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As stated before,
If a proof and/or evidence of YOUR liking was provided then you would have had no choice but to live that "fearful life".
But now, you have a choice.
Please read above.
If the proof included the certain religion to follow then there would have had been no point in us having intelligence, and ability to research and use our logic and common sense. We will be somewhat like plants or some sort of a specie that would have had no choice, and which was based on a pre-programmed mechanical functionality with no choice and no brain of it's own.
God would have uselessly repeated this process with billions of human beings without any point.
But that doesn't answer the question of would you change how you live IF there was absolute proof for the other side. If belief was based on reason and research there should be a greater mixture of percentage of different religions throughout the world rather than an area mostly Christian, one mostly Muslim, one mostly Hindu and so forth.
Some people would not change regardless of what the proof was so we do have choices and are fully capable of believing in a flat Earth, fossils are fake or that one race is more moral and intelligent. And if a God was proven none of us have anything more than a guess or a hope that that God is the one they know about so why assume one must live a fearful life. Be honest and kind regardless if there is a God or not. I have lots of choices I can make and if I thought there probably is a God that I would have to make a choice as to which God that is. How many believers have accepted that there might not be a God and if they cannot conceive of such a concept how do they have free choice?
I already answer the question.
It is not possible to have this kind of an absolute proof.
I was referring to what I have posted. Not sure how you know that proof for or against the existence of a God is not possible. If that was your answer then it is a non answer.
But wait, what if we could erase all history and memory of God and inoculate people so the notion of God never returned again? What if, overnight, we could absolutely guarantee a uniformly atheistic humanity - or, if we wished, a uniformly Christian fundamentalist humanity? No difference, in 100 years or less society would look pretty much the same as it does today.
Sorry, but I completely disagree here.
For one thing, we would be roughly a thousand years more technologically advanced today than we actually are if religion never existed and never had existed. Some historians say that, if not for the hinderances of religion ruling the roost (Islam in Asia and Catholicism in Europe) for the first 800 years after the fall of Rome, humanity would have put a man on the moon around the year 1100 A.D. rather than 1969 A.D.
Look what just happened in London a few days ago. Some Muslim religious extremist twit walked into a concert full of children and detonated a suicide bomb.
What you're NOT seeing is terrorism inspired by anything else. Nope. Just religion.
Humanity around the world is trying to change, to advance, to progress and religious extremism keeps pushing us backward. Would the U.S. be waging non-stop war in places like Iraq and Afghanistan if not for fundy religion? Nope. Our nation would be at peace.
Would gays have to worry about being oppressed by their own governments if not for religion? Nope. Sure, there would still be gay-haters, but they would have to keep their thoughts to themselves unless they want to openly admit that they're just plain old bigots and small-minded rubes because they wouldn't have religion to hide behind.
That includes all the women oppressed in the Middle East even among our allies. Women *still* can't drive in Saudi Arabia or even go out in public without a male escort who must be a member of her immediate family. They are forced to wear head-coverings by law, some require that awful body-casket that robs women of their identity -- the burka.
Would any of that be happening if not for religion? Nope.
Well, the list is far, far, far, FAR, FAR too long to write out every last example of atrocity, oppression, warfare, prejudice, murder, and violence that occurred almost exclusively due to religion. Oh, I know that, in some cases, there were political motivations -- but those motivations only encompassed the "higher-ups," the social elite, the rulers and kings and emperors. The individual soldier was still motivated and fired up via religion before the advent of nationalism.
Even human nature is changing -- has been changing. All one has to do is look throughout history and notice that slowly but surely our morality is evolving and improving. Religion keeps pushing it back.
And no, you can't even say that people would just find another reason to hate the same groups they hate now. How would anyone tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'a without the labels? Or the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant ... or a Jew? (Granted, Hebrews might be slightly physically different, but still ...) There would be no way to distinguish one group from another without tagging their belief systems as the reason for the hatred.
And no, you can't say that they would pick some *other* difference. If that were the case, there would be a lot more of that happening even now with or without religion.
