(March 4, 2014 at 12:47 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: But the whole point of religion is to have faith, which is believing without evidence. If there was evidence, there'd be no point to faith.

If acknowledging the existence of a deity is such an important decision in life, why should I have to have faith in it?
Why not know it for sure?

To me, the requirement of faith just removes all credibility from any religion.™

(March 4, 2014 at 12:28 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: Because I've heard so many stories already demonstrating his power.[/quotes]

Stories don't demonstrate power. They just demonstrate storytelling. The stories aren't evidence at all, the stories are the claims.

[quote='JesusLover1' pid='615776' dateline='1393950490']
There's clearly something more at work.

Could that something be prosyletization?

(March 4, 2014 at 12:28 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: About 90% of the world firmly believe there's some kind of God, wheras the "Flat Earth Society" accounts for an uncalculatably small amount of the world's population.

It's falsifiable that the earth is flat, yet there are still people who believe it is because they think the Bible says so. God is not falsifiable, so a lot of people believe in some god or another...but not the same one. Only about half the world believes in the God of Abraham after thousands of years of trying to convert everyone.

(March 4, 2014 at 12:28 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: Well so many people base their entire lives around it, that must be wrong right?

There's a village in Ethiopia that abstains from practicing religion. It is one of the most prosperous villages in the country despite having had their farmland confiscated by the government and being relocated to a marginal area. They have a library and a school and they have to turn people away from living there because they just don't have the room. It's called Awra Amba. Not practicing religion is not the sole reason for their success, but it is a contributing factor, not least because they don't take time from work for various holidays and festivals the Christian and Muslim communities around them observe. The European countries with the highest rates of organic atheism have the best standards of living. Basing your life around something non-productive has a cost.

(March 4, 2014 at 12:28 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: I really wish I could get my parents or someone from our church on here. There's a guy my dad is friends with who spends almost every waking moment with the Bible.

This site is kind of rough-and-tumble, they (and you) might prefer one where language is moderated, like JREF and (I think) The Thinking Atheist.

(March 4, 2014 at 1:07 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: I don't know, honestly it seems like a copout from questioning the existance of God.

Ding ding ding! 100 points!

That's exactly what it is! And that's so obvious once you consider that you're only meant to have faith in one specific god, and not any others. Just see what'd happen it you told your parents they should be believing in Allah, if only they had the right amount of faith.

Or hell, tell them to have faith in the giant rooster, and see how they'll look at you like you're crazy.

I just want to enjoy my life...but the fear of hell won't let me.

There's a cure for that. You don't even have to stop being a Christian to stop believing in hell. Check out Universalism.

(March 4, 2014 at 1:23 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: There's a cure for that. You don't even have to stop being a Christian to stop believing in hell. Check out Universalism.

But what if they're wrong?

(March 4, 2014 at 12:47 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: But the whole point of religion is to have faith, which is believing without evidence. If there was evidence, there'd be no point to faith.

Ask yourself this - do you care about how reliably what you believe corresponds with what is true in reality? If you DO care, consider whether or not faith is a reliable method for accomplishing that end. It would seem to me that relying on faith would lead to any correspondence between belief and reality being largely due to coincidence.

If you don't care, then I would submit that you being here is a waste of your time and ours.

The "What ifs" in life concerning the unknowns should be enough to make you consider taking the null hypothesis on anything that can't outright be demonstrated.

(March 4, 2014 at 1:37 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: But what if they're wrong?

I really don't know any other way to say it, dude. That's a question you could ask of any position you could ever hope to hold, and the chances of you being wrong are exactly the same in all corners: one to infinity.

There's an infinite number of hells, each and every one of them with the same level of evidence as the christian one: none at all. Why worry about any of them?

(March 4, 2014 at 1:43 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(March 4, 2014 at 1:37 pm)JesusLover1 Wrote: But what if they're wrong?

I really don't know any other way to say it, dude. That's a question you could ask of any position you could ever hope to hold, and the chances of you being wrong are exactly the same in all corners: one to infinity.

There's an infinite number of hells, each and every one of them with the same level of evidence as the christian one: none at all. Why worry about any of them?

Honestly at the end of the day it's all just because my parents are so infinitely confident about it. I just don't know how to accept that all this stuff they've talked about all these years and that is such a big part of their lives is completely incorrect. Whenever I ask them why they believe, they either shut me off completely or give me some vague bull answer about the "spiritual realm". If someone could honestly show me a scientific explination of how someone could think they saw an angel despite being fully concious, and not near-death.