That God does not exist
That God plays no active role in our everyday lives
God has an active role in the universe
Benevolent God
Evil God
one God
many Gods....etc
and any other theological view you can find. Out of all of these which ones are easier to accept

I don't think any of them are 'easier' unless you mean in religious practice, which one allows for the least work.. and cake probably goes to complete non-belief..

I don't think any of them are 'easier' unless you mean in religious practice, which one allows for the least work.. and cake probably goes to complete non-belief..

yes, belief does take as Kierkegaard said a leap of faith. As I have sad in other threads. One of the core attributes of faith is doubt.

What is easiest to accept is believing there is some magical force out there that knows and loves you and just cannot wait to spend eternity partying with your ghost.

It is easiest to accept that you will see your dead mother/father/child/grandma in an eternal candy land, that it is to accept they are in the ground rotting, and you will never have any kind of personal interaction with them again.

It is easiest to accept and swallow the bullshit a man who works one hour a week feeds you, than it is to face the very real, and very grim reality.

It is always easy to be a sheep.

What is easiest to accept is believing there is some magical force out there that knows and loves you and just cannot wait to spend eternity partying with your ghost.

It is easiest to accept that you will see your dead mother/father/child/grandma in an eternal candy land, that it is to accept they are in the ground rotting, and you will never have any kind of personal interaction with them again.

It is easiest to accept and swallow the bullshit a man who works one hour a week feeds you, than it is to face the very real, and very grim reality.

It is always easy to be a sheep.

Not necessarily. Some people have a hard time swallowing that bullshit and find it easier to stick to what they can see and hear instead of trying to adhere to the concept of some "magical force out there that knows and loves you and just cannot wait to spend eternity partying with your ghost."

But I suspect you and I are on both sides of the fence and thus both our respective paths seem harder then the other due to unavoidable biasness.

Not necessarily. Some people have a hard time swallowing that bullshit and find it easier to stick to what they can see and hear instead of trying to adhere to the concept of some "magical force out there that knows and loves you and just cannot wait to spend eternity partying with your ghost."

But I suspect you and I are on both sides of the fence and thus both our respective paths seem harder then the other due to unavoidable biasness.

Religion is designed to comfort and for the vast majority of folks it does. This suggests that it is easier to believe in a pleasant fantasy than it is a grim reality.

I don't think any of them are 'easier' unless you mean in religious practice, which one allows for the least work.. and cake probably goes to complete non-belief..

I don't know, leuda. Non-belief is no cakewalk when you live in the Bible Belt and are in a very small minority. One can be ostracized for being a non-believer. If you don't mind being somewhat of an outcast, it's not an issue. If you're more socially-driven, it can be difficult at times.

When in Rome, do like the Romans do? To hell with that, I say.

I don't know, leuda. Non-belief is no cakewalk when you live in the Bible Belt and are in a very small minority. One can be ostracized for being a non-believer. If you don't mind being somewhat of an outcast, it's not an issue. If you're more socially-driven, it can be difficult at times.

When in Rome, do like the Romans do? To hell with that, I say.

Religion is designed to comfort and for the vast majority of folks it does. This suggests that it is easier to believe in a pleasant fantasy than it is a grim reality.

Both of these make sense.

From my perspective though it would seem easier to live a life that doesn't have the rules told to you, with the consequences lasting beyond death. Or it would be easier living without guilt.

Some have faith because it comforts them, others do because they are afraid that its true, and if they aren't good they have an eternity of torture waiting them.

For the first group, yes it would be much easier to have faith, for the second group much harder I think.

Religion is designed to comfort and for the vast majority of folks it does.

Since I know your behaviour, I want to make two things clear from the outset. First, that I am not arguing that religion does or does not comfort people. Religion can have a function without being designed, just as the heartbeat of a biological being can. And this leads me to my second point, namely, that evolved ideas are not designed ideas, that is to say that the planned construction of an idea for an intended purpose is not the same as the process of ‘selection’ where unpopular ideas drop out of favour, but that is not to say that an idea cannot first be designed and then take on a life of its own, an evolutionary life, or vice versa.

Now, under these terms, it is possible to deduce several presuppositions or assumptions from your statement, namely, that religion -- and you do say religion rather than mention a specific religion, so I will justifiably assume that you are speaking of religion in general -- was a planned construction, and that an intention behind this construction is to comfort. So as you can see, far from being a truth so evident that it can be asserted without justification, your proposition requires many things to be proven before it can be accepted on anything but faith alone.

I think religion is more to teach us to transcend the human condition

It's easiest to accept that we are far too dumb to be able to say for sure how the universe works and what runs it.

The easiest to accept?
God does not exist.
I can't really understand what that means, but I will say this:
To go through the motions of this waking state without disciplining your mind to "transcend the human condition" as traumabunny put, that is easy. But to accept the calling God and see through this Cloud of Unknowing (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/anonymous2/cloud.x.html) that is darkened further by such imaginings of "curiosity of wit" and bond with that which is betwixt all things, that is hard.

It is far easier to deny then to accept.

Since I know your behaviour, I want to make two things clear from the outset. First, that I am not arguing that religion does or does not comfort people. Religion can have a function without being designed, just as the heartbeat of a biological being can. And this leads me to my second point, namely, that evolved ideas are not designed ideas, that is to say that the planned construction of an idea for an intended purpose is not the same as the process of ‘selection’ where unpopular ideas drop out of favour, but that is not to say that an idea cannot first be designed and then take on a life of its own, an evolutionary life, or vice versa.

