# Believing in God **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534 "2011-08-13T01:36:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/41 "2011-08-19T19:15:08Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > I don’t find that that really resolves the mystery. > > There is still _Something_ in existence in that case, namely, quantum mechanics, or the laws of physics more generally. From the beginning there existed a set of rules about what sorts of things can exist — quarks, gluons, leptons, and the like — and the various ways in which they can interact. Whether the rules are deterministic or probabilistic or a bit of each doesn’t change the bizarre fact that they exist at all, when it doesn’t seem especially necessary that they would exist, or have the particular forms they seem to have. > > A genuine universe of Nothing would not only be devoid of physical stuff, like matter and energy, but wouldn’t have any way of changing state, to become Something. There are two possibilities. 1. Stability is fundamental. In that case, you would be right and nothing would yield nothing, and we wouldn’t be here. 2. Uncertainty is fundamental, as it is in our universe. That isn’t a physical constant, it is a principle. In that case nothing forever is impossible, just as a true vacuum is impossible. If the universe has zero total energy, new universes would inevitably pop up. Most would no doubt collapse again, but at least one was somewhat stable. I don’t know if uncertainty qualifies as a satisfactory reason, but we certainly shouldn’t expect any of our human reasons to be the real one. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/42 "2011-08-19T19:34:37Z")
Hello everyone. I am very interested in discussing the existence of God. I was born into a penticostal family, and my father was a pastor in penticostal church. I had to read the Bible, and more than that, I had to memorize passages from it. I had to study it. I had to go to penticostal church all my childhood. When I grew up, my faith in God, disapeared. I began researching about God existance from the day my faith in God dissapeared. Did not find any evidence at all that God, as discribed in Bible, exists. I know the Bible very well, yet I cannot beleive now that the Bible is the word of God. I can explain why I cannot beleive that. If I am not boring you. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/43 "2011-08-19T19:38:45Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 1. Uncertainty is fundamental, as it is in our universe. That isn’t a physical constant, it is a principle. … but where did that uncertainty _come from_? ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/44 "2011-08-19T19:56:21Z")
> [@The\_Truth\_Seeker](#): > > Hello everyone. > > I am very interested in discussing the existence of God. I was born into a penticostal family, and my father was a pastor in penticostal church. I had to read the Bible, and more than that, I had to memorize passages from it. I had to study it. I had to go to penticostal church all my childhood. When I grew up, my faith in God, disapeared. I began researching about God existance from the day my faith in God dissapeared. Did not find any evidence at all that God, as discribed in Bible, exists. I know the Bible very well, yet I cannot beleive now that the Bible is the word of God. I can explain why I cannot beleive that. If I am not boring you. I find your story very interesting. I am wondering how your decision concerning the Bible and God has affected your relationship with your family. Are they understanding and respectful of your opinion or has it caused problems? Seems as if it would be a very tough position to be in. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/45 "2011-08-19T20:14:12Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > … but where did that uncertainty _come from_? I’m uncertain. 😃 Seriously, where would certainty come from? ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/46 "2011-08-19T20:39:08Z")
For the longest time, I couldn’t understand how people could make idols out of clay or metal or any other material, and then worship them. That made no sense to me. If you craft something with your own hands, or watch some other person craft it, that seems to me to pretty much eliminate its potential for divinity. Then, suddenly, I got it. People originally developed spiritual beliefs for two reasons: one, to make sense of otherwise inexplicable phenomena, such as thunder and lightening; and two, to feel that they had some control over those phenomena. If a god causes rain or drought, then maybe by giving that god something it wants, or by begging it hard enough, you can influence the god to give you the rainfall you need. But begging or dickering with an amorphous blob that you can’t see or hear isn’t very satisfying. What you really need is a body, or at least a face - something that you can actually believe might be moved by anything you say or do. Hence, idols. They’re not really the gods themselves, but they’re a way of at least getting a piece of that spirit to the point where you can beg it for rain or slaughter your animals to sacrifice to it. Of course, people, being people, quickly realized that claiming the backing of a god was a great way of getting other people to do what you want them to, and thus religion became a huge organizing force. I’m not at all sure that the first large organized societies would have been possible without it, since it’s not like there was a government structure or precedent to base them on. Legitimate authority had to be based on _something_. As to your original point, **obbn** , about Jesus only appearing to a small subset of humanity, Dante and other religious scholars have suggested sort of legal waivers for those people who were never exposed to Christian precepts. Virtuous pagans would go to such a nice part of Hell that it would be effectively heaven, except that they’d never come face to face with God. But that wasn’t part of original Christianity. As far as the originals were concerned, all the world that mattered was within hearing distance of the Gospel, so it just wasn’t a concern. Today, I suspect that really only your true fundamentalists believe that