to think it is rude to persistently refer to God/Allah/etc. as an "imaginary friend"

[AtheneNoctua]

even after asked not to by several posters who have stated they found it offensive.

Ok, so if God is quarks - then why worship him and talk to him (them)?

I think it is good for us to connect to our higher self, to tune in to goodness and love and to focus on making positive choices.
It helps us to get more from life, not to waste it or become overwhelmed by the difficulties of it.

It is good for us to feel that we don't just have our own recourses, that when we are a broken heap we can call on an outside strength.

I think you are missing the point. I already stated that there isn't one perfect religion or person.
As far as freewill goes, that is precisely why God could sit back and let us mess things up.
I don't claim to have an "inside" with God...I'm just stating what happened. You can take it for what you will.
The arguments will always rage on because people are people. They disagree on fundamentally everything.
There isn't a single one of you that wants to budge from your positions and that is why I find your arguments intriguing. I'm the same. I just know what I feel. Call it lunacy or faith. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me.

supersillyus many of us believe we have those resources within ourselves and don't need outside help(other than those we love in a human sense) to live our lives in a meaningful way

Well you are stating what happened, but implying there was a connection between the prayer and the outcome. Otherwise why mention it?

I am just pointing out that however you look at your example there is a flaw.

I am sure that sometimes swat teams don't kill people so there is no reason to suppose there was another cause.

If you had been the cause it would have meant god interfered with the man's free will which most if not all christians will tell you is wrong and you have said as much yourself just then. Your own words have convinced me that it wasn't the prayer.

Not to mention that if you had been the cause then it means god would have been happy to let someone die unless you asked him not to. Suppose you had been looking the other way or asleep?

Okay, lets look at it logically. You cannot prove or disprove that there is or isn't a "higher conscienceness".
People aren't perfect so any religious teaching (regardless of whichever you choose) is flawed.
Why is it so important to enforce your will on others?
Yep, Blackplague is a good example. Fleas...and bad hygiene practices to blame. Yep, they prayed and still died. How do you disprove that what came after wasn't better than what they left?
Or even now, someone dying from cancer...how do you know that they don't pray for the relief of death from it and that their prayers are answered?
As far as the human brain we don't have the advancement to know fully what is going on. Yes, Seritonin makes us feel happiness. You can wear tight shoes and it will keep your pinched ears from hurting because your brain fires in the pointy shoe nerves instead.
We haven't really evolved past a greedy little monkey stage to the point of being civil or at least trying to see where the other is getting their viewpoints.

And that is fine. I'm out..it's lunchtime and I'll be sure to offer thanks for all your fine arguments and pray you all have a wonderful day too. If you don't, don't blame me or God or Allah or science though. If you have to blame something blame yourselves. I'll be back later.

People aren't perfect so any religious teaching (regardless of whichever you choose) is flawed

The Royal Family are, on balance, probably prayed for the most in churches up and down the land. If there were any correlation between prayer and good health/happiness, then they should be happier and healthier than any other people in their income and age brackets!

Hmmm...

Once again: an anecdote is not data.

andiem, yes I know. I have my way of understanding it and others have a different interpretation. Equally valid I think.

Back, Onager...I'm stating from the prospect that okay...praying is bunk. Mind you I'm stating all the arguments (not endorsing them). This is a conversation. Don't go overboard.
The Royal Family anecdote is a good one Unquiet.
Again, both sides don't budge. There isn't a proof or disproof either way.

I think it is good that people are questioning what's wrong about religion and refusing to accept it. And maybe we need to let go of old ideas to make room for new ones.
I also think it is great that people can find so much in religion.

I personally think that we are all part of each other and all part of god in spirit.

I can't not believe that but I do respect peoples right to not believe that and to think of things in a more physical, tangible way.

I'm just in this for the conversation.
From an atheist point of view...if you can't scientifically prove it then it isn't so. Is that correct?

"I can't not believe that"

That's how it is.

I think the reason I get frustrated is that I look at the arguments people give for thinking God is imaginary and I think "but do you think I've not thought of that".

