Why did we stop inventing gods?

AdminPhat, why do you reply to GIA's content 1) as an admin, and 2) when this content is on other fora? This is most confusing for this thread.

Why does a child stop believing in Santa? Because it is growing up.As we all know, growing up isn't without its problems. (Kirk Cameron, anyone?)On a positive note, it is good to realize that gods are man's invention, and not vice versa.

You did nothing wrong in posting your links to other sites, but AdminPhat should have known better than to 1) discuss your content as an admin, and 2) to copy quotes from elsewhere and discuss them here as if they belong to this thread. It makes for a muddled discussion.

Yes, and he also created the banana to fit exactly in our hand with a tab at the top to open it like a can of coke, and curved towards our mouth.You either believe that or you grow up. In the mean time, the rest of us are moving on. Sorry to be so blunt, Phat, but with the world in its current state I am quickly losing patience with religious people. Religion, faith, superstition and all the other God-nonsense are doing such a tremendous amount of harm to humanity, it is unimaginable. How do you not kill yourself every day for shame of what atrocities are committed on a daily basis in the name of one or another god? Maybe your god does not condone violence in his name, but then he might be against, say, stem cell research for some ridiculous reason. Humanity has enough problems as it is, with diseases, global warming and what not. We do not need additional religiously inspired misery. You need to grow up, humanity needs to grow up.GROW UP!(Phew, I needed to get that off my chest.)Edited by Parasomnium, : EmPHATic exclamation added (plus signature quote).

Maybe we can gullibilize them out of it?

Faith,1. A stem cell taken from a blastula, from amniotic fluid, or from bone marrow, is not a baby.2. Your true God allows 30 to 50% of all fertilizations to spontaneously end in a miscarriage. He is therefore the greatest abortionist of them all.3. So you think your true God sends Islamic terrorists to Europe to punish us for abortions? Thank you for proving me right.Grow up, Faith.Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

Ah, so you mean: not at all.Edited by Parasomnium, : No reason given.

Seriously?! God changed because of the reformation? Hahaha! What a wussy. Well, not really. If you believe prayer will heal your cancer, and you forego medical treatment, the truth is you will probably die.

This is what I've always thought of as a very strange idea. I think what you believe is very much a matter of evidence, or it should be, at least. Let me illustrate this with an example.Suppose you are in a room with Alice, Bob and Charlie. You and Charlie leave the room, close the door behind you, and both sit down on a bench opposite the door. Then both of you see Bob leaving the room. Charlie then asks you how many people you believe are in the room, and you say "two". Bemused, Charlie says "How can you believe that, you have seen Bob leaving the room, haven't you?" You say "Yes, but I choose to believe there are two people in the room." Charlie finds this very strange, and rightly so. He believes there is one person in the room, based on the evidence he saw.He is wrong though, because what he doesn't know is that Alice left the room through the window. Still, his belief is more rational than yours because it is based on the evidence available to him, and yours is an irrational choice.How can you choose what to believe? I don't think you can. I think that people who say "I choose to believe X is true" are merely expressing the wish they have that X is true. Sometimes people even sort of admit that, by saying that it makes them feel better if they "believe" X is true. What they should realize is that they are using the wrong verb.

But I think you do. It may not be conclusive but there is supportive empirical evidence that aliens are probable. The evidence consists of 1) the fact that there is life in the universe (with absolute proof of it here on earth), and 2) there not being any compelling reason to assume that life on earth is special or unique. Combine these two and you have reason to believe that aliens may exist. You do not know for certain but it is a reasonable belief, based on some solid evidence.