Belief can help us cope in so many ways! Like Lycosid said, few things are actually ‘proved’. An that’s not a bad thing, like some scientists may think!

Science has over time altered what many religions have postulated(eg.- geocentricity), but this isn’t a fight agaist religion, as such; people can still believe in divine things as much as they want, and realistically-minded people have no more (moral) right to criticize that than Muslims have when criticizing Christianity, or vice versa! Of course there is much scientific evidence, etc.- but though personally I’m an atheist, I don’t see that as a reason to try to strip good people of any faith they might have!

and the only people that can understand this statement understand the theory of the duck

((((like pointillism we look at the painting from afar and it a beautiful masterpiece but if we want to know what makes up this artwork we get closer and all we see is a bunch of random dots in different shads that have to order

or a childhood story, bears don’t talk but yet if you just “let it be” theirs nothing questionable about it.
as children we question allot of thing but we never seem to question the questionable (example: such as why animals in story’s talk)
so if you really think about it anything can be torn apart with one word “why”))))

But the main point you raise is a good one. When we allow ourselves to be polarized, that is when we are least effective at bringing about good in the world. So when we think “I am an athiest” or “I am religious” and “that other person is not,” we automatically create a barrier that works to sap our ability to cooperate.

I think it’s better to look for what we have in common than to find ways to see each other as different.

Excellent point.

For most people their faith is ethical. The major faiths encourage charity - and most of the founders of them spoke for justice (though this is less encouraged by their modern adherents).

Atheists and spiritualists unite every day to fight these problems. In the NGO’s those who are believers and those who aren’t usually respect each other, however much they disagree.

Meditation and prayer do not only come after our stomach is full. This is directly contrary to the experience of many poor people. It also adopts a materialist mindset, which makes the fighting of poverty pointless (if people are only material what does it matter that they suffer misery?).

I think the problem is the dominance of an economic dogma. That money is the measure of value of all things including exchanges (relationships) and the environment. This degrades people and our relationship to others and our planet. When this faith is dethroned (and money relegated once more to a means to achieve our values, not a value in itself) I think we will be well on the way to ending poverty. This is not utopian - we live in this non-economic way with our family and others we love. We just need eyes to see (a conversion is required: which would be a genuinely religious experience - one which many an atheist has undergone and that some religious people haven’t).

I have one question for everyone. Can spirituality remove hunger and poverty from this world ? Can science and scientific quest remove hunger and poverty from this world.

Meditation and prayer comes only after our stomach is full.

Is there destiny for everyone.Fate !

When a child is born-say a healthy one-does he/she knows where he/she is born? USA or Somalia ? With a silver spoon or iron spoon ? No.

Time has come when spiritualists of the world should come together and make a world opinion to atleast feed every one and provide a healthy childhood to all.

Impossible as spiritualists and aethists both cannot unite .

Sujit

I liked the part about religiosity being heritable.

My Father and and brother are both atheists and they grew up in Catholic households

My mother, my sister and I are or were heavily involved with religion.

My mother was a Third Order Franciscan

My sister joined a convent briefly as an adult.

I under went several religious conversions from Catholicism to Wicca and spent years practicing Buddhist and Taoist meditation.

It should be pointed out that the potions of the Prefrontal Cortex that light up are somewhat different for those practicing meditation and those people praying. Prayer and meditaiton use different circuits in the same region of the brain.

People who meditate grow a meditation circuit in the brain over time.

Another thing that was not touched upon is the number of people with mental disorders and religious beliefs. Religiosity is in our brains and so are our mental health issues.

How many stories can one dig up by googling incidences of religious filicide? The sheer number of men and women who killed their children because God told them to or because they believed their children to be possessed is appalling.

In studies of parents that kill or torture their children for religious reasons more than half the men and nearly all the women had psychotic or mood disorders.

Along with increased religiosity all the females in my family suffer or suffered from serious mood disorders especially depression.

My mother and sister continue to remain depressed and highly religious

I became more secular and my depression has been gone for years.

The connection in the brain between mental disorders and religious beliefs, religious experiences should be investigated further.

I tend to agree, it really is a brain thing.

“The wages of sin is death” - whether one chooses to believe the reality of the statement or believes it’s merely a metaphor, it still tastes of a truism.

God is good but the path to him is not an easy one. Satan is evil and the path to him is deliciously marked and easy to walk. Sadly, humans seem to prefer the path of least resistance. That is why there is a reward for taking the tougher road.