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[Paphitis]

“Imagine, along with John Lennon, a world with no religion.

The Nazis and the USSR made all these other conflicts look like a picnic in comparison.

So that makes mass killing in God's name OK? 1,000,000 Iraqis killed! "God" bless America!

“Imagine, along with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as 'Christ-killers,' no Northern Ireland 'troubles,' no 'honour killings,' no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money ('God wants you to give till it hurts.')”

Of course it doesn't.

You put forward this song stating a world with no religion would be any better and I put forward two atheistic ideoligies, both politically polar to each other that simply prove the statement false.

John Lennon should have just sung Imagine a world without people and ended the song there.

[Me Ed]

“Imagine, along with John Lennon, a world with no religion.

The Nazis and the USSR made all these other conflicts look like a picnic in comparison.

So that makes mass killing in God's name OK? 1,000,000 Iraqis killed! "God" bless America!

“Imagine, along with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as 'Christ-killers,' no Northern Ireland 'troubles,' no 'honour killings,' no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money ('God wants you to give till it hurts.')”

Of course it doesn't.

You put forward this song stating a world with no religion would be any better and I put forward two atheistic ideoligies, both politically polar to each other that simply prove the statement false.

John Lennon should have just sung Imagine a world without people and ended the song there.

[Paphitis]

[Paphitis]

‘Why is God considered an explanation to anything? It's not – it's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an ‘I dunno’ dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generaly what it means is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from, and odds are you'll get a vague, pseudo-philosophical reply about having always existed, or being outside nature. Which, of course, explains nothing.’”

[Me Ed]

[Paphitis]

“Evolved organs, elegant and efficient as they often are, also demonstrate revealing flaws – exactly as you'd expect if they have an evolutionary history, and exactly as you would not expect if they were designed...our conciousness is also raised by the creulty and wastefulness of natural selection. Predators seem beautifully ‘designed’ to catch prey animals, while the prey animals seem equally beautifully ‘designed’ to escape them. Whose side is God on?”

[Get Real!]

Paphitis, when Dawkins hears thunder he shuts his curtains and moves away from the window. When he feels an earthquake he ducks under the nearest table. When he senses a storm he shuts his doors and windows, and when his children are seriously ill he heads for the emergency ward! Such is the “power” of Dawkins, a vulnerable mere mortal like you and I, so quoting his personal struggles with God which he saw fit to publish is not shedding any light here!

In my view the prerequisites for a human being to even begin to seriously contemplate the existence of God are…

1. A genuine acknowledgement of one’s vulnerability and insignificance in the universe.

2. A profound feeling of shame that one is part of such a feeble and reckless group of beings, we call humanity.

3. Feeling (overwhelmingly) awestruck by the magnitude and complexity of the cosmos and the force behind it.

Overall it’s called humbling yourself before that which is above and beyond you, but people like Hawkings and Dawkins are obviously far too clever for that!

[bill cobbett]

Paphitis, when Dawkins hears thunder he shuts his curtains and moves away from the window. When he feels an earthquake he ducks under the nearest table. When he senses a storm he shuts his doors and windows, and when his children are seriously ill he heads for the emergency ward! Such is the “power” of Dawkins, a vulnerable mere mortal like you and I, so quoting his personal struggles with God which he saw fit to publish is not shedding any light here!

In my view the prerequisites for a human being to even begin to seriously contemplate the existence of God are…

1. A genuine acknowledgement of one’s vulnerability and insignificance in the universe.

2. A profound feeling of shame that one is part of such a feeble and reckless group of beings, we call humanity.

3. Feeling (overwhelmingly) awestruck by the magnitude and complexity of the cosmos and the force behind it.

Overall it’s called humbling yourself before that which is above and beyond you, but people like Hawkings and Dawkins are obviously far too clever for that!

Gosh mate, don't think claims of alleged cleverness or otherwise come in to it. Think it's really about asking and trying to answer some very simple and very unclever and some very humbling questions .......

