Well, if you're bored, I have a little wall of text
. And now I'm off to read that article Cory posted to see if it makes any sense to me.
I will just have to go along in my own way on this...the whole idea of a "God", or any of the many other gods, is non-sensical to me.
I think 1 makes more sense than many, but I guess it depends on how a person defines a god. It is also not surprising that it is nonsensical to you, because that is the trend of modern philosophy. The ancient Greeks have proven the humans can be advanced in the field of philosophy and science even long ago, and they believed in many gods, though those gods are laughably human. Interestingly it seems their idea of Zeus somewhat resembles the single God of some monotheistic religions. Whether right or wrong, many people seemed to not have much problem with believing in gods until relatively recently. I think many people long ago would eventually conclude or suspect the existence of a god/gods just on their own. I think that in part modern scientific discoveries have raised so many more questions than were originally set out to answer, such that we discover reasons to doubt the existence of God due to the difficulty we face in seeing the big picture, especially when there are unanswered questions. Basically, I don't think science disproves God, but I think that the process of learning about everything leaves one to jump to conclusions in an impatience to know everything which will eventually prove God. Granted I'm biased, but I am also convinced of God.
The way we seem to think of things suggests that we first choose to believe something, then explain it. Our choice of faith may be influenced by an explanation first, but it is still a choice to have faith in the concept and the evidence/explanation given so far, which could still be erroneous. If someone honestly seeks truth, it would probably be best to try to defend and explain both sides of the issue, in this case believing in God and not, then make a conclusion. The main problem being that the research into both beliefs will in most cases far from sufficiently complete before most people choose to quit and make their choice.
I have made my choice, and I have held onto it in the face of doubt and contrary evidence, to later have information and reasoning come along that supports and strengthens my choice more than the contrary evidence so far.
I also think that there are evil forces than tempt/influence us to choose to not believe in both God and such evil spirits.
I have no rub with anyone else finding the opposite to be true. If it works for you, great. Now if we want to get into the pros and cons of organized religions, we will have to look at good done vs. bad done, and on that score, I have a very hard time finding more good than bad. But that is certainly a different subject than the existence of gods, or lack thereof.
I'm not surprised you have a hard time finding more good than bad. Part of the reason being what the religion sees as good and bad being different that a person of a different philosophy, but a big part of the reason is that human being have proven time and again that they can mess anything up, even if they have the best of intentions while doing so. So we have to be careful not to judge a religion by what the human beings who try to follow it do, but judge it by its principles and what the outcome is when the human element does not mess up the intended results.
If a god wants me to believe in it, it will have to make itself more readily apparent than a god ever has done in my life so far. Perhaps some would say that attitude shows a level of ego I might be better off without, but I do not think so.
That is a loaded topic as well, involving much more than I am able and willing to go into at the moment. God works in mysterious ways. It seems He wants some to look for Him, while other times He seems to show Himself clearly to others. Ego can go many ways: determining to find Him, demanding to be revealed to, determined to avoid Him. Study the fundamentals of a religion, and you will probably find its god. Mentioning ego is an interesting point, because in the case of what I believe to be the one true God, finding Him starts with humility, because it is said God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud. On that point, it is also found in the Bible that the angel salutes the soon to be mother of God incarnate as "full of grace", suggesting she has a fullness of humility, which is proven in some of the verses following. But that's a whole other topic.
