It was and is those immature brains that conceive of a God Almighty, in the first place.

The argument doesn't pend on the definition of evil, just the existence, which religions generally assume.

I don't equate religion with God, myself.

I am evil, hear me roar. Meow.

Do you not think there is evil in the world?

It's a loaded word. I think there are things in the world which are less than good. But those things are also necessary to existence. Tragedy can make us stronger. Struggle gives us purpose. Loss makes us grateful for what we still have. Any advancement has to presuppose a less-than-ideal situation to begin with. There is evil, but in the long run it's good for us.

That is a new perspective. Please expand on it.

God is God. Religion is rules people try to make about God.

Striving to understand God is laudable; believing one has even come close to doing so is laughable. But the toddler analogy holds--most of it is as harmless as it is petty, like watching children on a playground figure out for themselves how to deal with each other and the world. It's good for the toddlers to learn how to pretend, and feel, and search for answers, and militant atheists are like the six-year-old rolling his eyes at the dumb babies. The six-year-old doesn't know shit either, but the adults don't hold that against him.

The 90 year old's are nearly as ignant, relative to God scale. I agree. We have no idea what we don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRqijH1dDdI

'nuff said.

Cellar member, tuba player, and blogger Kirk Israel, is the son of two ministers. Both Mom and Dad being long time soldiers in the Salvation Army. He's written an interesting piece about his journey with the faith.

That's how it works in movies; add people to the story whose purpose is to die, sometimes horribly, so the hero gains motivation.

In scriptwriting, it's a bit lazy and cliched. Doing it with actual people would be malevolent.

Unless a worse malevolence would actually be to have everyone sitting on a beach, relaxing, never doing or feeling anything at all for eternity. I'll take the pain and triumph package over the numbness any day.

The movie is only cliche because it is necessarily short on time and nuance. But if you bring the view up to a grander perspective on humanity as a whole, a person's complete life becomes lazy and cliche. Over the course of our lives almost everyone gets to be a dozen different types of both hero and sacrifice at different times--or at least we are offered the opportunity to be--and anything less would effectively be like being dead anyway.

Except for those who die young, presumably to keep everyone else's lives eventful.

You just said that you believe that you are superior to the vast majority of people on Earth.

Wow.

:3_eyes: