Rolly eyes?
I'm not going to believe in a certain religion just because 'powerful' or 'popular' people do.

Good luck getting real psychological help from Scientology, Thomas.

Here's what I think about Scientology from a biblical perspective :

All in IMHO

Religion sucks because it is about someone else's experience of gOd/union with the universe.

Really all that matters is one own experience or not of gOd.

Though most spiritual/mystical texts/traditions seem to agree at their core that the ultimate truth is that each and every one of us is our own gOd of our own universe.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. 23 Skidoo. And other such pontifications, and masonic illuminati sigils and signs.

Based on elementary logic, it can be concluded that a God, as depicted in the Bible, cannot exist. An omniscient, omnipotent, eternal being that is also man-like and requires prayer and worship is logically impossible. Without Him, the world is just as explainable as with Him, but with fewer contradictions, so empirically speaking, the evidence is against Him. This is in no way meant to be offensive.

In case you find my picture offensive; guess what, I find pictures of Christian symbols offensive at times.

You cannot use Bible quotes as evidence unless you first prove all of the following:

• God exists

• God wrote the Bible (or He dictated it, and the humans writing it down did not make any mistakes)

• God did not make any mistakes while writing (or dictating) the Bible

• God was being completely honest with us while writing the Bible; He only put "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" in it

Unfortunately, the only evidence you produce for God's existence comes from the Bible, so we're kind of arguing in circles here:
You: "God exists"
Me: "How do you know?"
You: "It's in the Bible."
Me: "How do you know what the Bible says is true?"
You: "God wrote it."
(rinse & repeat)

Also, please note:

• I am not trying to convert anyone to any form of belief or disbelief. If you want to believe in God, fine with me. But you cannot use the contents of your religion as arguments in a discussion without backing them with real evidence.

• The Pastafari Church was designed as a silly, yet perfectly valid religion. The goal was to force the Kansas authorities to make a choice: Grant true Freedom of Religion and treat Pastafarianism and Creationism equally (making schools teach either both of them or none), or admit to religious bias and violation of one of the fundamental Human Rights.

• My challenge is still open. In fact, let's make it a bet: If you can mock my Atheism (or should I say, my non-theistic spirituality) in a way that really offends me, I'll attend a Christian service next sunday. I'll even pay attention and summarize the sermon for you. I'm serious about this. If you need more information about my beliefs, feel free to ask.

• It's spelled "Deuteronomy".

• The personal pronouns for deities are capitalized ("He", "Him", "His"); it is a customary sign of respect.

He can't. We're not married.

No. If you were me, you'd find it utterly silly to apologize to an imaginary entity.

• John verse 1 said:

  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

  John verse 10 said:

  He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.

  John verse 14 said:

  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

  Revelations 19:13 said:

  And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood : and His name is called The Word Of God.

  God's word is proof of itself. You can't say the Bible doesn't exist, and the Bible says that God is His Word. Whether you believe that or not is up to you. Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and there's historical evidence to support the stories in the Bible (King Solomon and his temple for one).

• Jesus is the Word of God, and his work and Word was documented by several of his apostles (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John).

• People can make mistakes. Saying God doesn't exist because the Bible isn't perfect is silly. Here's what Jesus has to say :

  Matthew 13:10-16 said:

  10 And the disciples came, and said unto Him, "Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?"
  11 He answered and said unto them, "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
  12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
  13 Therefore speak I to them in parables : because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
  14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive :
  15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
  16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

• I believe He put as much truth in it as we can handle for now. Some people handle it better than others, and some aren't ready for it yet.

No, it goes something more like this :
Me : "God exists"
You : "How do you know"
Me : "Because God's Word proves itself. Try reading the Bible sometime."
You : "Oh."

But all of this seems rather moot, because it's unlikely you'll ever take anything from God's Word on faith long enough to see the truth in it.

And you may never be with the way you act towards Him. See Matthew chapter 22 if you want to know about God's wedding plans. And don't get all weird, it's a spiritual marriage, not a sexual one.

I don't need to mock you, nor do I want to. Believe whatever you want, it's your life to spend as you see fit to do so.

Wow. My stereotypes of the religious have been reinforced quite strongly by this thread. These threads are always a nice ego boost.

Wow Edgar... just wow.

That's just silly. Even ignoring the fact that it's a circular argument, why would any non-believer take God's word as proof when they don't believe in God? From the perspective of non-believers, the Bible was written by humans. Until they are convinced that God exists and that God is trustworthy, they have no reason to seriously consider God's word.

etc...

Use a more modern translation. All the "speakest" and "gathereth" sounds so archaic, it's annoying (to me, at least). The ESV and the TNIV seem pretty good, at least for casual study.

I'm a big believer of Bayesian inference, and rational belief. What I see in this thread has nothing to do with rational belief. As for the big bang: absolutely nothing to date has required the existence of God to explain it. By Bayesian inference I conclude that the probability of God existing is negligible. By the same argument, big bang probably won't need God to be explained either.

It's not a religion, it's math. If you don't believe in math, then there's no help for you.

Alteration of scientific theories due to new evidence abound, such that some scientist says "Gee! I was wrong!" then never puts forth his outmoded view ever again. Of course, being human, they don't always do this.

OTOH, I've never heard of a religious or astrological viewpoint altered due to new facts, or even how these viewpoints were arrived at, they're just "given" as The Word or something.

I don't agree with that definition. While everyone has beliefs (how can they not?), not all beliefs are created equal. Some beliefs are rational (subject to Bayesian inference, or its approximation) and some are not (all religious beliefs in my experience fall under this heading).

What makes a belief rational? The fact that you update your beliefs given new evidence in accordance with the Bayes' rule (a practical example of this would be Occam's razor).

What makes a belief irrational? The fact that you don't do the above, and stick to your beliefs despite new evidence, and despite other hypotheses being far more likely.

You need a really outlandish perspective, in my opinion, to consider belief in God rational given all the evidence available to date.

When I took Intro to Religious Studies, we spent about half a class period discussing how to define religion. The working definition we came up with was similar to what Trent posted, except that we added something along the lines of, "which you are willing to sacrifice yourself or your children for."

It's still not a perfect definition. Going by that, nationalism would be considered a religion. But it's a hard thing to define precisely, because there's so much variety among religions.

Your faith in the 'i' key is strong. But will you give your life for it?