Faith, what is it?

[Purple Rabbit]

But I am not asking you to believe because the Bible tells you to or because theology does.

You are trying to put religion into the domain of science though.

That's not quite my ambition, really. I'm trying to make sense out of religion. I am asking what religion has to offer. On face value, what have you got?

The main point isn't to cure diseases or to predict the future, that is what science is for. Religion (Christianity at least) is for having a relationship with God, morals, purpose and meaning, salvation. Christianity has shown to change lives. And I think to say prayer has been shown to have no effect misunderstand prayer. Under what, laboratory conditions?

Isn't there purpose and meaning in the curing of diseases, in trying to understand and discover the world and ourselves, in tracing our roots, in defining human relations without reference to blind obedience to a supernatural being? You tell me. Humanists have moral and meaningful lifes too. Why should you worship a god you cannot authenticate? One that you have to invent yourself before he is 'on the phone' with you. Salvation is a thoroughly perverted concept, it means salvation from inherited sin, alleged sin of your ancestors. Think about it. How deranged must a fairy tale be before you open your eyes for it?

The experiment was a double blind research, not in a laboratory but in a hospital.

Pray isn't a magic that can be used when ever to prove a point, it is talking to a person.

With what goal? Therapeutic, to lend an ear? To answer questions? Why delude yourself with prayer? The answers you get are the answers you give yourself by means of introspection. Real people can do all that.

God doesn't want to people to believe He exists

Then atheists are his friends. But is there any reason involved or is this just how religion accounts for his appaling absence when your kid or partner gets cancer?

, He wants people to follow Him and have a relationship with Him.

I have a relationship with my wife, kids, family and friends. You can have a surrogate relationship with an imaginary friend, sure, but it's nothing like the real thing. Don't believe me, compare it for yourself.

I have no problem with science or with questioning religious dogma. I am all for stopping creationism and for understanding Christianity in a way which makes sense with reality, through science and philosophy.

Then tell me, isn't it odd that there is not a shred of evidence in science of god?

It does not happen under conditions controlled by scientific experiment.

Ask yourself why that is so. Why should god hide for us? What is the point? Is he playing hide and seek? Or is there a much more straightforward explanation? Question it. I mean, you are living in a time after Darwin, Newton, Kant and Einstein, you owe it to yourself.

I do many things outside of controlled conditions does that mean most of my life isn't real?

Did I suggest that? Don't think so.

For more than a year now I have been questioning many of my beliefs and this has changed some of those beliefs and how I see the world, so I would like to think I am taking my own advice.

Questioning is a moral obligation you have to your intellect. And I do not mean that it it is restricted to religion. Everybody should do it, always. Keep on doing it.