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Originally Posted by tiger777
WillTravel- You claim you're positive God doesn't exist. Well if you're refering to the God, that is attributed to the various religions on our planet than i'd be inclined to agree with you. If you think about it the most likely scenario is, people needed to come up with a control method to instill various philosophical and moral principles in people who otherwise would be very unruly. For example the extremely harsh punishments in the old testiment if you didn't abide by the rules, this struck fear into people. It's also a means of attempting to make people feel more secure in terms of the meaning of life and battling the fear of the unknown (death). However if you're also referring to a supernatural God, I would have to disagree with you simply because there's no way in the present state that can really be a certainty based on the current things we have to base it on, such as how the universe was created, etc.
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Willravel. There's no "T".
The difference between being positive that god doesn't exist and believing it's very likely god doesn't exist is, in my mind, as big as the difference between theists and weak atheists. A complete lack of evidence does not mean certain non-existence. It suggests non-existence. That's why I am a weak atheist, or a person who believes that god
almost certainly doesn't exist. By my reasoning, it's the safest assumption based on what we know. It's also entirely possible that the easter bunny is real.
As far as control, anything can be used as a tool for control, but religion is about faith in something that runs contrary to everything we know, which means that these people are susceptible to going against what they know to be true. I know this because at a very young age, I was convinced that if I had sex, I would go to hell. Pretty good control, eh? I knew that if I questioned god's existence, I was going to hell and I'd never see my grandpa again. It turns out that it stands to reason that the only way 'll see my grandpa again is in my memory, and all the threats of hell in the world can't take that away from me. Also, sex is magnificent.