Crocduck

I just made some delicious ribs. A recipe that was passed down over time. The first hero's in creating good recipes were those that died because they tried something new (maybe had some bad berries or some toxic animal created by god) and the ancestors learned over time there was something in that recipe killing their loved ones (according to some...god designed). they learned over time to avoid death and suffering by trial and error. Not a good design IMO.

There goes the insanity defense.

Well sure. But if you did ask all people who claim to have a personal relationship with God (a survey) and have them give specific answers to these questions (but not consult one another on the answers)...I would guess you would get the same amount of different answers as respondents as well some wildly different and contradictory answers. At some point one would realize they are all just talking to themselves...they are all their own God

Let's say you believe in a personal God. One that communicates with you on a personal level. Can those who do talk to God not just ask where He is or what he looks like? Are you that guy in the white beard or not? My book tells me you are a He. What's with all the imagining what God looks like...just ask? From where did you spake the universe? Was it audible? Could anyone else hear it or were you the only one there? Was that another universe on a planet like ours where sound travels? Why am I asking these questions? Will I find this answer on a piece of toast or an audible message to me that is inaudible to everyone else? Why must it work this way?

Sorry, I tried hard to type some sarcasm in there but it doesn't always come thru So let's see if I have the facts straight. Jesus was possibly/probably a real human. He had some sayings that have lived on. There are no known writing examples of any kind that date to his time alive. Most of the credible sounding stuff are about the years from the time he was 30 years old. I would assume Jesus (if God) could write. Even if not about himself he could have written about his philosophy and he could have written so much that we might still find scraps today. There is not a single artifact that can be attributed to arguably the most important human that ever "lived". Not one!! But the necessity of faith is the lack of evidence. The less evidence the more faith you must have. The more evidence the less faith you need.

People will believe what they want to believe if it serves a purpose. I was going to say some of the stuff that flew in ancient times would not fly now but then again... What if it would fly now? What if someone could come along and make fact free statements that were popular? And say them often enough to a crowd that didn't care if they were true or not? What if they saw some benefit in either believing it or just telling others they believed it? What if it gave them a leg up in some weird way? What if it just confirmed other deep down long held strange biases? I mean if that were the case...almost any evidence free conspiracy could take hold at any time. Propaganda would be consumed at alarming rates. Long standing societies could crumble. But thankfully we are even more civilized now and have all the info we need to debunk just about any theory if we want. The age of enlightenment. I am comforted that Big Foot and Loch Ness monsters and Santa Claus are not really even questioned anymore by the general public. Well Santa after about age 7...and the others still make for good Nielson ratings. Aliens? I am almost certain we will uncover in a billion year old rock...a spaceship...or a human looking alien walking among us with DIFFERENT DNA or no DNA??? Evidence free or evidence based? I had an argument with my wife the other day. She asked if I had seen her sunglasses. I said no. She asked if I was sure. I said yes. Okay she said. Then she found her sunglasses in my drawer where I keep my own sunglasses. And I could have either said an invisible being must have done that...or apologized that I mistook her sunglasses for mine and put them in MY drawer where she puts NOTHING. So I don't know what type of ghost took her sunglasses and was able to put them in my drawer with my fingerprints on them. But I have a very strong motivation to find out.

Sometimes I wonder what leads people to believe in constructs not supported by any evidence. Then I think back to my childhood when I was raised Catholic and went to church every Sunday from the time I was just a baby. My parents weren't even all that strict compared to others in the community. My public school held religion classes and if I got to school too early in the morning I had to go to the church which was next door to my grade school and sit through part of a daily mass. I eventually became an alter boy...and the list goes on. I never really believed most of it but I wasn't going to say it out loud. The penalties for the skeptic are not only sever but eternal. There are certain ideals and constructs that require a lot more work and effort to sell to an otherwise skeptical audience. Certain religions fit that description very well. Wars have and will be fought...non believers will be damned to eternal suffering. In general they will become the outcasts of society as it were. If you want to vote on a new president the last category I would search is atheist. It will take a millenia to undo the indoctrination(s). There are evidences for certain parts of every story but the most outlandish of claims in general have had the least evidentiary support...and that is the rub.

There seems to be a tendency to try to make supernatural beliefs fit into the natural realm. Describing heaven as living on in memories is not very convincing nor very reassuring to those who see heaven in the common use of the term. You will live on somehow until the last person remembers you. Speaking of mental crutches a lot of folks still like to look at extreme odds events happening as miracles (when they are positive). A sole survivor of a plane crash. A holocaust survivor. Surviving a disease. Etc. But who is charting negative things like lightning strikes, shark attacks, etc? And what about those who didn't survive the plane crash or holocaust or disease? When comparing the "miracles" to the deceased it's rather appalling in some scenarios. If surviving a disease with a 1 in a million survival rate is a miracle...then it should have been a 0 in a million chance rather than 1. Because 1 in a million SHOULD actually survive by the odds given. With 7 billion people on Earth it's going to happen a lot. It would certainly be lucky to be the 1 in a million...but trying to pass it off as a miracle of god seems to be cherry picking the data. I wanna know who's charting miracles and tragedies...and who's winning! Now I am sure some will say any scenario that involves a 1 in a million chance to survive will have had a 0% chance at some point in time. But maybe some person had a rare genetic mutation or makeup that allowed them to survive. Would we say god gave them the miracle survival condition...and withheld it from the other 999,999? That's a lot of tragedy for one miracle to take place. But again who's counting?

What happens to isolated peoples who don't have interactions with others? Who's memories of them will live on? And what happens to your afterlife when all those who ever knew you are dead and gone? Seems like a very short and finite existence either way in the grand scheme. Even if you have managed to make a big impact on the world and get in the history books...those books will be gone someday...and this time will be relatively short compared to the time scale of the universe or even the Earth's existence. It has been said, however, that all moments in time exist and are potentially retrievable as long as light persists (I guess). 100 million years after your death somealien from a planet 100 million light years away could potentially watch your funeral with a telescope or equipment advanced enough. Probably outlandish but at least conceptually conceivable. Either way, I would not see this as any sort of evidence for common perceptions of Heaven. It seems more like trying to fit a circle in a square hole. Let's not loose sight of the common perceptions of Heaven or Hell...Nirvana and Eternal damnation that pervade much of society. Those ideas work more efficiently in the world of fear, propaganda and struggles for power or hope for a better life.