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[Osmosis Jones]

Then who did god?

[G-Flex]

I'm going to take a guess that you all know that's not how Occam's Razor actually works.

[Ampersand]

Occam's Razor: Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.

[Muz]

Then who did god?

Only God knows. And he's not telling.

[Andir]

Then who did god?

Only God knows. And he's not telling.

So why not?  Because then we would stop worshiping him and worship that which created it?  Seems a bit selfish if you ask me.  Is your "God" selfish?  I mean, it has all the teachings of a selfish "God"... you shall not follow anyone but me, etc. and so forth.  There is no other.  Believe in me or I'll burn you with my big magnifying glass!

I'd tend to think that if there were a god, and it truly wanted their people to live their fullest life in the most honest way possible, religious worshiping would be the absolutely last thing I'd want them to do.  I mean, if you want to let people act naturally, you don't tell them they are being video taped and give them a handbook on how to behave.  You can't find out the truth of a person if they know you are watching or you told them what they are and aren't allowed to do.

And if you think that religion is a "safe bet", how can you be sure?  I mean, "God" won't say it's right or wrong, you can't be sure it wants you to do it.  What if religion was a creation of an evil god who wanted nothing but worshiping sheep to inflate his ego every Sunday.  Heck, while we are on the topic, Satan could be the real "kind God", and the God you know wants you to think Satan is evil, clutching you in his grasps for eternity by telling you that the kind god is pure evil incarnate.  Since your God won't validate or verify any of these stories, you can't be sure you aren't a worshiper of evil.  If you look at it, religion is disease-like.  Spreading itself to every part of the world by proxy, "destroying" any other belief system, and it's carried on to your children and their children.  It infects everything it touches by imposing it's moral standing on the it's proxies and they impose that same standard on governments and societies around the world.   Do you like believing in a disease with no face that changes every couple years to hide what it's actually done?  One that keeps you at arms length from the truth to keep you believing and coming back for more?

If "God" were real, why would it want you in church every Sunday wasting time looking up to it instead of living and enjoying the short life it gave you?

[Idiom]

How do you remove a thread from the auto-response alert thing?

Living and enjoying the short life it gave you?

Isn't that kind of selfish?

Occam's Razor: Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.

AKA The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.

This razor is applied to the "How". Science has no answer to the great question "Why" besides "because". I've never managed to see the exact incompatibility going on. They both fill in a distinct role. "Belief" I think is a really inappropriate word for what religion is. "Faith" is much more accurate.

Also, what's up with the people who always argued semantics with millennial+ old texts by people from a completely alien culture? Never got that. To keep that relevant, it's generally atheists I've seen going out of their way and spending five hours cross referencing to compile a list of every slight snag.

[Sordid]

What if religion was a creation of an evil god who wanted nothing but worshiping sheep to inflate his ego every Sunday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism 

[Ampersand]

How do you remove a thread from the auto-response alert thing?

Hit the notify button a second time, I think.

[Andir]

How do you remove a thread from the auto-response alert thing?

Living and enjoying the short life it gave you?

Isn't that kind of selfish?

Not if that's the greater plan... but we'll never know because "God" is too chicken shit to prove up.

[Andir]

What if religion was a creation of an evil god who wanted nothing but worshiping sheep to inflate his ego every Sunday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism 

Yup, slight reference there.   There are so many potential outcomes to a "god" figure that it's impossible to know what's right if there were a "Silent God" so there's really no point in worshiping any of the possible paths hoping that you get the right one.  Pointless waste of time if you ask me.

[Muz]

Then who did god?

Only God knows. And he's not telling.

So why not?

Because it's beyond our comprehension? I mean we already have a tough enough time trying to believe in God in the first place, no need to make things tougher than that. If God had a Higher God, then not wanting us to worship Higher God would be blasphemous to God's beliefs, He wouldn't want that, so the simple solution is just to avoid the whole matter.

If "God" were real, why would it want you in church every Sunday wasting time looking up to it instead of living and enjoying the short life it gave you?

I've never seen anyone who's avoided enjoyment of life by going to church. Instead of sleeping in on Sundays, what's wrong with hanging out with others of the same faith? Seems more enjoyable to me.

[Ampersand]

You underestimate the laziness of many people.

[LegoLord]

People who hate getting up in the morning to go to church do seem to dislike crowds, I have to say.  Besides, as far as Judaism and Christianity go, there is no such commandment as "go to church," just "keep holy the Sabbath day."  It doesn't specify how you do that.

[Andir]

I've never seen anyone who's avoided enjoyment of life by going to church. Instead of sleeping in on Sundays, what's wrong with hanging out with others of the same faith? Seems more enjoyable to me.

You've obviously never met my father, my friend, and a good many people in "my circle".  Every single one of them hated going to church.  I asked them why they go... "Because I was brought up to." or "Because I have to."  So they were brainwashed.    Doesn't sound fun to me.  Especially having to keep handing out money or get put on some shit list by the church for not donating enough.  Having to sit on uncomfortable wooden pews.  (I know they have chairs now... but holy crap those were uncomfortable.)  My dad was asked to stop going to his church because he was "doing too much, and the pastor (preacher?) didn't want him to become a deacon..." whatever that means.  (No lie there... Baptists.  What are they thinking?  At least I think they were Baptist.  I told my parents I wouldn't meddle in their religion if they left me alone.  Fair arrangement.)

Not to mention the hour(s) you have to sit there and listen to someone tell you the same stories over and over, sing the same songs over and over.  They got the brainwashing part down pat.  That's pretty evident by the huge church cult within a mile of where I live.  They get 'em young there.  Schools, nurseries, track and football field that I'm somehow paying for because of some messed up property tax law about schools, religious or not.

[Helmaroc]

I've never seen anyone who's avoided enjoyment of life by going to church. Instead of sleeping in on Sundays, what's wrong with hanging out with others of the same faith? Seems more enjoyable to me.

You've obviously never met my father, my friend, and a good many people in "my circle".  Every single one of them hated going to church.  I asked them why they go... "Because I was brought up to." or "Because I have to."  So they were brainwashed.    Doesn't sound fun to me.  Especially having to keep handing out money or get put on some shit list by the church for not donating enough.  Having to sit on uncomfortable wooden pews.  (I know they have chairs now... but holy crap those were uncomfortable.)  My dad was asked to stop going to his church because he was "doing too much, and the pastor (preacher?) didn't want him to become a deacon..." whatever that means.  (No lie there... Baptists.  What are they thinking?  At least I think they were Baptist.  I told my parents I wouldn't meddle in their religion if they left me alone.  Fair arrangement.)

Not to mention the hour(s) you have to sit there and listen to someone tell you the same stories over and over, sing the same songs over and over.  They got the brainwashing part down pat.  That's pretty evident by the huge church cult within a mile of where I live.  They get 'em young there.  Schools, nurseries, track and football field that I'm somehow paying for because of some messed up property tax law about schools, religious or not.

You say they 'hated' going to church, which lets me assume that they no longer do. If they were truly 'brainwashed', they would continue to go to church today, don't you think? And keep in mind that faith is not defined by the church you attend...your church is just a building, and your priest is just a man. If your father's church had a 'shit list' for people who didn't donate enough, obviously he was not going to a very honest church.

Faith is not about brainwashing everyone to believe in a certain something. Sure, there are extremists and radicals, but they have nothing to do with what the faith is about, they are just people with the wrong ideas.