Is there any proof for god? No. Is there any proof against? No. (How can we disprove some transparent entity that is EVERYWHERE AT ONCE that we can't take the heat of, measure the footprints, etc, see these paragraphs by Carl Sagan:
www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm ) Proof is the wrong way to go about things with god,
probability is the thing to go after. Is there a strong probability of god existing? If you want to look at it from a point of 'majority rule', then yes, there is a great probability of god existing. If I remember correctly, 83% of Americans classify themselves as Christians, and this is almost indisputably due to tradition, not truth. The parents pound the information into children's heads, and children will believe just about anything the parent tells them. I, myself, was not born with the malleable part of the brain, I suppose, because my parents pounded christianity into me and I have always been skeptical of these supernatural things. I was the kid that stayed up all night to catch my parents putting presents under the tree.
Now, if you want to look at it from a point of reality, then, no, there probably is not a god. God is obsolete; he used to be there to tell us how things work, but we don't need him for that anymore, we have something else, a game of 20 billion questions, called science. The bible is a book with nice stories in it, that's it. (Not all are nice, see Leviticus)
Let me answer some commonly asked questions.
"But how are we going to get our morals!"
Don't you think that at some point in time, we would learn to be civil without god? What morals are we talking about, anyway? The ten commandments? The first 4 are telling us not to have any other gods (god is jealous) and the only two on the list that are actual laws are don't steal and don't kill. Don't you think we would say, at some time, "hey, let's not kill eachother, and leave my stuff alone". Surely we would. The Ten aren't even a good list, what about torture, rape, child abuse? If we came up with a list today, I think we could make a better list then the Ten. You can get the same great morals out of a book of "Morals". My kindergarten class used to read them all the time: "And the moral of the story is...."
"But without god, there will be rioting in the street!"
That is ridiculous, but I've had some theists say it to me. Surely if we can get our morals without god, we can come to this conclusion without him too. "Hey guys, let's stop fighting and build a farm or something so we can all stop suffering"
"What if you're wrong?"
Surely if God is a trusting and loving god, he can understand my skepticism, I mean, he hasn't really given me much to run on.
"Shortbus, my son, you must go to hell!"
"But God, you didn't give me much proof! How do you expect a logical mind to follow an old ass book with a bunch of silly stories in it!?"
"I didn't come from no monkey."
Charles Darwin never said we CAME from monkies, but that we have a common decedent, which, if you look at the genetics, is pretty convincing, more convincing that Adam and Eve in a garden with a talking snake. I find that a lot of skeptics of Evolution by Natural Selection have been getting their information from some evangelist site like Kirk Cameron's (www.thewayofthemaster.com, hilarious and sad at the same time)
"I KNOW there is a god"
Nobody knows, not even you.
"But I've seen miracles!"
You've seen the same mundane coincidences that every other person lives with.
"They was miracles."
Alrighty then.
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Now, to Darknezz' overall question,
"What is god".
God is an omnipotent, all powerful and omniscient. He is a being that people either use as a crutch because they can't take the heat/stress of life, or as some explanation of all that is. Ofcourse, this is no fault of their own, but their parents, and their parents parents, so on. Tradition rule.
"Why should we worship it?"
We shouldn't. Religion, I strongly hold, is detrimental to the progress of mankind. It has a way of softening people's brains, they are more ready to say "God did it" than to jump in there and find out the REAL way this or that works the way it does.
Bottom line: Extraordinary claims (god) require extraordinary evidence (which there is none of)
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I hope I didn't offend anybody too greatly, but these cringe-worthy subjects shall always be cringe-worthy unless they are debated and discussed. We need to come up with a final answer, as human beings, or this will always be cringe-worthy.
