Atheism, Theism, Science & Philosophy

[davidMC1982]

To me, our method for understanding the world has gone from belief to philosophy to science. It seems like a natural progression in the advancement of knowledge. It is my contention that genuine belief stems from personal experience; philosophy was our first attempt to rationalise our beliefs; and science takes this further with a requirement for evidence. Surely, the most significant lesson we should take from science is that our beliefs are often wrong.

For me, religion is separate from this; more akin to a system of government. As such, it is something that is learned. It cannot be "known" from personal experience alone.

I can understand, Love, that after your personal experience you might truly believe in a deity. What I struggle to see is how you rationalise the Jesus/Christianity part? I presume it is the prevalent religion wherever you're from (I'd hazard a guess that it's the UK) and, for me at least, this would heighten my skepticism as it is clear that I could have been influenced by the environment in which I live. I also struggle to see how you can identify yourself as Christian without referring to the bible, as all Christian theology stems from it and the supposed historicity of Jesus is almost entirely limited to the bible.