It's religion that creates the lion's share of the strife, divisiveness, and hatreds in this world, it is religion that sparks the most en masse violence.
Oh look ... today in the news, some 30 Coptic Christians were murdered in Egypt, most of them children. They were all riding in a bus and some masked gunmen in SUVs opened fire on the bus. Now, I think it's safe to say that these Christians weren't targeted because the masked gunman didn't like the color of the bus ... hmmm?
I'm not suggesting that without religion our world would be a utopic paradise. No, far from it. You are right in that human nature is still an issue. There will still be crime, greed, strife, poverty, and the occasional war. Yet removing religion, would be removing one of the biggest, if not THE biggest cog in the machinary of hatred.
You'll still have feuds between right-wingers and leftists, political parties, and nationalities. Certainly. But THOSE issues can be solved with diplomacy and cooler heads. Religion, however, is so rigid and uncompromising that there can BE no diplomacy unless one side is willing to surrender unconditionally to the other.
So far, no one has shot up a bus full of Trump supporters or walked into a concert full of children and blew themselves up to further the cause of fascism in France. There wasn't a bloody war to keep Britain in the European Union nor was there a war between England and Scotland when Scotland made noises about independence. In fact, the only political fighting that has occurred recently was Russia and the Ukraine and that was a small-fry skirmish compared to how things used to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Troglodyte74
Human nature cuts across all isms.
Yes, it does. But religion gives an outlet for the worst kind of human nature. All of the major religions have utterly failed at producing societies where love, compassion, and tolerance are the norms. Instead, everywhere where religion is dominant, just the opposite has occurred. Even here in the States, the Bible Belt has the worst record for upholding civil rights and basic liberties. Moreover, they consistently vote in candidates whose goal it is to strip the poor, sick, disabled, and elderly of the government programs that keep them alive and off the streets. So much for love and compassion! ("But ... but ... I donated a winter coat to my local church and I spent $20 whole dollars buying a toy for the Toys for Tots Christmas program! That makes me a good person!")
Yeah ... right -- buy the kid a toy but then vote to take away the kid's access to health care so the cancer in his brain kills him. Thanks but no thanks.
Just a few days ago, some moron state representative in Missouri said, "In the tenets of the Bible, the Quron, in most religions, there's a difference between homosexuality and being a human being."
Yeah, that's what religion does to human nature -- as this same representative introduces a bill in his state that will allow employers to fire people just because they're gay.
Sorry to disagree with you on one point, Shirina; it wasn't Islam that started the ball rolling on the suppression of knowledge in the East, but the Byzantine Empire and its system for retaining power. Granted that Islam later picked up on it.... that collusion of religion and state thing that is so d----- hard to get rid of.
Some historians say that, if not for the hinderances of religion ruling the roost (Islam in Asia and Catholicism in Europe) for the first 800 years after the fall of Rome, humanity would have put a man on the moon around the year 1100 A.D. rather than 1969 A.D.
.
Sorry to disagree with you on one point, Shirina; it wasn't Islam that started the ball rolling on the suppression of knowledge in the East, but the Byzantine Empire and its system for retaining power. Granted that Islam later picked up on it.... that collusion of religion and state thing that is so d----- hard to get rid of.
Islam kept the knowledge of the Greeks during the time Christians thought it blastermous.
I was referring to what I have posted. Not sure how you know that proof for or against the existence of a God is not possible. If that was your answer then it is a non answer.
IMO,
7 Billion people currently living on earth, and 100 of millions who lived before us and however many millions that will come after us, cannot come up with the answer to these two questions
1 - What would you consider as a proof/evidence of God?
2 - And how will you validate that evidence by using all the collective scientific knowledge of all humanity?
You can't!
If bring a never seen before bird or sea creature or an animal to you, and claim that it's a horse, you will have the means and knowledge to visibly inspect the creature and or, if you like, you can take it's biopsy or blood sample to see if it's a horse or not?
