I would agree it is when we are talking about organised religion, but there are people who have personal beliefs and personal ''god'' thingys (by the way, I'm taking a noncognitivist position in my first post, this is why I use such ''expressions''), so there's probably more to it. I think it has a lot to do with a the individuals inability or averseness to face certain cruel facts of reality. The trauma of the real if you will. I was thinking a lot about this myself though, and believing something just because it sounds nice is one thing, but wasting your life for a false belief that sounds nice is just scary to me. You waste a great part of your one and only life, just because your can't accept the cruel facts of reality. But by doing so your reality is actually even more cruel, not less, you are just not facing it too see it...

If I look at the christian religion for example, to me it is one of the scariest religions, because you are born a sinner and it is in fact almost impossible to live your life in this modern world without being a sinner (according to it). So you go to churh, feel guilty, repent, and you don't enjoy your life as much as you could. Not to mention the time you spend on it, when you could do something else, something that would enrich your life and make it more enjoyable. The whole religion, the way I see it (no offence intended to christians), is one giant guilt trip, based on veneration of martyrdom instead of life, and the joys you can/could experience on this short trip to nothingness.

If you know it's your one and only life, you know living it to the fullest is the only right thing to do. Life without afterlife gains in worth, becomes the most precious thing you or anyone - anything has. This means you also know killing someone, something, or yourself, is the most terrible and irrational decision you could make (unless it's to protect your own life that is).
 

I agree, if one has at least basic understanding about human suggestibility, how manipulation, hypnosis and neuro linguistic programming works, about the basic understanding of the nature of human hypnotic states, one can find many parallels between that knowledge and religious services and rituals, the repetition involved in such processes (suggestions). That and the dogmatic, authoritative and threatening principles with which they force you to take part of such brainwashing a process.

This is the same old spin on "Can god make a boulder so big even he couldn't lift it"

But let me put a spin on the OP, because I think this road taken in the OP is even a better example.

If someone claims that god is "all powerful" then the ability to be ignorant of something has to fall under the word "all" by proxy of definition.

So god has to be capable of knowing everything and being ignorant of everything at the same time, otherwise once you set a limit on the word "all" you have ceased to fit the word, by definition.

"all" is an absurd concept because even in science you don't get 100% input producing 100% output. No god can ever make a perpetual motion machine because like god, such a machine is an absurd concept.

The cop out arguments have been "he can do what he wants" and "god said he wouldn't do that". Which are both naked assertions which have nothing to do with what we ask here which is about ABILITY.

So if god exists it has to have the "all powerful" power to contradict himself. He has to have the ability to be evil.

What makes much more sense is that humans project human behaviors on their wishful thinking and call it god while ignoring the harm the belief in the concept itself has on logic and reason.

I have yet to see anyone come up with a credible counter to Epicurus. It is a rock solid criticism to claiming all powerful and all loving as claimed attributes.

The omni- concept of a deity is logically absurd and morally bankrupt.

But I take issue with anyone who says that the omni god cannot be debunked. It is not a matter of the burden being on the skeptic, as I said before, the burden is on the claimant. It is that now that we know biology and science and the human brain are, to suggest a immaterial, invisible magical super dad in the sky, with no body, no brain, no cerebellum, no neurons, should put such an absurd claim in the comic book section where it belongs.

Since history is full of humans believing false things,  mundane human psychology explains why people believe absurd things. Wrapping these claims up in elaborate ornate packaging doesn't change that what is inside the box is still mere junk.

I will not hesitate in the least to say that there is no god/deity/super natural. These are merely the projections of humans of their own human qualities on the wish that a super hero exists.

I agree. I mean, there are possible good arguments for a possibility of something beyond the scope of science and the reality as we know it (theists often use such arguments, the uncaused cause argument for example), but they are all pointless, because none of them prove a god, much less the one they believe in. It's all a form of flawed logic: if science doesn't have the answer - ergo 'god'- an a priori claim, a 'god' of the gaps. That, or ignoring the burden of proof and saying we are the ones who have to prove god doesn't exist. Asking us atheist to disprove their gods existence is the same as if the creator of the comic character superman challenged us to prove his superman actually doesn't exist. There are many indications for non existence of both, but to give empirical, verifiable evidence for this would simply be impossible, for the same reasons and in the same way.

lol xD

By the way guys... are there any theists here one can actually have an intelligent discussion? I often wisit atheist forums on facebook, but most of the theists there are just ignorant trolls.

Why a brain with no brain? Sorry, don't get the argument, a theist said that? I usually hear them talk of spirits (I ask them if they believe in ghosts, what proof they have for 'spirits' existing etc.) and of 'god' being somekind of synonym for love (a simple neurology lesson and it's refuted) etc. Hmmm. Psychology and cybernetics do talk of AI, but that's different, because it's material. Cognitive science views the brain as a processor and the machine is no monolith. It is made up of many modules designed for specific purposes. As Pinker puts it, the brain  ''is a system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life, in particular, understanding and outmaneuvering objects, animals, plants, and other people. . . . On this view, psychology is engineering in reverse. In forward-engineering [what evolution did when it created the brain], one designs a machine to do something; in reverse-engineering, one figures out what a machine was designed to do.''. So I guess a 'spirit', if it existed, would have to be without a brain. lol

In a way this is probably similar to my argument against the soul. The argument being that science proved our personality = we, is a ''product'' of the brain. Trauma to the brain causes change in the personality. Different drugs can also cause change in the brain chemistry and again you have change in personality. So this is proof enough that we are our brain and when we die, the brain stops working and even if something is left to leave the body, then it most probably isn't us...

My second argument concernig the soul is linked to the experiment where it was proven that the body right after death looses weight (I don't know if you heard of it, but many people use it as an argument for the soul). If we accept the body looses weight because of the soul, then the soul is material or energy. We know it can't be material and I never heard of any good explanation how energy transformed into and lost as thermal energy (heat from your dead body), could take with it your personality (for example). Really doesn't make sense.

Some people say it's consciousness, but even consciousness requires a brain and a nervous system (or something along those lines). With the breakdown of that system comes the breakdown of consciousness as well. Both, personality and consciousness are the process taking place which involves also energy. But electrical impulses and thermal energy are not, in and of themselves consciousness or personality. Otherwise you could simply electrocute a pot of boiling water and say that you had created a mind.

The most probable explanation of the resaults of the mentioned experiment is in my oppinion energy and moist from the body ''released'' with the dying pearsons last breath.

Some interesting philosophy on the subject:
http://academicearth.org/courses/death
http://www.ghostweb.com/soul.html

Lol, I just realised that I probably answered my own question, which was the reason for even posting a reply. Sorry. Though I'm still not 100% sure I got it right. Anyway, you seem to be quite knowledgeable about psychology Brian, do you study it by any chance?

I'm an idiot.

I wonder if god really knows that he is more powerful than Satan. I mean why let this guy hang around for so long? I mean take him out already. God must have his doubts.