are absurd, but I won't rule them out.  I'll just stick most of them in the 'highly unlikely' category.  Same as any other fringe theory with little to no supporting evidence.  It's not out and I'm not going to waste my time saying it's wrong until I can prove that it is with irrefutable evidence.

[Vidar]

I just realized If you don't believe in God, where do you put my faith in?  Science, Men, or nothing.  It would made it hard not to give up, when one is alone in desperate times.

PBH

To me, faith is an obstacle, and not a virtue. Some people might get some comfort out of faith, but far too often it is used as an excuse to stop thinking critically, and simply go for the answer "goddidit". I'm opposed to this answer, not just because I don't believe it, or because of my 'lack of faith', but mainly because it doesn't explain anything.

God helps those, who help themselves

and others..  Faith is one thing, believing that God helps you find the answers, but one has to get up and look.  Critical thinking is another and a must for any science or life, but it shouldn't kill one's belief in God.  I am a mortal, trying to see infinite.  It is not possible as a mortal to see it all, but it is fun to see the new things that I can discover. 

The more, I seek of God in nature or even proof of him, the more I find that He believes in freewill.  He setup the rules of the universe, so he knows how to perform miracles within those laws.  He gives us enough "proof" that we may think he might be out there, but he leaves enough doubt that we must have faith that he is there. 

Science has found out an awful lot about the universe, and not much points to an omnipresent deity of any kind, let alone a specific one. Indeed, it seems that the more we figure out, the less of any god is needed, or present.
It used to be (long ago) that a rainbow could only be explained by a supernatural entity spontaniously making it. We now know that a rainbow is the result of a lot of water-droplets reflecting and refracting sunlight.
If your god leaves enough doubt that faith instead of evidence is needed to fill up the gaps, he can hardly blaim us for not believing in him.

That is what, this really boils down to. Belief.   Faith

I still prefer evidence over faith. If it isn't there, I'm not inclined to believe it, and even if it's there, it should be doubted and picked apart for any flaws that it may contain, just like science does.
If a religion is true, it should have nothing to fear about science, but instead embrace it, because if that religion really is true, then science would eventually verify all of it's claims.

Thanks for the great reading material and videos.

You're welcome.
For more interesting, but unrelated stuff, do a youtube search for 'tedtalksdirector'. It's a series of lectures from people with important/interesting/creative ideas of all kinds of subjects.

I think if you want to consider yourself any sort of 'scientist' you have to be open to any and every possibility, even the seemingly absurd.  To me, most faiths are absurd, but I won't rule them out.  I'll just stick most of them in the 'highly unlikely' category.  Same as any other fringe theory with little to no supporting evidence.  It's not out and I'm not going to waste my time saying it's wrong until I can prove that it is with irrefutable evidence.

Technically we would have to be agnostic about everything, even the things we see with our own eyes. However, we don't doubt our eyes most of the time, and we can be fairly certain that when we see, for instance, a table, it is really there, and we rule out the possibility that it isn't there.
To me, all religious faiths are absurd ebough for me to dismiss them, until a lot of evidence comes up that directly proves everything they claim, and that's a lot of evidence that is currently just not there.

[Stygian]

To me, all religious faiths are absurd ebough for me to dismiss them, until a lot of evidence comes up that directly proves everything they claim, and that's a lot of evidence that is currently just not there.

The absurdity, really, does not lie in the rules or arguments presented mainly, but rather in the thought that we, humans, fettered by emotionality and intellectual limitations, little specks of random thoughts and flesh wandering about on an insignificant, tiny rock out in nowhere, could possibly comprehend or be deigned some greater meaning in the massive and infinitely complex cosmos...

[Prof B Hunnydew]

To me, all religious faiths are absurd ebough for me to dismiss them, until a lot of evidence comes up that directly proves everything they claim, and that's a lot of evidence that is currently just not there.

The absurdity, really, does not lie in the rules or arguments presented mainly, but rather in the thought that we, humans, fettered by emotionality and intellectual limitations, little specks of random thoughts and flesh wandering about on an insignificant, tiny rock out in nowhere, could possibly comprehend or be deigned some greater meaning in the massive and infinitely complex cosmos...

