Arguing the existence of god(s) is futile. She/He/It/They is/are beyond human imagination /comprehension...
There are forces and mysteries in the vast universe we cannot even conceive, let alone perceive. What we know about the totality of the cosmos is far less than what we do not know. Therefore, one has to be humble and admit our collective ignorance. God(s) is/are, an algebraic symbol, that humanity has assigned to the unknown in order to cover up our species' utter ignorance. It is impossible to either prove or disprove the existence of deity. Getting into THAT argument is like going down a rabbit hole. It's a trap the believers lay out for freethinkers and bog us down. It's a bait and switch trick. For that reason whenever faced with a discussion with believers, I readily and willing concede that S/H/I/T exist(s).
That is not even the point.
My argument is only this: that religions are man-made social phenomena meant to regulate underdeveloped societies. Even if one was to assume a deity/deities, it does not follow that She/He/It/They would condescend to communicate with the most recent residents of the third planet of a mediocre start on the periphery of an ordinary spiral galaxy in an sub-average local cluster of galaxies in the unimaginably vast universe.
Religious beliefs, ultimately, are the sum-total of our 'concepts of reality' ... so in that sense we all have a personal 'religion' of some sort. Incidentally, when it comes to the traditional main stream religions, their tall claims about the cosmic reality are so patently absurd that they are simply unbelievable.
I am perfectly comfortable with the knowledge that we are hopelessly ignorant and the unknown is unknowable ... so I feel no compulsion to invent fantastic fairy-tale answers just to satisfy some infantile insecurity and an obsessive need to know the unknowable.
Pretty well articulated arguments in the piece above ...
Very well said sir. Seems to me that no one really knows anything except superficially. To say that God did it is just another way of saying that we don’t know—that is because no one can define or understand God.
Our only real tie with reality is through conscious awareness, and we have no idea of what that is. We don’t know who or what we ourselves are.
"She/He/It/They is/are beyond human imagination /comprehension... " How do you know this? I mean, if they are beyond comprehension, how can you assign attributes?
I assign no attributes... except that whatever, wherever, however, She/He/It/They (S/H/I/T) might or might not be, we don't know, and probably CAN'T know. It's like looking for the black cat in the pitch dark coal cellar while blindfolded ... we can only speculate if the cat is or isn't there, but we'd never know.
What is your defintion of God?
My "definition" of god is that it is a nebulous concept... an abstraction ... a name we have assigned to all that is beyond what we know ... the ultimate mystery /mysteries of our incomprehensibly vast universe
@inabbar Nah, that definition is what science hasn't discovered or understood yet. Just a question of time. No need to make anything up.