God's existence is often said to be disproved by lack of evidence saying that He does exist, but there is also a lack of evidence that He does not.
Megaman, the issue of burden of proof is ultimately the stickler in any religious debate. Such a pity
Whether he exists or not, however, will not change the fact that religion gives people morality and meaning in life. Certainly, so many peasants a long time ago refrained from killing themselves because they believed God was there to give them a reason to exist.
This is true, religion can be used as a way to give an answer for what to do with life. However, in all fairness, so do many other things; life is what we make of it, and meaning can be found in many places. Perhaps the simplest example; to care for your family and friends, to make their lives better, is a goal that many people live by. Alternatively, to do good by your fellow man, to learn the secrets of the universe, or even to become a world record stamp collector; all can be valid meanings for living your life, even if sometimes a touch trite.
@Graebeard, in my experience, the reason many athiests and agnostics overlook that topic is we simply feel that it's your own business, and there's so much to live for, why worry about trying to explicity define it? (That said, my personal primary motivator is knowledge, I'm a curious bastard
)
Now, morality is a thornier issue; religion is an undeniably effective way of disseminating a set of morals. Up to a given point, it will even help in enforcing it; crime rates drop in highly homogeonous catholic and protestant communities with both increasing homogeonity and increasing religiosity.
1 That said, it
can also be negative; even overlooking regions of sectarian conflict (which, honestly, also often have political, social, ethnic and economic factors) there are issues where religion can cause direct harm. Probably the best example, and one that has come up already, is the distribution of condoms in AIDS stricken countries.
The problem, therefore is that while religion can be a powerful supplier of morality, that morality may not necessarily be moral by objective standards (the objectivity of ethics in general is a thorny question, but I believe you can find a good start by working towards minimising overall suffering. Only a start, mind you, deep thought is always necessary). For this reason, any system of morality should be judged from an external viewpoint, and should never be followed blindly.
As for morality, which I will acknowledge has oft been abused, can stop people in positions in power from abusing it to such an extent they would have. Will you torture political prisoners for laughs if God himself tells you (indirectly, perhaps) to be merciful?
The counterpoint is (in line with my above topic), would you torture and kill the same prisoners if god tells you to be vengeful? That's the problem. If no, then where does that refusal come from?
Believe whatever you want, but always make sure you understand why you believe what you do
Really, that probably has little to do with faith. The social rejection, I mean. People want to associate with those who think alike, and hate those that are 'not us'. Also,a single one of those people is probably too many, but vocal minorities. Far fewer religious are close-minded bigots than many estimate.
Oh god (
), this. A sad, sad thing I see far too much of are people (mainly teenagers, but no age is immune) who have just discovered athiesm, and suddenly transform into loud mouthed idiots anxious to tell everyone how wrong they are. When you press them on it, they say they are fighting back against religious intolerance; religious intolerance, that for the most part, they have never experienced, and never will. Nevertheless, if you listen to them, every theist is a screaming fanatic. Idiots like that do so much harm to the topic. Couple it with the idiots on the other side of the fence (why are they always the loudest ones?
) and an interesting, enlightening topic will always devolve into a shitfest.
1) Trawick & Howsen, Crime and community heterogeneity: race, ethnicity, and religion, Applied Economics Letters, Volume 13, Issue 6, 2006