Is God real?

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@Marley23

You haven’t done much to explain why it’s wrong or what makes it “going too far.”

I have gone as far as I am going to go, I am burned out on this one.

[Voyager]

@HoneyBadgerDC

No question about it, I would tell him. I think this is where the problem lies. The anti believers see religion as a ponzi scheme. I see many religions that way myself. I have a huge hard-on for these preachers that continue to rob their flock with absolutey no conscience.
I haven’t really given this topic enough thought to make a real good arguement nor do I have much of a background to speak from. I can just feel when something is wrong or is going to far.

Very reasonable. Now, if you read Dawkins, you will see that he wrote his books on religion not because he just felt like challenging religion, but because he got so much hate mail from his books on evolution. It is kind of like writing about the importance of having a balanced portfolio and getting a ton of mail accusing you of being evil and an idiot for not putting all your money in gold.

Your example is pretty good. Would you have difficulty speaking up if a relative had a boyfriend who was clearly robbing her blind? I hope not. But preachers claim a direct link to the almighty. How do you dispute this without rational means? Faith that the conman owns the Brooklyn Bridge is idiotic, but faith that the conman had a direct line to god and can ensure your eternal salvation with a small donation is virtuous.
There are tons of examples. Holding priests to legal standards of conduct was wrong because being holy in the church forgave a lot. Good Catholic cops busted Lenny Bruce for making fun of the Pope - where they were fine with him making fun of politicians. A lot of what Dawkins says is just to stop treating religious arguments as somehow special and not amenable to the same logical evaluation as secular arguments. Shouldn’t be a big deal, but you are not alone in considering somehow anti-religious.

[Buck_Godot]

Reordering some of your quotes so as to condence the main points for my responses

@Ishmael_Jankem

I believe God is real because I believe there is a higher form of love than we understand. Forgiveness is real and when you’re truly walking in forgiveness everything around you changes. You can see the effect it has on people. You can see how your patience changes them. You can see the gears turning in their heads as they struggle with their conscience.
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I believe in God because our world is so corrupt. The sinful nature is real. It’s inside all of us just like the Bible says.

Human nature is a wonderful and complex thing but claiming it is necessarily divine in origin makes a much larger claim than can be made from our current understanding of it.

@Ishmael_Jankem

I believe in God because information is encoded in our DNA and information always comes from an intelligent source.
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I believe in God because of science. Everything works together so perfectly it makes no sense to me how everything could have just happened by accident. Physics, biology, reproduction, the gene pool. It’s amazing.

Simple rules can lead to mind boggling complexity. See the Mandelbrot set for example. Further when you add in selective propagation and large numbers of repeated trials, extremely unlikely can amazing results are almost guaranteed. See alsothis interesting video about using evolutionary rules to actually develop a watch.

@Ishmael_Jankem

I believe it because people who worship science and reason are often very mean and spiteful and condescending, but a true Christian living in forgiveness has the ability to pray for them and try to make their lives better in spite of the fact that the reason worshipers are extremely bad to them. The door is always open from a Christian to a non, but doesn’t seem to be when it’s the other way around most of the time.

Your experience must be very different from mine. I don’t know anyone who “worships” science. Most of my scientist colleagues are very nice and understanding. Some I know are non-fundementalist christian, some are athiest most I don’t know their religion as it doesn’t come up in my dealings with them. For the most part they have a live and let live attitude towards religion as long as it isn’t dogmatic or thrust down their throats. Some of course are also unpleasant jerks. I also know many Christians many of whom are nice, but some of whom are unpleasant, such as the priest who counseled my wife that she should under no circumstances consider divorcing her ex no matter how abusive he was to her. Basically I have found that people are people regardless of their beliefs, but I have a general loathing of Dogma of any sort, which in my experience tends to occur more among the religious than among the scientists.

@Ishmael_Jankem

I believe in God because I don’t like pride and pride is the huge communication barrier. When you accept that you have been made from something greater than you it kind of takes the work out of trying to be human
It makes it easier and more enjoyable for me. It gives me peace. I love the idea of an afterlife. I want to go where the people who think like me go. I want to go where the people who believe in something greater than themselves go.

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I believe in God because it seems to me that if there is an afterlife it would take something as drastic as Jesus coming and dying for us to forgive us of our sins. We definitely do sin and sin sure doesn’t help us. It makes our lives worse. And the very fact that we do struggle with sin proves that we need help from somewhere and that sin isn’t natural. Everybody has different sins.

I believe in God because of how much my life has changed for the better through praying hard about things that I want to understand. I don’t believe it’s just maturity. I believe it’s specific things that I have asked for that have specifically been given to me.

I believe in God because there has to be an ultimate judge who decides if we are true in our lives or not. I sure wouldn’t want to leave that to any other human would you?

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I believe in God because fascination even exists in the first place. It proves to me that we were never told everything right from the start. We have had to learn something that was in place before we had thought and a chance to learn.

I believe in God because I want to and because it helps me.

This seems to me probably the best justification that one can give for their belief in god. It is not a very convincing argument on a factual level, but on a practical level it makes a lot of sense. Everyone has their own little delusions that they accept to make it through the day, or to add spice to their life. People shout at the television screen when their team is heading for the in zone despite the fact that their shouting will have no effect on the outcome. As mentioned by Douglas Adams a completely unvarnished and accurate view of the world would make it unlivable. I know for a fact that without her religion to keep her going my wife wouldn’t be alive right now. So in spite of the fact that I am an atheist I don’t wish to see religion abolished. When I see someone like you who is aided by their belief in god I say more power to them and wish them all the best. The problem comes when religion leads to dogma and someone decides that since their religion worked so well in their life it must be the best for everyone else. This leads to holy wars, bigotry, intolerance in suppression of basic rights. I suspect that much of the hate you are feeling from “Science worshipers” is in reaction to this forcing of dogma, and if that was eliminated, atheists wouldn’t care any more about the religious than the would about people who seek four leaf clovers or don’t shave while their team is on a winning streak.

Peace be with you.