I just can't get myself to accept the idea that the entirety of the universe, and everything in it, is all just one big coincidence.

YMMV, of course.

You didn't read/understand the post that Pico and ME was responding to.

You say you don't know the nature of the universe. Well yeah. It doesn't come with a user manual. But you say you know the nature of God? Are you sure?

How could you know? Do you think you know because of those books humans wrote, where *they* claimed to know the nature of God?

There have been countless deities worshipped over countless centuries and everyone that believed in them were sure their "God" or "Gods" were the only true ones. I'll stick with just being as good a person as I can because it's the right thing to do and, in the words of Iris Dement, "I think I'll just let the mystery be."

right. doing the right thing for the wrong reason is not much better than doing the wrong thing.

I gotta disagree there. Doing the right thing is always much better than doing the wrong thing, regardless of motivation. It makes for fewer dickheads in the world, and we all appreciate that.

so intent is irrelevant?

Who decides what's the right thing and what's the wrong thing?

Not to mention deciding when it doesn't matter, like trying to decide whether to scratch an itch with the left or right hand.

I thought that "eventful" was equivalent to "evil," in your mind. Doesn't the one who dies young get the better deal, then?

Do you believe in the possibility of a malevolent God?

No, the "evil=eventful" was from your "without evil we'd be bored on a beach" scenario. I'm not the one equating evil with life experience.I don't believe in any gods. "Believe in the possibility" is different; if a god is defined in a way that it could magically hide from any detection, then it is logically possible that it is doing so.

But if you're asking whether I think that whatever a theoretical god wants or does is, by definition, good, then I do not believe that.

I am incapable of understanding the true nature of God, as all men are.

Your making up things I didn't say. I never said I understood the true nature of God.

No one has the right to belittle my faith, just because they have none [/paraphrasing "Broadchurch", somewhat], and I am not belittling anyone's lack thereof.

I responded to a statement that it took an immature mind to conceive of God, as we are speaking of God. If one logically allows that statement to continue, it would follow that anyone who believes in God would therefore have to have an equally, or even more immature mind. Which would lead one to believe that the speaker of that statement obviously believes himself or herself to be of a more mature mind than that of the majority of people who believe in God, which, like it or not, is most of the people on Earth.

Where did I infer that I have an understanding of the true nature of God? Anyone with any knowledge of any religion (that involves God) knows that man cannot understand the true nature of God. If they could, they would know which religion is 'correct', and we would not have all these conflicting ideas.

We also wouldn't have arguments like this one.

Well sorry, I screwed up.

I think maybe I didn't mean to say you as in you, Gravdigr, but you as in, all y'all. But somewhere in writing it I didn't drift that way, after quoting you, and that was just terrible of me.

The question applies to all, doesn't belittle anyone.

I feel like I can't belittle anyone, because I have been wrong about so much in my life, that it is surely not for me to say what is right for anyone else.

Undertoad: Agressively Humble

Like everyone else. Some others just have better safety nets. :haha:

My road to wisdom... Finding out how much I don't know, then finding out how much I was sure of but was wrong, followed by the revelation I don't know shit... but neither does anyone I know. :blush:

No one knows how much they don't know. Knowing you don't know how much you don't know let's you know that you'll never know how much everyone else doesn't know. Knowing that no one else knows what they don't know makes you... Sorry, lost my train of thought.