Does God Exist?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Maybe is the only rational option.

I'm not an immensely rationalistic person.

Voted Yes because leap to faith but strictly speaking the answer would be Unsure.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Your argument is problematic because we should, in fact, respect animistic beliefs.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Your argument is problematic because we should, in fact, respect animistic beliefs.

I agree, but animism can be respected without having to accept the entire overlying religious belief system. And I don't think of it as a system of beliefs in the same league as religion regardless of many integrating its general philosophy.

Hmm. This honestly wasn't the sort of response that I was expecting. I understand perfectly, though I don't share, your opinions relating to the distinction you're making between the basic tenets of a stance on the world and the more specific socially-produced tenets of a particular religion but I'm honestly a little confused as to why things like, say, Shinto or African or South American folk beliefs would be more respectable than more 'conventionally' (i.e. westernly) theistic systems.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Makes sense, and it's an interesting point of view. Although of course we're never going to see eye-to-eye on the aetiology of the 'higher religions', so-called.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

God, Zeus, Shiva, Thor, Quetzcoatl, Tlaloc, The Staff God, etc. are all just made up stories.

Asking if God exists is like asking if Mordor exists.

It's actually in philosophical terms more like asking if other minds, the universe external to the confines of one's skull, or the past exist, but whatever, keep living the smug lyfe.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

God is an uncreated Spirit without distinction on the basis of created material but since the human soul is made in the image of that Spirit God can be said to exhibit what we would recognize as person-like characteristics, though at a level vastly beyond what we can comprehend. God is not any more 'in' any given part of the physical universe than in any other part. People associate Heaven with the physical heavens (i.e. the sky) because the sheer scale and omnipresence of the sky reminds one of Godhead, not because it is where God is physically located.

This isn't to disparage actual sky-worship, necessarily. The worship of Munkh Khukh Tengri is a beautiful religion, actually, though it of course chooses to focus upon things less central to existence than Fall, Incarnation, Resurrection, and Redemption, and hence suffers slightly. (Universal Christianity syncretic with some localized folk animism is I think pretty much the perfect synthesis, all else being equal, of religious experience, but of course I'd think that, being an Episcopalian who studies Shinto...).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Maybe... but my experience and all testable (no, ramblings of Gilded Age peasants don't count) human observation ever recorded says "no". 

'Gilded Age peasants'?

No testable human observation ever recorded has actually said anything.

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Agreed.

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[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

(no, ramblings of Gilded Age peasants don't count)

If you're going to call the overwhelming majority of people since time immemorial stupid for not following your theological views, you might want to make sure you know what the words you are saying actually mean before you do so.

Thanks, Mikado- it doesn't bother me that some people are atheist, but respect is given when it is shown and the Penn Jillette/Bill Maher types who mock all those who believe in God is insulting and doesn't help any one

Since I see religion as something inherently destructive to mankind... how am I supposed to approach the discussion without some degree of hostility to the belief systems that characterize it?   Atheists have been (and still are) sh*t all over by most of the world, but that seems to be okay.  But showing a lack of respect for a religion is somehow intolerable.  Example: a religious person can tell me I'm going to burn in hell for my beliefs, but no way could I ever call that belief stupid. 

Perhaps some of the more outspoken atheists should tone it down a bit... but isn't it obvious that part of it is reactionary? 

Whatever the case may be, I'm always disappointed, if never surprised, by unironic use of arguments that lump 'religion' together as if it were some sort of emulsified mass of sh**tty taffy whose 'inherent effects on mankind' can be judged in any meaningful way.