Is religion still relevant in modern society?

[tolu619]

Runa216 said:

6 - as a final point  here, You gotta stop acting like I'm on some sort of crusade against all religion. I DO think it's a stupid thing to believe in (no more reliable than voodoo magic or pagan spirituality or astral projection), but I've always held a very simple belief that you can do what you want as long as you keep it to yourself.  I'd be happy to keep my beliefs to myself if there weren't people like you and Padib going around using the bible as an excuse to judge others or your faith to steamroll scientific progress to 'defend your values.'  I'd be happy to let bygones be bygones, but you've been remarkably aggressive (even moreso than I), so I have no intention of tabling this until you either rage-quit, are banned, or the thread is locked.  I may have low tolerance for certain things, but at least I'm not flying off the handle because some random person on the internet hurt my feelings.  

     Allow me to make an assumption before I post. Let me assume that everyone here that doesn't believe that God exists also doesn't believe in the existence of spirits or any of the bolded above. Also allow me to use jargon, which I will briefly explain in brackets. I live in Nigeria, and in my country, atheists are almost non-existent. Of course, there are religious hypocrites, but for lack of a better term, the closest thing we have to atheism is that people believe in the existence of spirits, but not a supreme God. Why? That's because all the western civilisation and technology here hasn't driven away the witches and babalawos (read: wizard/witch doctor. picture those guys in RPGs that give you charms/tell the future)

    First, let me differentiate. A babalawo uses his abilities to help people in exchange for 2 things. First, you pay the guy. Second, you fulfil his deity's conditions in exchange for the spell you're asking for. The conditions are usually ridiculous (drink something no one would ever want to drink, bath with this item, go around place X in public naked, or sacrifice lives - a relative if the spell is really powerful). Desperate people or politicians usually patronize these guys, either to find out why something happened, to curse/kill someone without it being tracable to them, or to gain money or power. This is what the Bible was referring to when it said "The blessings of God maketh rich and addeth no sorrow" as opposed to the likes of babalawos. Witches don't help anybody. They operate in covens and do wicked acts that benefit only themselves.

    These people have always been secretive, so civilisation hasn't driven them out none. Picture it like organised crime. Everybody knows its happening, a cop might even be friends with a few top criminals, but the same ignore-what-you-can attitude that people have to organised crime applies in this case. The thing is that many people patronize these babalawos, hence, they believe in the spiritual world without neccessarily believing in God. Some people even belong to a religion in public (as someone has said on this thread, it has become a social thing of sorts) to cover up the fact that they don't actually believe in God but patronize babalawos. Hell, even 2 members of my extended family are witches. It's not like they walked up to me and said "hey, I'm a witch", but when you notice this kinda thing, you just act like you don't know.

     These are not just bad practices that need to be kicked out, they WILL  convince you of the existence of demons and the spirit world in general. When a babalawo tells something he can't have possibly known about your past/future or casts a spell that OBVIOUSLY worked, your doubt will die. You believe in science because you can SEE it work. You don't need faith for that. I believe in science too (and on a sidenote, the Bible has further proved the existence of Dinosaurs to me, as well as many other scientific facts), as much as I believe in the spirit world. I don't need faith to do that, I see it clearly. So if all this is true, what makes me think there's a supreme God, or that there's a 'right' religion? Because I know him as my friend, not just as a God that someone told me about. I have a personal relationship with him.He's as real to me and the guy standing right next to me.

    I went through this mental exercise before writing this post. How can I prove that a person (human) in front of me exists or doesn't? Well, I've never had to because I can see, touch and speak to him, just like anyone else can. Can I prove God's existence the same way? Yes, because you can also feel Him/speak with him as I do. Then I found the problem with this analogy. You can touch/see the human with your physical eyes and do the same to God with your spiritual eyes, but what if you don't even believe you have a spirit? Ah! So that's where the problem lies. Honestly, I don't know exactly how to go about that becasue I wouldn't know how to prove to someone that he had a hand when his hand has been right there on him all along and he has even USED IT SOMETIMES, MAYBE SUBCONSCIOUSLY (for example, things happen/are confirmed in the spirit before they happen physically. that's why you sometimes have Deja Vu).

     With this obstruction, all I can do is tell the many instances of God speaking to me or people I know and/or the physical-law-defying miracles I've seen/experienced. The best proofs are usually the ones where God said the same thing to different people who don't even know each other about a person/event that will occur or miracles that many people witnessed without a doubt. However, I've discovered that when I post specific examples that can't be explained away, atheists that read it assume I made it up since the only 2 explanations (when it can't be explained away otherwise) are either it's true, or I made it up. I usually wonder what they think my motivation would be for making it up. I would go to a forum and type so much to convince people I don't even know that something I hope is true actually is true? If I was in doubt as to whether or not it was true, I wouldn't be trying to convince others.

    And personally, I think people that worship God while being unsure of his existence (meaning they obviously don't have a relationship with Him) are in a very unenviable position. At least an atheist is sure of what he's saying. I don't know what else I wanted to say that I've left out of this post but i'll post again if I remember any point I wanted to make. Since this is a legthy post, anyone that wants to quote me should delete the parts that his reply doesn't address so we can be more sure of what exactly I said that he's replying to.

   @Runa, I'm sure you will find the truth because you strike me as someone that is more interested in knowing the truth than being right. When you do, please come to these forums and tell us about it. Until then, stand by what is true to you. Your type usually ends up as the most powerful type of evangelist (Paul in the Bible and many people I know in our generation). :D