Where would the world be right now if religion never existed?

[FaRmLaNd]

highwaystar101 said:

FaRmLaNd said:

To the people saying that one can't be expected to prove God exists.

Yes you are expected, the burden of proof is on you. I cannot believe in something that has no evidence beyond personal revelation that is indistinguishable from hallucination. Saying "God talks to me!" is not convincing to anyone but yourself.

Atheism is simply the rejection of a positive claim (that God exists) because of the lack of evidence, nothing more. I will gladly believe in God if it can be demostrated to me with evidence. Sadly I've never seen or read about any such evidence and even the philosophical arguments seem inconsistent to me when you apply rudimentary logic and reasoning. So even the claims without evidence I find unconvincing.

Its not that I neccesarily despise God (though the monotheistic God does seem like an ass when you read his holy books), its simply that the positive claim doesn't have any convincing evidence.

I've adopted the stance of "you can't prove God, but you can try to prove his interactions with the world to prove his existance".

Just like scientists trying to prove the existence of some fundamental particles; they can't prove they exist directly, but they can prove they exist by the interactions they have with other particles. Like finding the scent, if you will.

Many religions talk of a God(s) who interacts freely and frequently with the Earth. Gods usually are the creators of the Universe, the world and humans. Such a being may not be observable to us, but the effects he has had on would be observable to us. 

I'll take the classic Abrahamic story of creation, which tells us that the Earth was created by god 6000 years ago. To prove the Abrahamic god would be impossible, but one could go further towards validating that god's existence if all the evidence we found was in line with the Earth being created 6000 years ago. Unfortunately it is not. The same God had also caused a great flood which covered the Earth, an event which would still bear abundant evidence, even today. But again, the evidence for this interaction with the Earth is not abundant.

Well I didn't say how you'd have to prove anything about god but the historical evidence is certainly lacking as you say. Which is another reason why I'm not religious.