Your point would seem to apply to religions throughout human history.

The beauty of science is that when we discover things, we realized that there doesn't have to be any supernatural force in the universe. Things can exist without the magical intervention of a super-being.

It's less confusing, too.

do not have god-like entities at their core. That's why I stipulated Modern religions and provided an exception in Buddhism. Perhaps I should have said "Theistic Religions," instead.

In fact, it's such a good point that I changed the thread title. Thanks!

Those foundations don't really permit much of a building program. But it must be admitted that some simply spectacular mental acrobatics have been performed getting from point to point within the facade.

It's appalling how much of human history can only be understood through that metric.

The whole god exist/god does not exist premise is a false dilemma. It assumes there's only two options when in fact there are more. One does not need to make a choice at all to challenge either assertion. So it's really just a weak attempt to shift the burden of proof from the one making a claim to the one denying it.

But let's assume for the sake of argument (as some obviously do) that the options here are binary. Which is a more incredible claim? That's a rhetorical question.

But that's not even the only claim that most religionists make. They aren't just making the claim that one or more deities exist. They are making the claim of existence along with creation along with intervention. So it's really three unfalsifiable and incredible claims rolled up into one. Meanwhile the positive atheist only makes one unfalsifiable claim that isn't incredible at all.

I would argue Buddhism is a religion, just one that in some cases doesn't make claim to a deity.

Faith is not logic.

There are some people that will keep seeing heaven in a blade of grass and eternity in an hour.

Some people will keep seeing the cellulose and chlorophyll in grass and sixty seconds in an hour.

The future depends on us all getting along and using the very best of both.

Wishing you well and peace

Tim

When I saw someone had responded to my post I thought "Oh no! I'm going to get called out for confusing a blade of grass for a wildflower!"



Wellness and Peace to you, too!

But it's worth mentioning that there are also people out there who make a decision about faith on faith...and then proceed to invent all sorts of flawed logical constructs in an effort to justify it. I don't think that approach reflects well on their faith or their logic.

Some see the garden, others see the design.

Reincarnation being one of them.

White yuppies are the best thing to ever have happened to the entrepreneurial con man.

But they had a lot to do with why he became so popular and still is today.

You have probably heard the first-cause and watchmaker arguments. Of course, these arguments can also be attacked as weak or unsound, but they are attempts to prove the existence of a creator using logic. Problem is, these arguments don't give us Christianity or the Bible, nor any other religious dogma. And, you are more likely to hear them in a college philosophy class than in church. So your thread title stands.

Like the logic regarding the existence of unseen deities, they fail at their initial premises, which also lack evidence.

There is zero evidence that everything that exists is caused by something.
There is also zero evidence that existence requires a creator.

Those are the initial premises of the arguments, but have no evidence of being true.

It is beginning to look like our universe is simply an artifact of something it is only part of. And who created the creator is the question to ask regarding the watchmaker argument. The answer to both is "I don't know." No evidence.

Without evidence for the initial premise, the logic fails if one does not accept a premise that has no evidence of being factual.

Faith, being unprovable, needs a belief.

Faith has nothing to do with logic.