Quote Originally Posted by natureisawesome
SO I have a question to get back to the topic.

What good reason does anyone have to doubt they exist?
About the same amount or reasons that we have to doubt that they dont exist.

The playing field is even, as far as I am concerned. Its a quagmire. No one can truely prove that god(s) exist with current evidence available, but no one can disprove it either. That is literally why the call it faith.

In my personal opinion, if a person is leading a good life, no matter in who's name it is in, then why should they change their life to fit another god(s) ways?

I think we can all agree, loosely, on the ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, morals if you will. Now I have heard it mentioned that God gave us these, but I have a statement, if you will, in regards to this...

YOUR God gave YOU those. Call it my "faith", or whatever you will, but I think that it is very assuming to assume that morals came from one source. Our society as a whole in this country, and the world itself as well, has adapted our moral stances many many times, and will continue to do so. Chrisitian God may have given you your morals, and of that I do not doubt. The bible may have helped shaped current morals, but I believe that morals go above god(s). If god(s) do exist, our freewill was the greatest gift that they gave us. And in that freewill they gave us the ability to have morals, and let those morals be whatever we wish, as a part of our freewill. It doesnt mean that god doesnt have his set rules of whats good and bad, but they let us choose what we ourselves feel is good and bad.

Quick slightly over-exaggerated for the point example... Stealing is considered bad, and is stated so in the bible, correct? What about stealing to feed your family? What about stealing to save a life? What about stealing to protect the person whom you stole from? So many nuances, that can never fully be covered by any rules laid down in a book or by a god. Do you just go with the blanket ruling that stealing is bad, and leave it at that? Or do YOU have specific things out of that list that you feel is ok considering the circumstances? Things like that take consideration of the entire event, not just the one damning part of it, and its our freewill that lets US decide what we feel is right and wrong as a whole, and as an individual, even if a god(s) may have given the original ruleset to play by.

If you ever get a chance natureisawesome, I recommend reading through a few other religious texts, and to take the time to notice the similarities and differences in the "rules" of all of them. You would be shocked at how similar, yet so dis-similar they can be. It also helps put things in perspective, and to allow you to see where others are coming from who follow such religions. THe bible made more sense, on certain levels, after having read through the Qur'an and the big Buddhist texts(Four Noble Truth's, Noble Eightfold Path, the precepts), then it did before. Things just came into a bigger perspective, if you get what I am saying.

IDK, you might enjoy it, you might not, but I always think that full understanding of something you believe in is important, otherwise you may find you are following nothing but lies, or have misunderstood/interpretted something critical.