Now, under these terms, it is possible to deduce several presuppositions or assumptions from your statement, namely, that religion -- and you do say religion rather than mention a specific religion, so I will justifiably assume that you are speaking of religion in general -- was a planned construction, and that an intention behind this construction is to comfort. So as you can see, far from being a truth so evident that it can be asserted without justification, your proposition requires many things to be proven before it can be accepted on anything but faith alone.

Beat me to it.

That God does not exist
That God plays no active role in our everyday lives
God has an active role in the universe
Benevolent God
Evil God
one God
many Gods....etc
and any other theological view you can find. Out of all of these which ones are easier to accept

you cant accept it if you dont know its right... the only thing that needs to be accepted is that no-one knows and in my opinion theres no reason to worry about whether theres a god or if he's good evil etc... waste of time

It is far easier to deny then to accept.

its pretty much effortless to do either... then again, whats it really mean to accept something... is it the absence of arguing with it?

So as you can see, far from being a truth so evident that it can be asserted without justification, your proposition requires many things to be proven before it can be accepted on anything but faith alone.

Are you asking me to prove religion was created by humans and thus false?

If I could prove religion was created by humans for comfort, MCCBTSOG would not exist. Indeed I fail to see how an atheist doesn't believe religion was designed by humans.

I personally believe religion has been designed for comfort, b/c I do not believe in Godlings. Given the fact that religion does comfort people, it is not so great a leap for me to assume it was designed for that comfort.

Are you asking me to prove religion was created by humans and thus false?

I am not asking you to prove that religion in general was created by human beings, but that it was designed, and that an intention behind the design or planned construction was to comfort people. To say that something was created is not necessarily the same as saying that it was designed, although saying that something was designed necessarily entails saying that it was created. To give a really lame example of what the former may look like, let me appeal to your sentiments with a story of possible factuality (although, and I want to make this clear, I am not backing it as a truth): imagine a schizophrenic whose disorderly thoughts give rise out of the chaos to an image of an all-powerful, all-knowing being who is watching his every move. He did not consciously lay blueprints of this being’s inner workings, and there were no intentions behind its production. Rather, it was the result of delusions outside of his control. And it just so happened that as he ran through the streets, telling people of this idea, it brought comfort to them.

Given the fact that religion does comfort people, it is not so great a leap for me to assume it was designed for that comfort.

In the first paragraph of my last post I made a distinction between designed ideas and evolved ideas, or rather, the action of designing ideas and the historical-mental development of ideas by means of a kind of natural selection, respectively. It was indicated here that an idea can have a function without that function being intentional or designed; it can easily be a byproduct, for example, and for this reason, it does not follow from the fact that religion comforts people that it was designed to comfort.

I am not asking you to prove that religion in general was created by human beings, but that it was designed, and that an intention behind the design or planned construction was to comfort people.

As I said if this could be proved beyond a shred of doubt, religion would not exist.

All religions primarily revolve around the scariest and most mysterious element of human existence.

Death.

Most all of them offer a pleasant alternative to death, and this involves a fantasy of eternal life. Very pleasant and comforting alternative to the readily and quite apparent reality of ceasing to exist.

The fact that most all religions revolve around and offer this pleasant alternative and the fact that religion existed all over the ancient world, but have this in common suggests to me that religion was invented as a way to cope with the horrific reality of death.

It would be on hell of a coincidence for madmen to have delusions and dream up a religion, of which the by product was accidently comfort (most notably involving death), and it be a world wide phenomenon.

As I said if this could be proved beyond a shred of doubt, religion would not exist.

All religions primarily revolve around the scariest and most mysterious element of human existence.

Death.

Most all of them offer a pleasant alternative to death, and this involves a fantasy of eternal life. Very pleasant and comforting alternative to the readily and quite apparent reality of ceasing to exist.

The fact that most all religions revolve around and offer this pleasant alternative and the fact that religion existed all over the ancient world, but have this in common suggests to me that religion was invented as a way to cope with the horrific reality of death.

It would be on hell of a coincidence for madmen to have delusions and dream up a religion, of which the by product was accidently comfort (most notably involving death), and it be a world wide phenomenon.

I can see that you are just going to repeat yourself and misrepresent what I say -- yet again, I might add; this seems to be your favourite tactic -- so I am not going to bother.

I can see that you are just going to repeat yourself and misrepresent what I say -- yet again, I might add; this seems to be your favourite tactic -- so I am not going to bother.

Tell yourself whatever you need to.

I repeat myself b/c it is important to note that the reason religion began cannot be proven.

Also, until you can come up with a reasonable explanation as to why most every religion provides comforting answers to the scariest reality of humanity (death) I will repeat this point; until you challenge it with anything more substantial than "A schizo could have dreamed up religion and comforting aspects are just a by product of that" there is nothing more for me to say.

I repeat myself b/c it is important to note that the reason religion began cannot be proven.

Also, until you can come up with a reasonable explanation as to why most every religion provides comforting answers to the scariest reality of humanity (death) I will repeat this point; until you challenge it with anything more substantial than "A schizo could have dreamed up religion and comforting aspects are just a by product of that" there is nothing more for me to say.
Religion began so that man could realize his spiritual nature. Incarnation into the human form is a blessing, for unlike the animals we have a chance to realize our true nature. Religion does more than give a comfortable answer to an uncomfortable question. It allows man to transcend his material nature, and give himself to the spiritual, and the act of praising his spiritual master. Religion does give comfot for death, but as humans that is one of the natural things we do. Which is trying to make theunknown less frightening.

As the bhagavad gita says concerning death,


“There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be.” We are as eternal as God Himself because we derive our very being from God. Just as there was never a time when God did not exist, nor can there be a time when He will not exist–especially since He is utterly outside of time–so there can never come a time when we shall not exist, for we, too, exist outside of time however enmeshed we are in the experience of time through the temporal instruments of the body and mind.