I have stopped over-thinking the issue. I dislike organized religion for the "group think" properties it creates. Most religions don't seem to leave room for individual thoughts or beliefs. Beyond that, I have (as I have stated before) decided that there is some sort of power greater than me and that I probably can't comprehend or fully understand what that is, so I just accept my belief and go about my life doing the best I can.

excuse me?

Sorry to interrupt this current line of conversation (thoroughly engaging as it is) by returning to some earlier posts, but I just saw something that I find pretty relevant.

Sarah Palin has let slip a clue that she is among the nuts working to bring end times.

link
Seeing as there is nothing happening in the world right now that would make that statement make any sense, the only possible conclusion is that she's referring to end-times prophecy about Jews returning to Israel, rebuilding the temple, and triggering rapture.

Now, I don't for a second worry that the end times will get here. What I do worry about is the considerable number of people who seem to be perfectly happy to vote someone into high office who is willing to make policy decision based on magical prophecies. That I find intolerable.

This is the problem. Yes, the later books of the bible are chock full of excellent examples of how to be good people. However as long as people are convinced that the entire thing is the word of a magical being, the rest of it will be relevant to those people, and the rest of it includes very specific predictions about what is going to happen to the world and how we should all prepare for it. And that is guiding how people are making decisions about world politics, decisions about when to go to war and start killing people. Utterly unacceptable in my opinion.

Are you suggesting she's trying to have a 2-year presidency?


(Think Mayans)

Worth repeating. Hear hear!

Further proof of the non-existence of God: the sty.

Whoops. Make that "stye."

That pigs have a proper home is proof of God's benevolence. Though they be unclean.

Oh, great. I rarely get them, but it seems like every time someone mentions the word stye, I get one. At least people don't talk about them much. If I don't get one this time, I will have to thank you for breaking the stye curse.

Coming in a little late to the discussion over the last several days.

GD asked that if it could be proven there is no God (alluding to the logic of not being able to prove something like that) would i continue to believe. I suppose the answer is no, I would not continue to do so, but i would of course be incredibly confused and it would take time to reconcile. I suppose it would something like the 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance (or whatever the 5 are). I suspect that there will come a point in time where someone will claim proof that there is no God, and that proof will be disputed, with some swearing by it and others pointing out flaws. I wonder what the point of absolute proof would be for me, as i can't think of anything that could serve as proof of it (which is, of course, something that was alluded to when the question was asked).

Answering the question that way, though makes me wonder about the nature of faith. Is it really faith if I stop believing should there be some earth shattering development, or does faith endure?

That's not really the question I asked.

The question I asked is, if you it were to be proven satisfactorily to you that god does not exist, would your behavior, and your desire to do be what you consider to be a "good" person, change at all?

And what I alluded to was the concept of "burden of proof". But it's a distraction from the question I originally posed and find more interesting, so I don't want to get into it now. The question I'm interested in is if your sense of morality and of right vs. wrong, is contingent on your belief in god, or if it would remain in tact without it.