I understand. What you are saying is that you don't see any evidence of a diety. I get that. But my question was not if you believe in a diety, but how you can conclude that someone is avoiding dealing with reality by believing in one. I believe in a diety. Does this mean that I am avoiding dealing with reality? And if so...what evidence do you have to support your conclusion?

From the beginning, or if they died out via people no longer believing?

I think this is an important thing to differentiate.

I feel that as we evolved formed social and cultural groups religion was extremely important in that formation.


I actually think it is a valid possibility that we would NOT be here today if it where not for organized religion.

POSSIBLE.

TELL ME HOW YOU THINK LIFE WOULD BE WITHOUT ANY GOD'S OR GODDESSES OR ANTHING ELSE?

WOULD MANKIND BE ABLE TO ACCEPT IT?

Even now religion brings together millions of people, such as the journey to mecca.

Humans share knowledge, and before written or verbal language was established copying behaviors by watching where the only ways to transfer this knowledge.

Our entire bastion of knowledge has been built on the shoulders of those that came before, and before writing and the net, and long distance communication all you had was the oral tradition, before that again only monkey see monkey do.

Death is everywhere and even more so the further you look back in time. Our advancements have taken us farther and farther from constant death.

Any philosophy that helps people believe in a alternative to death is extremely compelling, and is something if you felt could only happen to those that understood the "light" "path" ect then that compels you to go out and transfer that knowledge.

Genetics has at this point in humanities history already planted the seed that helping your closest relatives garners a feeling of joy, this is an advantage that lends to social groups helping each other in hard times, and thus promoting survival. Those genes then get passed down.

If a belief system can trigger this response in groups that are not your immediate kin, then it can allow for greater propagation of knowledge and transfer of information from culture to culture and possibly through the kinship of the same beliefs create peace when without such kin ship war is promoted . . . this would further create an atmosphere where cooperation lends to survival and further promotes genes being expressed that reinforce those behaviors and beliefs.

Richard Dawkins has made this very same argument.

The down side is when those belief systems diverge and cause just as much war, strife and loss of cooperation . . . well then you get what we have here now.

Its possible that just as religion may have helped us get where we are, to go much further without killing ourselves off, we may need to abandon religion.

its possible.

History has shown that mankind does not accept it. Whether or not there actully are gods/godesses is really irrelevant.

However, if it were hypothetically possible to disprove the existence of gods/godesses, I think it would create a major shift in the "balance of power" on this planet.

In general, those who dependend on gods/godesses for anything would be free of that dependency. How that would manifest would depend on the dependency, but they would range all over the map. From outrage at being deceived to bewilderment from having no other belief system to fall back on to fear of reprisals for subjugating the innocent to relief at being free of guilt to criminality from having no fear of reprisal in the after life to a simple acceptance that there is new information to be undertsood to many other things.

Those who did not depend on gods/godesses would naturally tend to elevat to positions of power simply because of their experience in dealing with life under those precepts and would not be thrown into confusion by the new "state of affairs".

Interesting plotline for a book - "The Day the Earth Found Out."

If I'm happy, God's happy, so religion is irrelevant.

Without the ritual of Gods, people would probably worship each other and their favorite celebrities.

I think the natural nature of humans is to have no Gods or Goddesses.

Imagine if humans of the earth had been allowed to evolve naturally instead of being genetically enhanced and engineered by the technological advanced alien society.. (Milky Way galaxy aliens) Humans were altered and then introduced to ancient religions and rituals of blood sacrifices and slavery.

I don't believe that these behaviors are natural to true unaltered humans any more that it would be natural to Apes or Chimps.

An example of a true human is probably the natives of Africa or the Native Americans. Humans would have evolved naturally and they would have been more connected to the earth and nature, just as primitive cultures exist today.

But today's humans have reptilian DNA from genetic engineering of the past. They have been introduced to the concepts of Gods and Goddesses and slavery and ritual and blood sacrifices by the Draconian society of this galaxy.

Our earth is not of this galaxy. Our solar system is part of another galaxy altogether. We are not like the inhabitants of this galaxy.

JB

Are you sure your not a draco?

Sky do you think man [as in the past]would try to elevate himself to god status? would modern day people once agin out of fear or not knowing what to do fall for such a thing?

I am human because I am on the simultaneous incarnational path. I know this because I do not have memories of my other (past) lives.

That seems to imply that if one does have memories of past lives, that they are a Draco. Is that correct? Or am I missing something?

were the dracos the first peoples of this universe?

I don't know you, so I can't answer your question.

The people I know, who believe in a deity, clearly are avoiding reality, in my opinion. The deity becomes an excuse for bad behavior ("This is the way God made me" or "It's all a part of His marvelous plan"), thereby abrogating any responsibility for their own actions. This does not fit in with my idea of reality. One must ultimately be responsible for one's own actions.

They live their lives, ostensibly (although not so much in practice), in such a way so as to please a fictional character who does not exist, and who can do nothing to them, or for them, whatsoever. This does not fit in with my idea of reality. The Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa have no influence on my thoughts and actions.

They deny science, and scientific procedures and methods, no matter how arduously tested, for the sake of clinging to their own baseless mythologies. Dinosaurs never existed, the earth was created in 4004 B.C., and there is no link whatsoever between a chimpanzee and a human, despite a nearly 99% match in active DNA nucleotide sequences. This not fit in with my idea of reality. Because a person finds a discovery offensive does not mean it cannot be true.

My idea of reality could be wrong -- I acknowledge that.

But mine fits in better with the reality I can experience, can learn about, can explore -- mine is not dependent on invisible friends, ethereal beings no one has ever seen or heard.

My reality includes the word "real." As in tangible, testable, measurable, and perceptible.

Interesting friends you have there. My opinion is this: I think that no matter what actually is the reality of the existance of a diety or lack thereof...it is better to be open to the possibility that I am wrong...or just don't know yet...or fully.....or at all, rather than to blindly cling to a belief or lack of a belief, to the exclusion of any openness to what anyone else contrarily believes. Any intelligent person will admit that the lack of evidence of a thing...doesn't exclude the possibility of its existence.

If a diety does indeed exist, this diety's charactaristics, intent and effect on our physical world will, more than likely, be beyond our comprehension. So why attempt it? Well I know that I, myself, am driven to "figure things out"....so I know why I would try.

Unless a person has had a personal experience that is conclusive as to the existence of God, he or she can either choose to believe or choose not to believe. If God really does not exist, ultimately I will either discover the truth of it when I die and either experience what happens after I die....or I cease to exist myself. Either way...what have I lost if I choose to believe in Him now? Nothing.

I have my belief system...which contains the certainty that I just don't know everything...or even a lot. And I'm ok with that. I think I'd just rather try to be open to possibilities...so that when the ultimate truth is finally revealed to me...I can recognize and accept it.

Hehehehe....and I just realized I just completely missed the intent of this thread. What do I think life would be like with no diety? I have no idea whatsoever. I tend to think that, to have no concept at all of diety....there would have to exist the actual absense of one. Hmmmm.....