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  1. 1. The fundamentals of believing in gods with powers, typically at least one with the power of creation, allows for the grouping. The way they manifest the rest of the tale is not as important. Are there any religions that do not have a "creation" god?
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  3. 2. The trend currently is that people who are provided religion when young, and when it is given the same importance as generic life survival things, tend to believe in it MORE than those who are not provided it at all, or are introduced later in life. That is not to say there aren't people who convert when older, or those that leave religion even when it was provided young. But I believe (and assume Gervais does as well) that the later in life one is provided religion, the less likely one is to blindly accept it. I think the older people will more enjoy the meditation side of prayers and such rather than believe in the gods themselves.
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  5. 3. Can we prove any qualified source for any religion? Take the King James bible, probably one of the most popular versions. That's a translation from Latin, and the Latin was written over the course of many, many years/decades/centuries/people. How can we know any of that is qualified material? What logic tests can we run that everyone, regardless of religion will accept?
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  7. 4. This statement intrigues me. There are a number of animals whose intelligence matches up with children, up to about age 5. (Cats, Dogs, Dolphins, Chimps, etc.) Can children understand the concept of morality? Can the aforementioned animals? Dogs learn behavior from us. They learn our morals by us coaching them. They're no different than children in that regard.
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  9. 5. Your argument could also support the aether concept, it's the only thing that made sense until it didn't. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)) If physics can provide an explanation for Pre-big bang and what happens, would you change your view of how/why the universe exists?
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  11. 6. "[italic] if it infinitely existed into the past, then how was that infinity bridged to get to right now? By definition, an infinity cannot be crossed. It is a never ending amount of time and thus we could never reach modern day. So time must have had a beginning.[italic]" If this is what you are referencing, my understanding is that there's a few possibilities. First is that the time continuum is circular, and I think the gravity of the universe bends it, so it's kind of like a donut. I never went into this sort of physics, so I'm probably giving a poor explanation. The other idea I have is a number line. We know there are infinite numbers, you cannot start at the most negative or most positive, BUT you can have a number anywhere on the line. If energy has always existed then as it transforms to matter and creates the universe as we know it, we can be at the current place in time no problem. I also think our concept of "existence" is skewed from our common everyday reality, where stuff is and isn't. When you get to a certain level of physics, there are experiments that show that particles pop into existence briefly and disappear in a seemingly random pattern. There's a lot more going on that controls function beyond what you or I currently comprehend, but when gravity can screw with time, and gravity didn't always exist (see image), then it all becomes very odd.
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  13. 7. "No contradictions" I'll admit, I haven't read the Bible, and all "No contradictions in the bible" links seem to be religious based/funded sites. Can you provide one that takes an outsider's slant on the statement (while still supporting it)? I'd trust that to be less biased supporting evidence.
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  15. 8. I wish I'd taken some logic courses in college, so I could better disseminate the difference in the argument. what you're saying is there a difference between "God is the only answer" and "we don't have an answer, so God". The first requires proof that no other answers exist, the second does not require proof, since we can say God is as we want God to be. The first is much harder than the second, due to where the burden of proof lies.
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  17. 9. Kinda sounds like Nostradamus. What is the sort of precision/detail are we talking about? Can you give an example of one that came true (what was predicted vs what happened)
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  19. 10. Old and New Testament? Just New? Personally, I'm basically athiest, and I don't worry about why everything exists, I just go with it, physics is too abstract for me. (I need to see physical things, MechE for life)
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  21. 11. Can you explain why the illness statement? I would agree that if absolute morality existed, it would rule everything, but I don't see a convincing argument for why humans are different from other species. If anything, the absolute morality of life is "at all costs, make sure your species does not die out" Whether that means individual sacrifice, f*ck everything in site in hopes it will make kids, or duplicate your single cell existence into replicates of yourself.
  22. 11.b. If the true religion would reveal itself, why have theologians of all different religions not converged? Is there a slow convergence of religions in general?
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