Do you believe in God?

I agree with you! Religion is often a block for the free thought.
How can i say something like this when i consider myself a christian? Well, if you believe in pure science, you'll say that everything just came out of nothing. Thats just as stupid as believing in a god. The only difference between these two is that the last one is a bit more optimistic.

Has anyone realized that discussion on these topics is futile? Part of John Locke's motivation to write An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was a discussion he had with friends on matters of morality and revealed religion, during which he found that contradiction was inevitable. Thus he set forward "to examine our own abilities," to find the boundaries of human sense and knowledge.

Sure, these matters may be fun to chat about around a fire at two in the morning, but how often does one run into a sensible debate on the subject [for any length of time]?

As theists face the burden of evidence in claiming the existence of God, and they cannot and probably will not do so, the auto-epistemic rule comes to the fore , so here indeed absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence and no argument from ignorance; whereas to posit God without evidence is using the argument from ignorance.

Faith is a cop-out as it is just the we just say so of credulity. It begs the question of Him as there is no evidence therefor.

Has anyone realized that discussion on these topics is futile?

Sure, these matters may be fun to chat about around a fire at two in the morning, but how often does one run into a sensible debate on the subject [for any length of time]?

Your confusing Faith of Human form..With Fate of GOD..

I'm an agnostic.
- Christianity tells you to believe like a child - children also belive in santa claus and mr. sandman.

The thing is: Then you read the bible and look back and christianism, and the you look from the bible to the blible itself, you find so many contradictions and things not making sense that its hard to believe anyone could be a christian while putting a lot of free-of-barriers thought on the matter.

The only problem I have is with a closed minded belief system in which one only adheres to the bible for divine truth and tries to spread that around.

Is not an open mind the definitive of a smart person?

Why would you have a problem with that? Clearly if their belief system is limited and closed-minded, they're not going to be all that successful in their efforts to proselytize. They're not a threat, they're just part of the human palette.

I do not accept the description for a supreme being, as has been postulated by religion.

An anthropomorphic being, most often predisposed to the same character flaws as mere mortals, does not a supreme being make.

Nor do I accept that what is responsible for all that exists is preoccupied by humans ritual so as to appease it's ego. All gods,in my observation of the subject, are created in the image of humanity.

That's a great many different ideas.

Why not?

Sure, all conceptions of God must be invented by man. We came up with the word "God". There is not a single concept that was not invented by man, well, not if we are talking about said concept, anyway.

I'm not so sure that all conceptions of God and all ritual exist to appease man's ego. Some exist for just the opposite reason - to erode man's ego. Of course, this brings up the question - if not ego, then why do these conceptions of God and these rituals exist? I would suggest that experience is the reason why notions of God and religious rituals exist. Man experiences the divine, attempts to express this experience to other humans in a meaningful way, and develops rituals to increase awareness of the divine.

Indeed it is. And yet all conceptions of god, even Chimera, are possessed of human characteristics. For a higher power, a supreme being, I find that odd. Humans, while said to be the highest life form on the planet, behave as somewhat less than conscious of their responsibility to the planet. So how would a higher power, a supreme being possessed of god like qualities afforded as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, also be defective in human personality?! Jealousy, selfishness, egoism, rage, etc...

To fit the description of a supreme being, or higher power (than human) it would be necessary to be better than human. Superior to human.

And yet isn't that all still egoistic?! Even conceiving of a higher power responsible for all that is, as something our consciousness can in any way conceive?

Self serving to the ritualist, that believes ritual increases awareness of something that would be, in its entirety , beyond the scope of mortal consciousness?

To erode man's ego, as many philosophies espouse is necessary in order to gain a higher consciousness is still, in many cases, just as misguided in the intent as is altruism.

For instance, the Dalai Lama and Buddhism seek to quell the ego. And yet, his Holiness is clad in silk robes sewn with gold thread. He occupies a palace, lives as a rich man, is a friend and guest of the rich and famous. And his office once ruled a people and afforded horrific torture and punishments to those found guilty of breaking the laws of the lands they governed.

That he is the Buddha incarnate is egoism in itself. And yet, the faith is that all life is suffering and illusion.

So is the illusion then that all life is suffering, when one lives as the leader of one of the world's great religions as a rich and/or entitled servant to the teachings of the Buddha? Or is all life suffering for the many who follow the teachings and do suffer as peasant class, starving, living in hovels and enduring the oppression of tyrannical governments?

Is it easier for the sufferer to accept a faith that says it's to be expected because all life is so? And what does it say that any philosophy to achieve higher knowledge, as the Buddha was not god, when the clergy of said faith live better than the faithful?! If ego is something to be overcome?

If humans seek to know god, through contemplation, ritual, and other avenues, would their perceptions not be filtered through the human psyche or consciousness, that first believes it is possible to seek out such a being or energy?! Thus, believing a god exists to be found, isn't that predisposing the seeker to translate what is experienced in the searching, to meet the definition of that what they are searching for?