You find that story inspiring? An egomaniacal God who allows one of his faithful to be tortured mercilessly and lose everything that gives his life meaning so that he God can be proven right? Maybe I'm missing something here, but that story is exactly what I hate about religion.

@TheoryNumber3 The story is obviously nothing but allegory intended to illustrate a truth.

Job’s God concept was not based on circumstances or events. Because he had a deep understanding and awareness nothing could change his opinion. It was not that Job had great piety, faith, or benevolence. He was simply courageous and smart enough to know that external events don’t negate truth.

Sure, it was painful to lose his family and everything, but everyone dies at some point—it’s in the cards. The miraculous, wonderful thing is that any of us exist in the first place and have conscious awareness.

As the saying so often goes; " You can take the person out of the Bible Belt, BUT you can NEVER take the Bible Belt out of the person," it seems to me that is probably 100% correct in this instance, would you not agree Sir?

@Triphid In this one instance you might be right. what I did was throw out my fundamentalist background but I remain very aware and appreciative of the miracles of life and nature. I don’t argue about God. Nobody is qualified in that area. We are all totally and abysmally ignorant of ultimate reality.

That Bible Belt thing is sort of a stereotype IMO. Other parts of the US are almost as religious as the South, while the South is not monolithic. There are non-believers all around me, and probably half the population does not practice a religion. You can find whatever you want to find in the South, which constitutes one third of the US population.

@WilliamFleming As one who holds a Doctorate Degree in Theology and Comparative Modern Religions as well as being a life-long Atheist I'd hazard to say that, mayhap, my understanding of this 'Sky Daddy Being' phenomenon is pretty darned good and I can and WILL stand my ground that that PHENONEMON is utterly baseless.

@Triphid

I in no way advocate for the existence of a “Sky Daddy Being”. That is about magic and the supernatural, and IMO there’s no such thing as the supernatural, unless you want to say that all of nature is “super”. What I entertain is the notion of Ultimate Reality. As a consciously aware being I am filled with a sense of wonder, awe, appreciation, and deep gratitude for reality.

There is nothing about Ultimate Reality to “believe” or to argue about. There is a higher aspect to nature that we can not perceive or understand with our everyday matter/space/time model. In other words, the world of our perception is illusory. This fact is almost universally accepted by thinking people, and has been a part of scientific knowledge since the days of Faraday and Maxwell.

Ultimate Reality is draped in profound, unfathomable mystery. Physicists have glimmers of insight, but those glimmers are superficial.

You sound rather combative.

@WilliamFleming No, by no means 'combative,' just being factual in discussion.
Btw, is NOT being 'spiritual' also to be considered as being somewhat supernaturally based as well?
Especially since combining the words 'super' and 'nature/natural' simply means that it is ABOVE or BEYOND the realms of nature itself?

@Triphid

Spirituality for me is not about the supernatural, although for some people it might be. Ultimate Reality is not above or outside nature, it is nature herself. But it is above the limitations of our everyday perception of the world. It is the so-called concrete that is shadowy, ghostly, and ephemeral, while Ultimate Reality is real and unchanging.

Sir Arthur Eddington:

The universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal Mind... To put the conclusion crudely — the stuff of the world is mind-stuff.

We are no longer tempted to condemn the spiritual aspects of our nature as illusory because of their lack of concreteness.

The scientific answer is relevant so far as concerns the sense-impressions... For the rest the human spirit must turn to the unseen world to which it itself belongs.

@WilliamFleming You know in ALL my years as a nurse, plus being at my daughter's bedside when she passed away from cancer, I can honestly and quite safely say that I have NEVER once witnessed anything remotely resembling a soul/spirit, etc, leaving/departing from the body of a person who has died, even when, later, we've been preparing (laying them out) for the family/friends to view when they've arrived at the hospital, mortuary, etc.
So, I vehemently dispute both the views of Sir Arthur Eddington and yourself and offer up that the Universe is NOT merely " of the nature of a thought or sensation" it IS a truly tangible thing made up solids, liquids, gases and spaces in between created by the actions/reactions and resultant from those influences wrought by the great forces abounding in the Natural Cosmos that are everywhere around us.