Questions like .... What's the world beyond me look like, what are those bright lights in the night sky about, how do things work etc and then to ask ...... how do I fit in to this?

... and in answering these questions to come up with a Description of the world around us, one which is the Best Description we can all agree on. That's not to say that we won't find a Better Description in the future, after all the whole of the History of Science tells us that there is always going to be a Better Description and that Science will always be a work in progress.

Now if you and others think that the existence of a God, a Creator God, is the Best way to Describe the world around us then really you must make better attempts to prove He exists, cos for thousands of years believers have been making Exta-ordinary and Most Remarkable Claims, so you really need to come up with equally Extra-ordinary and Remarkable Evidence to back up your claims.

..... cos to date, in the thousands of years we have had to endure dozens of Rubbish Religions and Crappy Cults and other Mythical Mysteries you haven't come up with even the slightest scrap of evidence.

Jees ... not even a single Quantum Fluctuation-sized bit of evidence! What's that telling us?

[repulsewarrior]

...actually, since having found the center of the "Big Bang", scientist have conluded that it is not, not unlkely that God exists.

...further more, if one can accept the root idea of Humanity, it boils down to the gnostic vision of reality, that this is death, (law of entropy), and where we are going to is where we came from (law of conservation).

...personally i lean toward animists whose conviction is to respect any aspect of this reality with equal reverance. it is most constructive in developing a lifestyle which can add prosperity to others as much as to self, and spiritually it unites us as one Being, not just as living creatures but with the resources other religions open to plunder.

[Paphitis]

Paphitis, when Dawkins hears thunder he shuts his curtains and moves away from the window. When he feels an earthquake he ducks under the nearest table. When he senses a storm he shuts his doors and windows, and when his children are seriously ill he heads for the emergency ward!

And you wouldn't because you believe "God" will protect you.

All of the above are environmental, geological or biological scenarios, and Science has well and truly dealt with them all.

Such is the “power” of Dawkins, a vulnerable mere mortal like you and I, so quoting his personal struggles with God which he saw fit to publish is not shedding any light here!

Dawkins explains Darwin's evolution in a very powerful way, fit for the average consumer, like me, who does not have a strong background in Biology. He, like Darwin before him and many others such as Wallace, also appreciate the power and beauty of Earth and the universe, and they appreciate the laws of nature and life of all organisms, to such a level which leaves you for dead.

He does not have a personal struggle with "God" since he is a non believer, but puts all mythological creationist theories to the test, as a proper scientist should, and naturally, has the rational mind to propagate all scientifically proven facts such as evolution.

In my view the prerequisites for a human being to even begin to seriously contemplate the existence of God are…

1. A genuine acknowledgement of one’s vulnerability and insignificance in the universe.

And yet, religion takes away this vulnerability to preach that the human race is designed by an Intelligent Being in his own image, and also give false hope about life everlasting.

Sorry, but you don't make any sense!

2. A profound feeling of shame that one is part of such a feeble and reckless group of beings, we call humanity.

And God has achieved absolutely nothing to alleviate this shame. Rather interesting how we were created in God's image and yet preach hatred, intolerance, and kill people by the thousands in "His" name.

The shame is all yours Get Real! Others like Dawkins, and Hawkins have far too much self esteem to accept those shortcomings which you have accepted on humanities behalf and then rely on the existence of God for justification.

Atheists, are those that are more likely to appreciate nature and the universe.

3. Feeling (overwhelmingly) awestruck by the magnitude and complexity of the cosmos and the force behind it.

Science has offered tangible evidence about the workings of that universe, and will offer better explanations in the future, but religion has offered nothing. Science has actually destroyed and ravaged creationism.

Overall it’s called humbling yourself before that which is above and beyond you, but people like Hawkings and Dawkins are obviously far too clever for that!

Read all about Darwin, Wallace, and Dawkins, and the appreciate how humble they truly are about their place in the universe, and then compare them to your outlook and religion and see how this humility is in actual fact beyond people like you and those devout delusional followers of all religions.