Thanks Stygian....nice to see you out and about, you Dear bat..

My point is the Cosmos is a giant jigsaw puzzle, that has a very faded picture on the box and your not sure you have all the pieces.  You can figure out a piece at a time but you don't have the all edges connected yet.  And sometimes one piece can flip the picture over.
  Do you have faith in the toy company put every piece in there?  Can the puzzle can be completed?

Maybe the real question is
Will Man mature enough in time not to abuse science into killing himself?  We have had too many close calls to say the next close-call or next will not do us all in.

PBH

[Vidar]

To me, all religious faiths are absurd enough for me to dismiss them, until a lot of evidence comes up that directly proves everything they claim, and that's a lot of evidence that is currently just not there.

The absurdity, really, does not lie in the rules or arguments presented mainly, but rather in the thought that we, humans, fettered by emotionality and intellectual limitations, little specks of random thoughts and flesh wandering about on an insignificant, tiny rock out in nowhere, could possibly comprehend or be deigned some greater meaning in the massive and infinitely complex cosmos...

Thanks Stygian....nice to see you out and about, you Dear bat..

My point is the Cosmos is a giant jigsaw puzzle, that has a very faded picture on the box and your not sure you have all the pieces.  You can figure out a piece at a time but you don't have the all edges connected yet.  And sometimes one piece can flip the picture over.
  Do you have faith in the toy company put every piece in there?  Can the puzzle can be completed?

These are questions that science sets out to answer, and bloody well knows that it can never answer these questions.
One may ask then what is the point of science. Science is a journey where the journey itself is more important than the destination. By doing science we enrich ourselves by learning. I can't think of  a higher goal than this.

Maybe the real question is
Will Man mature enough in time not to abuse science into killing himself?  We have had too many close calls to say the next close-call or next will not do us all in.

That is a very good question. Carl Sagan touched on this in the Demon haunted world in the chapter "when scientists know sin". Mankind may even have come closer to extinction than you know. There's an article on damninteresting.com about at least one moment where nuclear war almost broke out between the USA and the Soviet Union.
In spite of this, I remain optimistic that mankind will survive it's own technology. Already, one scenario for global war, that over the dwindling resources that fossil fuels provide, grows less likely as scientists find renewable energy sources that can replace them. If we can ween the world off of oil, we stand a better chance of surviving ourselves. In the end, we will have to take action, and not rely on a supernatural entity to solve our problems for us.
Even is you believe in a god, you must first do everything you can do yourself to solve your problems. If a god exists, then I don't think he would be happy to hear people whine about their problems to him, when he gave humankind soundly working brains, and dexterous hands.

[Jairus]

Even is you believe in a god, you must first do everything you can do yourself to solve your problems. If a god exists, then I don't think he would be happy to hear people whine about their problems to him, when he gave humankind soundly working brains, and dexterous hands.

I like that. It's kind of similar to something I came up with for one of my characters: "In times of crisis, there are three things you can do. You can pray to the gods to make something happen, you can pray to the gods to make something happen and then go and do it yourself, or you can just go and do it yourself. I always take the third option: might as well cut out the middle man."

And I agree: we humans may be stupid, but at the same time we are working on it. If we can solve the energy problem, if we can work on the population problem, if we can get our butts in gear and start working on the survival of us and our world... there's not a doubt in my mind that humanity will not only survive, but accomplish more than we ever dared. We just have to get to that point first. Ultimately, I guess the one thing that I truly believe in are humans, as flawed and imperfect as they are.

Hm, I'm kind of reminded of something that Zeus said in a Harryhausen movie: "The gods are best served by those who do not need their help," or something like that. Kind of cheesy coming from the king of the gods, but Zeus gets some very introspective moments in Harryhausen's movies that usually end with him concluding something positive about the mortal pawns in the gods' games of destiny and fate.

Okay, I'm starting to sound like a bad drug trip, which means it's time for me to go to bed. Good night.