If a God comes in front of you and claim that I am a God, how are you going to verify? Take him to a lab and get an X-ray done? Take blood samples? Do an MRI on him?
And say if you do all that, and results are something that were not observed by science before, would that mean this entity is God? How will you know?
Or you can ask him, remove all misery from earth in a heartbeat, or turn this water glass into wine. And boom!! it happens.
How would you validate that it was done by God and how would you explain the scientific method that turned water into wine?
If you are able to scientifically explain how water was turned into wine then you don't need God because this is something that you could do it too. God wouldn't be any better bigger or more powerful than you.
If you can scientifically explain how all misery from earth was removed in a heart beat then you don't need God because you can do it by yourself.
But if you can't scientifically explain how water turned into wine and how earth misery was removed then you are not asking for evidence, you are asking God to perform miracles for you. Which is an oxymoron for a person who demands evidence.
If no evidence, it doesn't exist, remember? A miracle is not a valid and repeatable scientific evidence.
IMO,
7 Billion people currently living on earth, and 100 of millions who lived before us and however many millions that will come after us, cannot come up with the answer to these two questions
1 - What would you consider as a proof/evidence of God?
2 - And how will you validate that evidence by using all the collective scientific knowledge of all humanity?
You can't!
If bring a never seen before bird or sea creature or an animal to you, and claim that it's a horse, you will have the means and knowledge to visibly inspect the creature and or, if you like, you can take it's biopsy or blood sample to see if it's a horse or not?
If a God comes in front of you and claim that I am a God, how are you going to verify? Take him to a lab and get an X-ray done? Take blood samples? Do an MRI on him?
And say if you do all that, and results are something that were not observed by science before, would that mean this entity is God? How will you know?
Or you can ask him, remove all misery from earth in a heartbeat, or turn this water glass into wine. And boom!! it happens.
How would you validate that it was done by God and how would you explain the scientific method that turned water into wine?
If you are able to scientifically explain how water was turned into wine then you don't need God because this is something that you could do it too. God wouldn't be any better bigger or more powerful than you.
If you can scientifically explain how all misery from earth was removed in a heart beat then you don't need God because you can do it by yourself.
But if you can't scientifically explain how water turned into wine and how earth misery was removed then you are not asking for evidence, you are asking God to perform miracles for you. Which is an oxymoron for a person who demands evidence.
If no evidence, it doesn't exist, remember? A miracle is not a valid and repeatable scientific evidence.
You win, it is impossible to have an opinion on a hypothetical question according to your opinion, or at least that seems to be the jest of your comments.
I would go on a killing spree. No reason. Just for fun. Because I'm a closet psychopath that only remains stable because there's a God. Once I finished murdering a few babies and throw a few grenades into several kindergarten classrooms right at naptime, I'll shoplift everything I want to have and screw paying for anything.
I'll kick kittens, toss puppies, punch every WWII vet in the gut and say, "********* for your service" (though I would use a different word than "screw.")
I'd snort coke, smoke pot, do heroine, become a meth-head tweaker, drink 'till I'm drunk every night. I'd have sex with everything that moved -- yeah, even your chihuahua won't be safe around me -- and then have tons of abortions. Every time I got pregnant. Only just to be cruel, I'll wait until the third trimester to do it.
Naturally I'd party and party and party some more and pick up other women to have lesbian sex with them. I might even get married just so I can commit adultery. I'd practice witchcraft and read all the Harry Potter books, I'd tell people's futures, disrespect priests, and be rebellious toward my parents. Blaspheming would be the name of the game and I might cut my hair short, wear men's clothes, cut the tassles off my cloak, and when I'm feeling particularly evil I'll boil a goat in its own mother's milk.
Because ... isn't that what we'd ALL do if there was no God? I mean, without taking our moral guidance from an entity that commits wanton genocide, a being that doesn't have to follow any moral code that we humans would even recognize, we'd all go positively ape ... wouldn't we?
Isn't that what the fundevangelists think?
I'm disappointed...you forgot to add working for me to the list.
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