What good does religion offer the world today?

Actually, I prefer singing

I hope your singing is better than the structure of those sentences.

Frank, my sentence structure is generally fine but not always.

Frank, it is ironic we can argue with each other in such a fashion when in general we are both in agreement on most things.

Whether if you think God is knowing, is something only you can truly know in your heart.

Your words indicate you at least realize that some people believe God has his/her secret reasons for why he/she either is active in this world or stands by and remains silent.

My observation is God chooses to remain silent, though the reason(s) for such a silence is God's alone to know.... Maybe we know God's reasons for silence and do not realize it.

Is God wise? Well if God remains silent how will we ever have a true way to compare and know God relative virtues? God in hiding makes God only a figment of our imagination. Though we can conceive of God, this does not create a real God but it can have placebo effects.

If God somehow breaks that silence, what will be the reasons for God breaking this silence? What kind of reason would permit God to intervene?

Or, God is communicating with us daily, moment to moment through some spiritual conduit and we are not aware of it. (The religiously ardent would sure like this to be the only possibility considered.)

So Frank, to simply say one does not know God is not the end of the story.

4 possibilities
1 Does one know God on a day to day basis?
2 Does God only intervene in certain circumstances?
3 Is it impossible for God to intervene for some reason?
4 Is it impossible for God to intervene for any reason?

Is this reason for intervening "God's reason" or some greater law?

Is God able and willing?
Is God able but not willing?
Is God willing but not able?

If God is willing, why is God willing?
Is there a test that facilitates God's willingness and must God's willingness be earned or is God willingness purely based upon ideas of grace, mercy and unconditional love?

Though we can comprehend love and even the love of God we still stand in the silence of this deity.

It seems likely that possibly even death will never bring an answer from this "God"...

That would be true in a sense. Not that we don't realize - we don't accept.
We don't view the events in Genesis for what they are: a mutiny against God's righteous order.
And we stubbornly refuse to accept the idea that God has reasons for allowing the mutineers to have their say - even for thousands of years - though he sentenced the chief rebel to his death in Genesis 3:15.
The earth has been a cesspool of convoluted violence and perversion ever since; so we can't be faulted for our anguish. But we are fools to blame it on God and presumptuous to demand he give relief based on our concept of time.

We do agree on a lot, Cobbler.

I do not know if there is a GOD.

If there is a GOD...I do not know if IT is the kind of god that would get involved in the affairs of humans.

If there is a GOD...and if the GOD gets involved...the GOD may have a reason for all the things that happen that some people think a GOD would not allow.

Yup.
See above

Neo wrote:
The earth has been a cesspool of convoluted violence and perversion ever since.

Comment:
The heavens (according to Genesis) were convoluted even before the earth became that way.

It seems everything the biblical God creates is "convoluted"...

Creation should be innocent, maybe slightly convoluted.

Convoluted with a whisper or a word.

Like when those filthy priests were raping little, innocent altar boys? You call that GOOD?

Natural selection promotes the good in us.

Perhaps as Neo implies, God requires some actions before he/she will talk with us.

How do we know once we bow to the ground 5 times a day, believe, pray, act all righteous, saved, do whatever the holy books say, then, how do we know God is real?

Now everything a believer believes is true because God told them so?

Yet we see adamant believers, followers, parishioners, jihadists, adherents of all types of religions who claim to know and speak to God, Allah, Jehovah etc... How can so many who open themselves to this ardent belief of God all differ in the manifestation of this God's directives and operations? Yet in the end they all vehemently claim their own experience to be the only true way.

It is merely the word of people professing that they know the word of God.

It is not God professing his/her word directly to you/us.

2 Peter 1
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Comment:
Holy men spoke, not just men but holy men (and women)

So this implies that being holy requires a denial or divergence from human will.

And this denial of human will, logic, reason, scientific faculties, and everything else evidentiary is supposed to lead one to the truth?

Remember these "holy men" also spake that the earth was flat too...

It seems if there is no true god then this "holy man speaking" thing is nothing but arrogant delusional, imagined, self deception.

We are left with the only solution. If we have learned anything.

It is to love like a God, or at least to love with the full capacity as a human.

Is Godly love greater than human love? We will never know if we never find a real God to compare our own love with.

But we can theorize about Godly love.

Theory leads us to the idea that loft never excuses one from love. If we are God or human we still need to love the same way, with a free unobstructed and unconditional heart. Theoretically, both humans and God should be able to understand this fundamental concept of love...

Otherwise, who has a greater capacity to love, God or humans?