I'm not daft. I'm scientifically trained. I get it.

I just can't not believe. And not for want of trying.

Okay, TFM, then let me ask how you handle "love"? I know, I know. I brought this up earlier in the thread.
Is your version of "love" just the chemical, phermone induced version? Or is it something you cannot explain but feel and can't help but follow?
Maybe I should ask for your definition of "love" first.
No, I'm not trying to incite a riot. I'm only talking.

I'm hoping you will reply.
Let me explain my background with "God", "Allah" and atheism.
I was raised Catholic, am married to a man that was Islamic and is now atheist.
As I've said, I've seen no perfect religions or people. As people go, I wouldn't expect perfection anyway.
Love is the closest thing I can compare to a God though.
If if was just the chemical thing I certainly wouldn't have placed myself with my husband.
I also understand why some animals eat their young. Supposedly that is why babies are so cute... but the vile things that happen with them doesn't coincide with the chemical love I and other parents feel for their offspring.
Do you follow? So just asking. What is your take on that?

Well, I'm not at all sure that our experience of love is entirely explicable chemically as it were. There may well be physical correlates, as there are of many emotions, but causal relationships, and how we experience the emotions - I don't know.

That's not to say I just say it will never be knowable and chalk it up to God though...

Fair enough. K, it's getting close to school getting out. I haven't done much (aside from this thread) other than lunch. So apologies to all who I've offended. I'm out till much later.

With regard to love it's pro=evolutionary, that's all. A mix of sexual desire (so we reproduce) altruism and co-operation.
As for couplehood love, much of that is simply inertia: people pick one individual from the pool of available attractive individuals when they think it's probably time to breed, and mostly the two individuals rub along fairly well together or at least both feel that there aren't any better options out there.

I think this is a really interesting thing SGB. I agree that Dawkins and others have given a very logical and convincing explanation of how love has arisen as a medium for conferring evolutionary advantage. And yet in terms of our experience of love it is very far from satisfying. The idea that we are mere vehicles existing to enable the perpetuation of our genes is a neat one, but it does not allow any intrinsic value to be placed on our actual subjective experience as human beings, and is in that sense always inadequate.

I think the same probably applies for those who have "experienced" God. The will to believe in a higher power and to partake in religion can certainly be explained in terms of social advantage, but this has little bearing on what people actually experience.

While I know what you mean, I have to say that I don't feel it detracts from the experience (of love or life in general) to have it 'explained'. I enjoy being alive and in love tremendously.

In a similar way if I look into the night sky and see the light from thousands of stars I feel a sense of wonder and awe. The light from some of those might have started its journey while my species was experimenting with banging rocks together.
I wouldn't feel it needed a creator god or any kind of mystical explanation to make it exciting.

That something is pro-evolutionary and useful does not stop it being nice. We need to eat to live, we don't need to fanny around with gourmet cuisine but many of us like to. We don't need to imagine an invisible benign or capricious friend to justify our feelings or actions, but some people like to.

No, of course being useful/pro-evolutionary does not stop something being nice. Its niceness is what enables it to be pro-evolutionary after all. But I'm not absolutely sure how compatible our sense of ourselves as autonomous beings is with the idea that we are nothing more than packets of genetic material programmed for survival, and that all the love, awe and wonder that we experience are mere by-products of this programming. It is certainly counter-intuitive. I'm almost tempted to call it a leap of faith.

I think the example of the night sky is not so pertinent as there is no reason why our scientific understanding of the cosmos should diminish the sense of awe we experience when looking at the stars. Quite the opposite in fact.

'Human super niceness is a perversion of Darwinism because, in a wild population, it would be removed by natural selection. It is also, although I haven't the space to go into detail about this third ingredient of my recipe, an apparent perversion of the sort of rational choice theory by which economists explain human behaviour as calculated to maximize self-interest.'
From Dawkins' essay 'Athiests for Jesus'

www.rationalresponders.com/atheists_for_jesus_a_richard_dawkins_essay