Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

[superchunk]

Man some of you are crazy zealots who act just as bad as the theists you like to complain about.

Overly aggressive, fantastical cherry-picking, and extreme examples, and so on.

I didn't answer the original questions as an attempt to pursued anyone's opinion. I was asked about my reasoning and I attempted to provide that through high-level assertion of my own studies as well as broad answers to generalize my thoughts on God. However, folks here treat this as a fanatical interrogation and some sort of personal self-righteous cause to win (i.e. a zealot). You are acting exactly like the religious factions you decry.

As an example, I stated above that most stories have some sort of basis in truth.

I highlighted that Noah's flood story is found in a large number of civilizations and religious cultures which suggests that it has to contain some level of truth. Does that equate to a world-wide flood where a guy fit every living thing in a single boat? No, of course not. But it could mean some regionally catastrophic flood where a guy had a boat that saved a lot of life (people or farms, etc). He could of claimed later that spiritual guidance drove his actions, etc and that over time blew up to the many variations we have now.

I also answered a direct extreme question related to believing in dragons and I said, yes they did obviously exist as Dinosaurs. I specifically called out that people misinterpreted them to form the dragon theme. The retort I get is if dinos breathed fire, etc. WTF, did you not read what I wrote or were you too busy trying to win your extremist ideological fantasy bowl that you jump to further extreme commentary? Of course, the fire, etc of dragons is part of the misrepresentation and fantasy that was developed by folks who built stories from Dinosaur bones. Same with your other mythical creatures, many have real roots. Beasts similar to horses had a single horn and thus unicorns. People are born who grow to extraordinary sizes, thus giants. Sailors have always seen weird shit due to light refraction, etc and thus mermaids, loch ness, etc.

Back to the concept of God. The question was "do you believe and why". Not "prove to me why I'm wrong bitch".

I'm happy that what you believe makes you happy and hopefully you see the bigger picture. Be a good human during your limited time in this universe and treat others as you'd want to be treated.