@spike

i can understand where you come from with a lot of what you said, but i'll just say a few things

personally i think, if there is no god then there is no responsibility (kind of what you implied i think)
there is only 'chance' and chaos, what randomness we make of it, and no absolute truth, morals, or reason for anything. those who try to explain morality or any of that without a god will struggle to. however some people use that belief to do whatever they want, like murder (if nothing matters why not?), but that is assuming their philosophy is right anyway (although people will hurt others through most philosophies seemingly).

so IF that were all true then i see no difference between a self-centered philosophy of looking after oneself or looking to take care of others,
but i think a self-centered philosophy isn't right, and only seeking to please oneself shouldn't be our aim, nor do i think it will solve world problems, nor bring personal happiness. but that is my belief, i probably cannot prove this and i won't go further into it

i think people's self-centeredness are a cause of a lot of problems in the world rather than a solution.
we are a very social bunch, and to serve ourselves or whatever it'll sometimes have to do with other people, so when we do bad to acheive our ends sometimes it can bring pain to others

but if there's no god, then chaos and randomness are all we will ever reap. the pain in the world and wars are simply the natural outcome of what would be the apparent cause of everything, chaos and randomness.


@ sebcrea

thanks for your comment, whether it was directed at me or not i'm not completely sure

i'll borrow a few thoughts for my response.


i believe you are right that within religion with a god that gets involved in human affairs you'd want proof of it.
what proof are you after?
they are digging up all the things of the bible for instance, like the battles, cities, even walls in foreign countries to the israelites with some of the prophecies which critics decided didn't exist. the bible's version of events is not without empirical evidence.

as to the afterlife, or what happens after life, why would one's brain or body affect it, unless indeed it is a religion to do with the afterlife using the same body? ones body can deteriorate separate to the mind, or vice versa anyway, why would a soul die with it?

as to your basing your beliefs from ground up around facts and science, here's a point for one philosophy of why it can't be done (i am not personally against using facts and science though)

do you believe in athiestic evolution?
if so then i would guess you'd believe that time & chance & matter created everything, including our minds.
if that's so then you'd have to agree that truth as an absolute category no longer exists, as truth by nature is absolute.
time, matter, and chance are changing, they are not absolute, you never get time chance and matter remaining the same.
truth cannot be derived from such changing un-absolutes, it would have to be not-absolute.

if that is correct, and there is no absolute truth, then how do you know it is true? that time & chance & matter created your mind or that any science is true?

as einstein put it: "scientists make poor philosophers." a lot of scientists don't realise about the assumptions they make about science.
there are philisophical assumptions at the foundations of all the sciences, maths, theology, etc.
since when was science the ultimate truth of the universe? analyse one's own philosophies and you'll see the assumptions there. science isn't self-evident proof of anything.

separately, it is an interesting illustration that g.k.chesterton makes:
God is like the sun, you cannot look at it, but without it you cannot look at anything else.
But to a scientist who thinks he can explain everything with his formula, he says his god is like the moon, completely confined, defined, and completely scrutable.

just cos you can study science, and it seems logical, is it the only thing?

do you really think science is an absolute truth? do you think absolutely all existance and everything can be explained and understood by a series of mathematical equations? are you only willing to believe in what you can comprehensively understand?
they are big assumptions, and you have nothing more than that to base it on.
you'd just believe it to be so. and that was your argument against people who believe in a god.

(but just so you know, i do believe science with my philosophy can be true. i am not against emperical evidence, and science. but it's not on it's own self-evident as such.)