[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

i consider myself Christian by my upbringing. I'll put that up front.

I'm just the opposite. I was brought up as a nothing, not believing one way or another. Then I was a Christian - or at least I believed so. There's always that nagging little "If you don't believe now, how can you be sure that your 'belief' was ever real?"

I believe there are signs of intelligent design all over the world and even in the universe.

I don't see any, and I have to wonder if "signs" are only seen by those who want to see them...or if they're not seen by those who don't want to seen them.

As for your dissertation on the problem with religions, without quoting it I'll just say that I agree.

I think of God as the parent of mankind, God loves us, wants us to be happy and successful and achieve greatness just like a parent would.

I used to feel that way, but of course it's hard to think of God that way when you're not sure there even is one.

much like an individual, mankind has a fate, and in order to realize that destiny, mankind has to outgrow its obsessions with religion.

I'm not sure that's true. I wonder sometimes if mankind spends his days looking for a reason, and the horrible truth is that there is no reason, everything just is.

The great mystery in life will always be, what comes afterwards. Mankind has struggled with death since the very first of our loved ones ceased to be.

And never found an answer; at least not one he could prove.

Which religion is correct?

Where moral and life teachings are concerned? Most of them. Where God is concerned? Who knows?

What really happens when we die?

All I can say for certain is that I'm in no hurry to find out.

Are the muslims right? or the Christians? How about the Budists? the athiests?

Questions I ask every time the subject comes up. Of course none of them can prove they're right, but they all enjoy showing where the others are wrong.

Is heaven real? or is this life just preparing our souls for transcendence into another plane of existence that nobody has even considered theorizing about yet?

Or is this life all there is, and there is no "soul" and no "preparing"?

men have died and discovered the answers to these questions

Or not, as the case may be.

trouble is, they arent talking.

Isn't that always the trouble?

i think any one true God wouldnt want all the grandiose nonsense and fanfare... God would just want mankind to love one another and be kind. and anytime you do the right thing... anytime you hold the door for someone and smile to brighten the day of another, you practice that religion.

Many years ago there was a semi-humorous newspaper comic strip called 'Rick O'Shay', about an Old-West marshall. All the characters had spoof names. His girlfriend was a saloon-girl named Miss Gaye Abandon. Her nephew, who lived with her, was called Quyat Burp. His best friend was a gunslinger named Hipshot Percussion. Every year Stan Lynde, the strip's creator, did a variation on the same theme. As a boy I always loved those strips, and though off-topic I think they speak to the same themes you wrote about here.







Sorry to pick apart your post that way, especially when I know you were only philosophizing and theorizing, honestly thinking out loud as it were. You just said so much that I agree with that I had to do a little philosophizing of my own.