mjpb I think we did well, the debate did not address some issues but we talked without problems.
If you look closely at live threads and past ones it is clear we talk about religions more than politics.
We failed to address the great number of other Gods or the fact they are or had been as real for those who followed them as Christ is for you.
And in truth I can not take the right to believe from any one, any God.
It should be worth noting the God of my race, WASP, or Catholic is no longer the worlds biggest in numbers.
And it seems numbers continue to decline.
And equally others grow in numbers and influence.
It may be true ,I truly do not know the answer, that more believe as I do we are our own God.
Must be accountable for mans actions, every one of them.
But my hope is one day we can stop wars in the name of God any God any war.
And just maybe a world without God could be a start to a world that truly believes all men are equal.
regards

Belly, no more war and killing in the name of ones God. Amen to that.

It's passed time religions should be looking at what they have in common and not what separates them. Religions battle should be with the materialists and those who define life as matter only. This is after all the basis of religious belief- a belief that 'life' is something different from matter; and that 'life' is indistinguishable.

Culture gives rise to different Gods, but the idea that there was a creator, and there is a better place is common to religions.

The soul as self is another fundamental; from aboriginal people across the world and through history, to Hinduism and Buddhism, and through Christianity all the way up to New Age beliefs, Scientology and the luckless Falon Gong.

Religions share a belief in ritual and regimen, a pathway to a better life.

Unfortunately religions are dogged by literal interpretation of their texts, and Gods too precious by half to their adherents. Maybe Belly the problem is too few Gods, making them too precious and this leads to wars to protect the only one you've got.

Belly,

I still don't think that weighing up the merit of nothing compared to nothing is a meaningful discussion. You say that one nothing can't be correct because there are a number of nothings some more popular than others. I don't find that a compelling way of determining what is true although I can empathise to a degree.

As you reject the idea that a God can be the truth I don't believe there is any common premise on which to base a discussion. I struggle to argue that nothing (in your view) is something in the framework where the criterion for something is the number of nothings. That seems to be the impervious to reasoning challenge you propose.

Neither the validity of that approach nor any way of working with it are apparent to me.

I believe that you have almost had your way with respect to War as religious wars are increasingly falling by the wayside. Look at the 20th Century.

I don't believe that human equality is possible without religion. Look at bioethics. Dworkins and other mainstream bioethicists are presently pushing a utilitarian view of humans with apparent success in medical circles. Religion proposes absolutes. Without absolutes anything is arguable even the growing notion unpalatable to most in the civilized world that humans only have utilitarian value.

Palimpsest,

You make a lot of good points. Ultimately people with religions have more in common with each other than they do with atheists notwithstanding the complication that many atheists are a product of a religious culture and retain many of the values of their society's former religion. Even within my own religion Christianity are many who seem to think that the slightest doctrinal disagreement is the most important thing in their world while the society in which they live heads toward decadence unprecedented since the Roman Empire was on its way down and humans considered to be chemicals with no intrinsic value.

Religions definitely have much in common and appear to be a necessary part of a civilized society where life isn't nasty, decadent, brutish and short.

mjpb, religions have one thing in common, their ubiquity.

You make the mistake as many have before you in passing everything through a religious "narrative filter", which doesn't actually reflect reality as many serious historians will tell you.

Religions are a form of social control (a subset of a larger concept), and social control necessary for "civilisation", as witnessed by a great many civilisations pre-dating Christianity and even Judaism. Also, a great many asian civilisations, which of course have had nothing to do with Abrahamic traditions at all. The only thing any of these have in common is the social control that a priesthood provides, and the only thing that can support a proper priest class, is agriculture.

Bugsy, you are right up to a point. The use of religion for control and slavery is well known. But this is not what religion is actually about, not what is at the heart of religious belief.

Rather, religion attempts to explain LIFE as something different from matter. The "Before the Bang' thread currently running here is a nice counterpoint to this one. Olivers posts re Planck time and the way we experience space and time are not so different from Hindu fundamentals, and of course Buddhist thought. Physics and philisophy are brothers to religion.

mj's discourse on the subject of nothing, aimed at Belly was wonderful- there is no energy flow without the nothing between the particles,nor space; and time is a measure of the interchange happening. 'Nothing' is of course the most fundamental subject of religion, i.e. the spirit or soul.

There's more to the subject of religion than you credit.

I have no need to debate nothingness, because I do not believe in God, the wonder of life exists the sky remains there the stars the wonder of what we call nature.
And Gods ,so very many of them exist in the minds of those who want them, like a story from a book.
Who has not rolled around the bed waiting to turn the next page?
I can not again bring myself to think we are toys in a toy box, that we exist to be judged and ruled, to get down on our knees before a maker.
I am however forever and ever awe struck at the beauty of life.