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Originally Posted by Lightspeed
Using the lobe thing as an argument against God is about as bad as using the shape of bananas and their convenient packaging as an argument for God.
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Personally, I wouldn't argue against God. Way I figure it, I don't know for sure what is beyond my life. However, I will argue until my dying day against religion because they are not the same thing at all.
<the following is not directed to you, Lightspeed; the "You" in the following is the impersonal You>
Belief in God, faith in God, does *NOT* require religion. Religion is humanity's way of making the unexplainable palatable to the masses. Whether it's for social conditioning, civic stability, the good of humanity as a whole, or a tool of the corrupt to retain power is irrelevant. YOU don't need the Church to have a personal connection to your God. YOU don't need a Pastor, Ayatollah, Priest, Mullah, Sufi or Minister to reaffirm YOUR connection to the divine. Religion is unnecessary - yet, when you state this 90% of the faithful* will respond that you are attacking GOD, Yahweh, Allah, etc.
That is not a dialogue, that is a blind adherence to ridiculous stories because someone told you that they were true. Without going into them *again*, ad nauseam, it has been well documented about historical inaccuracies in many of the Holy texts, but in this instance I'll say Bible, yet many faithful will swear on the breath of their mother that EVERYthing is TRUE regardless of how often it is shown - fearful that if *one* piece of historical data is shown to be inaccurate GOD must not exist! How absurd is that? IF you believe GOD exists - then for you s/he-it does! Why does it require that *I* must believe he also exists to verify what YOU believe?
People are social animals. People will naturally group (even in virtual land, such as this) with others of a like mind. Religion exploits those who believe in the same version of GOD, sometimes for good (i.e. St Johns), sometimes for bad (Scientology, Christian Camp) ... yet someone can never have gone to any religious based entity and still have a close and personal relationship to their GOD. Religion != Faith
*Denomination excluded purposefully