someone who never even heard of Jesus will inevitably go to Hell. There, you have to look at why people believe what they believe. One of the reasons people have always gone for religion was to get the power of whatever god they’re worshipping on their side. It made sense, for example, for a conquered people to adopt the religion of their conquerors, since obviously the conquerors’ gods must be more powerful than their own, or they wouldn’t have been conquered. But another reason to believe in a particular religion is to identify as a member of a particular culture. Most of the laws of the Torah were set down during the period of the Babylonian exile for the Jews, and this seems most likely to have been an attempt on the part of the priestly class to maintain a cultural identity independent of that of the Babylonians. And since there are many Jews still today, it seems to have been pretty successful. Unfortunately, “we are whatever-ish, and therefore different from you, who are not” is not terribly far off from “we are whatever-ish, and therefore better than you.” In fact, it’s almost inevitable. Humans tend to sort themselves into “us” and “them” based on a wide variety of distinguishing features (such as nation of birth, skin color, shared interests, religion, etc.) and “us” is almost always better than “them.” This is a particularly useful feature for a religion. You can join in a religion for free; it requires no skills, no abilities, no talents, no money. All you have to do is say “I believe,” and in some cases go through whatever entry ritual is required (such as circumcision for male Jews). Bingo! You’re whatever-ish, and therefore automatically superior to everyone who isn’t whatever-ish. You don’t have to be rich or competent, but you still get to feel superior. That’s particularly important to people who don’t have a lot else to feel superior about. Of course, many, perhaps most, religions aren’t evangelical and don’t claim to have the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Whole Truth, and you’re damned if you don’t believe exactly the way I believe. Most sects of Judaism don’t, but, oddly, most religions deriving from Judaism seem to. I include hard-core Marxism in amongst those, even though they have switched the State in for God, the writings of Marx and Lenin for the Bible, and the Workers’ Paradise for Heaven. But it is equally unfalsifiable, equally dependent on received wisdom, and certainly equally intent on punishing heretics and unbelievers, so I think it qualifies. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/47 "2011-08-19T21:08:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If the universe has zero total energy, new universes would inevitably pop up. Most would no doubt collapse again, but at least one was somewhat stable. Energy? What is this “energy”? Ah right, it’s one of the physical properties we find in our universe, alongside mass, charge, spin, “color” (in the QM sense), and so on. It’s not just one conservation law that (presumably) has to be kept, but a textbook’s worth of other properties and rules, which — aside from the fact that the whole mess is not _logically_ forbidden — would seem to be only one arbitrary choice from of an infinite set of possibilities. > [@](#): > > I don’t know if uncertainty qualifies as a satisfactory reason, but we certainly shouldn’t expect any of our human reasons to be the real one. I’m actually trying _not_ to be human here, or earthbound in any way. But sure, whatever the big Reason is, if we could ever discover it, it might not be one we humans would expect or even understand. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/48 "2011-08-20T11:29:28Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > God’s Word states if you seek Him you will find Him, there is no room for exceptions in that. God does not say if you seek me but you are on a island nation that has not heard of me you are SOL. > > To find God you simply have to seek Him, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world or what is around you. King David sought the Lord and found Him, David knew Him personally, manifested gifts of the Holy Spirit, yet Jesus was his still to be conceived great great … grandson. > > So you don’t have to know the new testament scriptures to know Jesus, if you seek Him you will find Him. > > Many Native Americas know Him, know the Holy Spirit (called the Great Spirit) and the Father (called Grandfather). They have the path, the way many know God better then many Christians. > > What about the name of Jesus? Is that important, well yes, but not by name. It’s important to realize that there is a son of God/ son of man because that is us, it is our inheritance to the kingdom, though we don’t have to call Him Jesus. Also there is a female counterpart as well. Scriptures state that you baptize in the name of Jesus, but Jesus states you baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So which one is right. They all are. There is a line of scripture that ‘even the demons know that God is one, and they shutter’. You can use any name for God you chose as long as you mean God, as they all are God, equally God as Father is equally God as Son is equally God as Holy Spirit. > > Scriptures also state that God is Love, therefore you can baptize in the name of Love, and that opens the door to any name for God that means Love. So all Gods that mean Love is the one true God. When you baptize or act in the name of Love (or any God that means Love), you are taking God’s name as your own and recognizing the son of God within yourself - Jesus > > The miracles were sort of a failure in that capacity, they were more of what Jesus needed couldn’t be handed in the natural, such as needing to make a boat that already left, He had to walk on water to make his ship. You believe the people who say it is God’s word, but there is proof that it is the work of humans, for humans to keep them in line, and for some( they) need to believe and is a help through life, for others it is not, and there are numerous religions and all serve the same purpose. One cannot say the Bible is God’s word anymore than the Koran! It is a matter of desire not fact. