"We're all searching for answers"

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This is a phrase I often hear repeated by many of the faithful and the faith-full. That the belief in God is just another way of finding truth about the universe, or whatever. But... if you have "found" God... then... what answers are left for you to search for, now? A God is literally the be-all and end-all of it, there is nothing else to know; to even try is unnecessary and takes one further from God, to the point of blasphemy. In fact many famous religious figures have espoused this view including Martin Luther.

The truth is: if you have decided to believe in God, or generic supernatural explanations for things, then you're done searching, so please don't try to equate faith in the unprovable with actual "voyages" of discovery. The people who are actually searching for answers are those who admit they don't know what it is all about, but who do not accept a simple answer that requires immense amounts of faith to believe.

Well said. To be fair, some people do go on a spiritual search for the "right" religion, but it is a search for something that "feels right", not a search for the truth. A search for the truth involves science books, a university degree, and eventually a job in scientific research.

As Bill Maher put it: "You don’t get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens."

typical

wow, interesting post. Faith is only achievable when and if it ever enters your being. People choose paths that lead them to tomorrow. you're right, it takes a huge amount of faith to believe in god or a god. I believe that there is no right or wrong. People choose faiths to make peace with themselves or have an experience that leads them to that faith. peoples perceptions or ideas only speak volumes to the already converted. everyones paths are different, they sometimes lead to the same place.

are you specifically talking about Christianity or belief in God in general? if the latter then i totally disagree with you.

Gods arent really an answer.

They never answer the big questions about existence, they just tell you what to do with your time and promise you things. They don't publish their diaries. That's good enough for the average believer.

Yes, very typical. I'm sorry if some of us would rather have facts and evidence to back our assertions up and not an old book

No, a God is definitely not the be all end all. The notion is that God is ineffable, supposedly the closest you can come to understanding him is understanding that you can't understand anything about him. Therefor the mysteries of the universe spire on into infinity and the whole goal of existence is getting to know God better, and better, and better.

Heck of a beautiful motivation structure ain't it? Sad its far more than likely not true.

I don't think most people accept God because they're looking for truth. Many are simply born into it and don't question it. Those that do choose God do so not because they want truth but because they want something to be true - that they are special and loved and that their little lives have meaning.

The fundamental problem with selling atheism is that it can seem rather cold. The universe is so vast that we'll never be able to see nearly all of it. Our lives are devoid of any purpose beyond what we make for ourselves. There is nothing watching out for us, no second chance at life, no reward or punishment for doing things right or wrong. Faced with this, some people reject atheism and go back to religion (usually, but not always, the same one). Truth is irrelevant - it's comforting to feel valued, even if that feeling is false.

The atheists that stick with it (myself included!) are those that see this as freeing. My purpose is what I make it - so I can accept those tenets I agree with and disregard those I don't, which to be fair most believers do as well, and I can do so without guilt or fear of reprisal, which they can't. There's no-one watching out for me beyond myself and my family and friends, which encourages me both to develop as an individual and to take responsibility for my own life. There's no afterlife, so I have to make the most of this one - and my success or failure in this is its own reward or punishment. Religion can be pretty dangerous. It's hard to accept how easy it could be for us as a species to wipe ourselves out by nuclear war or ecological disaster when most of us have a belief that God will step in to prevent it. Regardless of God's existence - would he want to? Really? He could always start again.

I believe in God, yet I still search. The nature of god is still a complete mystery to me, and always will be. Moreover, there are other ways of searching and finding understanding of the universe for those of us with faith. It's called science.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

In many areas, they are not. Spirituality and science can go together well (religion and science, not so well - they tend to disagree on things like how the universe started or how life came about, or historical details like worldwide floods).

I am curious about your perspective on God. Since you haven't rejected science, you're presumably not a creationist. Which of these best fits your views so far, or is it something else entirely?
1. God is a sentient being, or more than one.
2. God is a sentient force but not a being.
3. God is a non-sentient force (eg. laws of physics, mathematics).
4. God is the universe itself.

And the nature of the universe:
A. The universe is essentially random, and God has no influence.
B. The universe is essentially random, and God influences it.
C. The universe is running to a plan and has an ultimate goal.
D. The universe is ordered in some way, but there is no ultimate goal.

Spirituality would be much easier to discuss if we had some form of official scale like this, I think!

Science only tells us how the universe began, not whether there was something behind it.

Regardless, I don't follow any beliefs that contradict scientific findings. I realize many others do, and that's their thing. I suppose if it makes them happy and they aren't harming anyone else there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

Of course God is a mystery, that's half the fun of accepting God as the answer. The "unknowable" qualities of the universe are thus explainable from a single, convenient source that is only destined to be revealed after entering the afterlife. The universe is a much happier place when it has an established purpose, for many people, since it means not really having to think about it in the long run



Well, yeah, science is the way one goes about discovering the laws that govern the universe. What does that have to do with faith?

That still results in the exact dead end I am referring to. "Well, I know the answer" is definitely the end all

Mmmm...I must be too dull to get it.

If anything I always felt like atheism was closer to the be-all-end all of 'there's nothing hereafter - tadaaah!!', and at this point I am sincerely an atheist. The problem with the whole notion of ever escalating wisdom in understanding 'God' is, to go that route, you alienate yourself from the monkeys around you more and more, you stop making sense to anyone but yourself as you start thinking to esoteric, and all kinds of things start happening that shouldn't be if one was actually getting 'closer to God'. Even as an atheist the same things happen but - it at least would make more sense to an atheist to know that they're leaving the strong bond of conformity to become a wiser outsider, whereas to a theist - yeah one can sit there and cite the 'devil's influence but it even gets noticed among fellow Christians that really weird and arbitrary things start happening (ie. increased autism, less liked by all, etc. etc.).

Who said anything about the unknowable qualities being explained just because one believes in god? Moreover, who said anything about there being an established purpose?

Anyone that claims to have all the answers knows nothing.

What does it have to do with faith? Absolutely nothing. That was precisely my point. Religion, spirituality... things of this nature are not the sole source for the search just because one believes in a higher power. You speak in absolutes. If one believes in a higher power, then one must believe they have all the answers and that would render scientific discoveries moot. This is not necessarily so.