In light of Gnostic ideas,

All religions have a certain unique criteria in which a condition (knowledge)must be met before God, the spirits or other supernatural powers can talk or interact with a person, people or intervene in a situation.

So we must pass a test before we can "know" or become holy.

Some religions have long, drawn out and detailed steps to finding enlightenment.

And some religion all you have to do is knock on the door and you are let in and accepted as an equal.

Some religions feed you spirit like pellets in a rabbit feeder, one by one and some religions have free spirit to spread around liberally.

Some religion say if you sin you lose all your spirit and have to start all over again.

And some religions say you can never lose your spirit.

Some will even try to sell you the spirit if you will pay money for it...

What is the spirit?

Consider, if we do not possess this spirit, is there something lacking in our character and nature? Are we incapable of love and understanding without this "spirit"?

This reflects to the nature of what we are.

It seems as thought enlightenment is not so much obtained like it is given to us but it is something we have within us and only needs to have time to grow and be what it is.

Or one could believe that enlightenment must be granted by some higher being sometime after our birth.

Why is enlightenment and issue?

Most all people mature into adults.

But the question is, what do we attribute that maturity to?

To natural life experiences or was that maturity something spiritually obtained?

It seems there is ample stimuli in the natural world to educate humans.

One needs to then define spirit.

What is it like and what is it not like?

Spirit can be seen as an appendage.

But also spirit can be seen as a seed.

So you not only have a human family but you also have a spiritual family.

a physical family and a spiritual family.

Why is this so and is this really so?

The spiritual realm has never been scientifically proven.

But people perceive good and evil and imagine within that, a real place with real character deities and they pick sides and they secretly divide their houses with the theology of spiritual seeds.

Like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

In this spiritual realm that is imagined up with warring factions there is heaven and hell and God and the devil.

If you choose God's seed you will live and if you choose the devil's seed you will die.

If you decide to choose neither seed then you get the devil's seed by default.

So this is an imagined family. Not a real family.

So if someone does not fit the criterion you imagine to be the truth then they are owned and controlled by the devil.

They have been completely dehumanized by religion.

And for this we are to ask for forgiveness. (cynical)

Are we torn apart by demons or is life simply just one big learning experience?

Why must our emotions be tied to some imaginary world when we already have a real world in which to understand?

There may be no heaven and hell and gods.

And what have we learned from it?

If anything it is to love and be a positive influence in this world whether you think of heaven and hell or simply want to make it through your day and go home, relax and enjoy life.

We do not know if heaven and hell exist somewhere, but it seems far off to many if not most all.

So what of human nature?

Are we born evil or born holy? Who decides that question?

If we believe in spirit then we are believing that God is intervening through that medium.

The other alternative is that the spiritual idea is completely a figment of the imagination and the only world(s) is the one we now presently inhabit.

We are presented with this choice to either believe in a highly suspect and magical imaginary religious world or to simply wait for a more sure sign to convince one later on of any spiritual surety...

So which seed do you choose or do you receive the devil's seed by default for not choosing?

I'm not sure what to say about that. Apparently, God looked into Noah's heart and somehow discerned the personalities of Abrraham and the prophets. But now that scripture is complete, we must search if we want the truth. There are 4 words I know of in the Koine Greek normally translated as 'love'. The most important to us, IMO, is agape, or 'principled love'. It is love free from hypocrisy, desire for license, or expectation of reward.

A fireman risks his life to save another - would that be a good example?

Gleeps! Your posts are damnably long!

Do you stay up all night?

I think this speaks for itself:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/05/christian-developer-releases-kill-the-faggot-video-game/

Sometimes assholes like that developer end up doing more good for the gay community than harm. The law of unintended consequences can be a bitch...and even individuals who think homosexuality is "sinful" can see that an abomination like that is much, much less in keeping with the spirit of professed Christianity than the supposed sin of gayness.

Too bad there are creep like this guy alive...but if we all are asking for greater tolerance...I guess we have to tolerate even crap like that in humanity.

I sometimes wonder if God looking at the earth and all its inhabitants is like a human looking at an anthill, and one ant says to another, "I wonder if God exists"?

A blogger wrote: "When I was younger I questioned how an Atheist could give sworn testimony in a legal courtroom and I still do......"

Another blogger replied: Actually I wonder how a Christian can swear an oath....Matthew 5:34

But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne;

My comment:
When an atheist puts their hand on a Bible, they are not swearing the Bible is true, they are swearing their testimony is true...

...and the old testament is riddled with people taking "vows"... How is a vow different than an oath?

Once again we are confronted with the ambiguity of the Bible...