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/49 "2011-08-20T12:33:39Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > [QUOTE=Voyager] > If the universe has zero total energy, new universes would inevitably pop up. Most would no doubt collapse again, but at least one was somewhat stable. Energy? What is this “energy”? Ah right, it’s one of the physical properties we find in our universe, alongside mass, charge, spin, “color” (in the QM sense), and so on. It’s not just one conservation law that (presumably) has to be kept, but a textbook’s worth of other properties and rules, which — aside from the fact that the whole mess is not _logically_ forbidden — would seem to be only one arbitrary choice from of an infinite set of possibilities. [/QUOTE] Mass is energy, for these purposes. And when you have a near-infinite number of _random_ universes being born then you have a near infinite number of _kinds_ of universes being born as well. And that assumes that the process is random; there are hypotheses that speculate that there is a form of evolution involved. That if the physical laws of one universe influence those of the universes that spawn from it, then universes that become large and last a long time and perhaps have other qualities will produce more baby universes than those that don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/50 "2011-08-20T13:00:39Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > If God exist and wants all humans to know and believe in him why was Jesus confined to a single geographical point on earth. That event was a [fixed point in time](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Fixed_point_in_time). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/51 "2011-08-20T13:09:28Z")
And he’d be a really thin film if he was evenly distributed over the earth. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/52 "2011-08-20T19:09:22Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And he’d be a really thin film if he was evenly distributed over the earth. 😃 How many roofs can Jesus shingle? Depends on how thin you slice him. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/53 "2011-08-20T19:37:25Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > My question is: If God exist and wants all humans to know and believe in him why was Jesus confined to a single geographical point on earth. The Native Americans and the native Africans would know nothing of Jesus until they were told of his existence by Europeans colonizing their lands. Not according to the Mormons. But your questions are good ones, and remind me of the first book of “The Age of Reason,” by Thomas Paine. Although it was written over 200 years ago, I’ve never read a better book about the kinds of questions you are asking yourself. You can read it online if you want: > **[Thomas Paine: Age of Reason](http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/)** > > Full text of Thomas Paine's --Age of reason-- ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/54 "2011-08-20T21:24:02Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > Not according to the Mormons. > > But your questions are good ones, and remind me of the first book of “The Age of Reason,” by Thomas Paine. Although it was written over 200 years ago, I’ve never read a better book about the kinds of questions you are asking yourself. You can read it online if you want: > > [Thomas Paine: Age of Reason](http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/) Thanks for the link. Bookmarked and ready to read. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/55 "2011-08-20T21:55:55Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Mass is energy, for these purposes. Fine. I’m aware of the equivalence, but my point was larger than that. > [@](#): > > And when you have a near-infinite number of _random_ universes being born then you have a near infinite number of _kinds_ of universes being born as well. > > And that assumes that the process is random; there are hypotheses that speculate that there is a form of evolution involved. … And I look forward to the cosmologists’ future hypotheses and discoveries along these lines. However, all you’ve done here is push back the Mystery of Existence onto a “multiverse” that obeys its own higher set of rules — rules on how it spawns ordinary universes and imbues them with their individual sets of rules and properties. And if there’s some kind of evolution of universes going on, as you suggest, that implies the multiverse has an “Arrow of Time” of its own. _Interesting_. Is the multiverse getting more structured as it ages? Was it a smaller or simpler thing, in its own past? Does it have an origin? Does it have an ending? But just at a basic level, _why is there a multiverse_ anyway? Why would it go to the trouble of existing? How is it, really, that a bunch of mathematical rules and properties get realized into physical form, _in any context whatsoever_? Universe or multiverse, it doesn’t matter. I don’t expect answers to these kinds of questions. (Not _today_ anyway. It’s Saturday.) I can understand some people think it’s a waste of time even pondering them. My main point has only been that — as of yet, and probably forever — there is no known answer to the question: Why is there Something instead of Nothing? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/56 "2011-08-20T22:14:20Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > But just at a basic level, _why is there a multiverse_ anyway? One hypothesis I’ve heard: Nothingness is unstable. There was nothing to stop it from existing. If there were no physical laws then there’d be nothing to prevent them from coming into being. And you need only a simple set of laws with inheritance to get the evolutionary process up and running. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/57 "2011-08-21T17:50:52Z")
