why do you believe ?

It seems that the best a lot of people (of any creed) can do in terms of thinking for themselves is determining who to follow. For some reason they reject the idea of coming up with new ideas themselves. Although it is quite a lot of work; much more so than seppting into line with somebody else's dogma.

I did. Came to a different conclusion. Sorry.I'm glad faith is fine with you but I never felt anything like what you described. Faith never sat well with me because my church kept saying I could "know" god through faith. How anyone could know something though a process that means "not knowing" I could never figure out.

I think the thing is, there's differing degrees of truth. Is the bible an accurate historical narrative? Not really. Does it have to be?Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet doesn't have to be a literal account to express a truth about lovers and society. That it rings true in a lot of ways is a testament to Shakespeare as a writer. Picasso called art "a lie that tells us the truth". Couldn't the bible be the same thing?I would point to a great deal of language in the bible (certain "mystic" numbers, repetition of phrases, etc) that, in other contemporary literature, is used in situations where the story may not be true, but the moral is. (For instance, fairy tales.)Even today we use that language. If I tell you what my dad calls a "no-sh*t story", typified by the introductory token "Now, this is no sh*t!" you know that the story is of course, sh*t - a total fabrication. Nonetheless these stories are told to impart truths.The bible has a lot of things wrong on the face of it. Four-legged insects. A canopy over the earth like a tent. Striped reeds causing spotted sheep. I don't think that calls into question the lessons of the bible no more than it would when Jesus teaches the parable of the Good Samaritan, even though the story he tells probably didn't actually happen.Things can be mythically true, in that sense. The bible joins a lot of other great literature in using lies to tell us the truth.

Why does the question of human origins have anything to do with the purpose of life? This is an apparent fallacy that I see from a lot of creationists.I just don't see what they have to do with each other.Anyway, how could life exist without death? It's tautological that a thing could not exist without the potential abscence of that thing.

I guess if god was speaking to me, too, I'd find it a lot easier to believe in him/her. But the voices in my head have never spoken with anything but my own voice.So, that's why I don't believe.

On the other hand, they don't have video games. I guess I'll keep my 9-to-5. No offence.

Speak for yourself. Stands to reason, of course - there's nothing else to do, but... um, you know.