I am totally open to the idea that god is real I just don’t believe any religions are real. I like debating with theists who agree religions are man made up. I agree the universe and this planet are amazing. And it seems like it’s too perfect and there has to be some higher power. But we know so little still. Maybe there are other universes? Maybe there was is or will be life around every star eventually. Maybe not as advance as us but maybe more. And maybe the spirit lives on forever after you die. Just seems like wishful thinking to me. But I hope so. These are unknowable things.
So far I see no evidence of god and I don’t believe one exists. Everything can be explained scientifically. What can’t, may never be known. Those gaps aren’t god.
Good post, thanks for being honest. I'll share my 2 cents, if that's OK. I think one of the problems is that many people are led astray by false or empty religion, which, unfortunately, ends up keeping them away from God. There are also people who had a negative experience with false or empty religion, and they end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, by becoming atheists. That's basically what happened to me, I was a nonbeliever for many years, due to my experience with mere
religion, as opposed to God. Years later, to my complete surprise, I became a born again believer (Christian) and that's a long story how it happened, but it had nothing to do with a church or even any person.
In the New Testament it's clear that Jesus had the highest criticism for those who were "religious" but didn't have God, people who were more focused on man-made traditions and false religious ideas.
So to sum that up: God/truth > religion.
But there is the
other extreme, which I think should also be avoided, and that is to disbelieve ALL religion, in favor of a sort of vague belief in a higher power or impersonal "force." That reminds me of what C.S Lewis said about this topic. Here is an excerpt. (I added the bold.)
In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the RA.F., an old, hardbitten officer got up and said, "I've no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!"
Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.
Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God— experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion, all about feeling God in nature, and so on is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.
There's more to be said, but I don't want this to be too long so I'll leave it at that for now.