So, the inevitable consequence of nothing, is everything? Tris ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/58 "2011-08-21T18:22:46Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > You believe the people who say it is God’s word, This statement is false, God verifies His word directly. > [@](#): > > but there is proof that it is the work of humans, for humans to keep them in line, and for some( they) need to believe and is a help through life, for others it is not, and there are numerous religions and all serve the same purpose. One cannot say the Bible is God’s word anymore than the Koran! It is a matter of desire not fact. Would you not agree that writing is a creative act? I hope so. I offer the following: [QUOTE= John1] 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 [/QUOTE] This would mean that all writings are created through Jesus. And the reason for this statement: [QUOTE= 21] 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. [/QUOTE] Evey book is of God, and every other piece of writings, everything on the internet, every scribble everything is His and nothing was created without Him. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/59 "2011-08-21T18:48:20Z")
I hold that _absolute nothingness_ cannot be measured or defined in any way that’s meaningful by our meager, yet surprisingly resourceful minds. If taken at face value, the mere existence of existence, should dispel the concept of nothingness as meaningless and crystalize into the idea that: Everything just always _was_. Now, _everything_ may take on different states of existence, but there must’ve always been a fundamental _medium_ for existence to function in. What this _medium_ is, I have no idea, but it by definition cannot be nothingness, for true, absolute nothingness is a dead end of infinite non-existence (regardless of the relatively new quantum findings we’ve discovered. Because they’ve only been observed in an already existing universe. If you want to say this is the “ground-state” of nothingness, that’s fine, but then we’re not talking about true absolute nothingness… we’re talking about the existence of a new fundamental medium wherein quantum mechanisms can function and bring forth improbable things like the Big Bang, and so forth). To speculate that this _medium_ might be God, isn’t a dumb question, per se, but certainly beyond the realm of the scientific method, a _major_ jump to a conclusion, and perhaps wholly and completely unanswerable, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![terrim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@terrim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terrim)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534/60 "2011-08-21T19:32:18Z")
I was born Catholic and raised Christian. Not much of a diffrence there but a few more holidays or a few more prayer serviouses (not fond of the kneeling standing thing) I have now been Wiccan for over 15 years. I don’t disagree with Christian or Catholic religion, I don’t think one religion is better than the other. I do know that if you read your history thourghly (sorry if I spelled that wrong) pagen religion was the first and is the oldest religion in the world…not saying it is the one everyone should conform to because of it. History shows us that witches were burnt at the stake for useing herbs and spells to cure people or find true loves…we believed in not one God but many. So us uncivilsed people who believed in the sun and moon gods were killed. Being Wiccan I worship the Goodess of the moon and her consort the sun, but we also believe that there is a higher God who has created us all including the sun and the moon. We thank mother earth for providing us with food to eat and water to drink, we give our thanks to the moon and sun for helping things grow for mother earth…does that mean I think all other religions are false? NOPE. I respect all religion because in one way or another we all believe that one main God created us all. Each religion has its own structures, it’s own history. Do I believe that Jesues Christ died for our sins and was the son of God…No I’m sorry i don’t. Do I believe that the Bible is the words of jesues or God…No sorry I don’t. The bible is a story book, it is writen by people who put their views down as to what they think happened in the days of a man named Jesues who walked the earth tring to convert people to Christianity and Catholasism (always spell that wrong) Over time things were added and deleted from the book by scribes. Newer versions were created. Does that mean it never happened…No. it just means that every person has their own beliefs and no one is right or wrong. I don’t think Athiests are wrong either, they just prefer to think of the big bang theory because their minds are more scientific. Some people prefer science and some prefer higher beings. No one is right or wrong. It’s what we chose to believe in. I will not disrespect others religse beliefs and I will not push my religion on others. As the bible says…“love thy neighbore” My religion states…“do as you will harm none” are these not the same? Most religions have a moral code they ask you to follow, the ten comandments are worded slightly different from the code that Wiccans follow but have the very same meaning. I could sit here and write on and on and compare each religion and give you the majority of the codes or commandments to each religion and they may be worded different but say the same. Bottom line is this…Religion no matter what type it is teaches all of us to respect one another, love one another, be kind to one another and help your fellow man. Treat the world you live in with respect and give back to the soil what you take from it. This includes those that believe in the scientific aspect of it. So no matter what you believe or what God you believe in we all have the same values and moral codes. From the day we are born we are taught to respect others…so why is this such an issue with Religion? I respect every person I encounter in a day weither they are brown, black, purple, green. It doesn’t matter what the persons race is or their religion we as a human race should be respecting each other. We may not like or agree to a persons personal choices but that is one person not an entire race or religion. I swear if we as in all humans took a few moments to learn about a persons culture or religion we would be better for it. We may have different religiouse beliefs and different cultures but in a strange funny way we all believe in the same thing…Humanity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believing-in-god/592534.md?page=4)