Will science ever find the ultimate answer to God?

[Inso0]

What church are you talking about?

The catholics? They are always the last christian group to get with the times.

I wish I knew more about the foundations and teachings of catholicism and where they originated. The catholic beliefs for things are too often cited as examples of "what christians believe".

Sorry, the catholics do NOT speak for all christians.

[bunny]

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I'm curious... as a theist, do you spend much time wondering if any of the other religions got it right? I always think it interesting to think that an ancient religion turns out to actually be true. What if the Aztecs had it right? I assume most people dismiss the older dead religions as necessarily wrong when there is no reason to give them more or less credibility then any other. Clearly mankind has a long history of creating and either forgetting or altering their religions into something new. But perhaps someone already got it right but no one else agreed?

(of course this gets into my other problem with organized religions -- we could list hundreds if not thousands of religions (and variations within) throughout history that man has followed; I suspect each thought they were speaking about the divine -- each had devoted faithful followers -- it seems to me if it was real and it really mattered, God would have made it a little more clear which was right. (this is the part where usually some people quote their particular religious texts stating how God will reveal himself if you listen... ignorant of the fact that followers of other 'Gods' may have similar scripture and feeling as they. And they tend to ignore the fact that many atheists WERE raised to believe and sought God with their hearts and found nothing.

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I cant say I've spent much time investigating other religions, though I made an effort to read widely when I first came to the realisation that I believed in God. Christianity seemed "most right" to me or resonated, or whatever term you want to use. There are obvious possible naturalistic reasons for that and my conclusion was that there was no rational way for me to choose a religion (though I think some can be excluded due to inconsistency - literal christianity, for example). So I consider myself a rational theist, though my choice of which religion is necessarily irrational.

I dont believe in hell (I don't even believe very strongly in an afterlife) so I dont have an idea that there's some "true" religion in a sea of false ones which will damn us forever. I think all religion is an inaccurate attempt to express our spiritual experiences. I think some is divinely inspired and some not - the believer's job, imo, is to take what we find in religion, reflect on it, relate it to our personal experience of God and grow in the process.

I dont think anyone has got it completely right and I kind of agree with you that it would seem to be a capricious God to spread thousands of faiths professing to be "The Way" and then damn anyone who made an incorrect choice. I think God cares about the process we go through as we learn about him, not whether we've been baptised, work on Saturdays or provide a human sacrifice every summer solstice.

[luckyme]

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I think God cares about the process we go through as we learn about him, not whether we've been baptised, work on Saturdays or provide a human sacrifice every summer solstice.

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Darn, and here I've been making a list for late june.

luckyme

[bunny]

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I think God cares about the process we go through as we learn about him, not whether we've been baptised, work on Saturdays or provide a human sacrifice every summer solstice.

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Darn, and here I've been making a list for late june.

luckyme

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I think he wants us to do good things as well - but that doesnt depend on whether we belong to a religion. I was restricting myself to the which-religion-is-right question kurto raised.

[mickeyg13]

It is true that Catholics are not representative of what Christians believe. It is not true that they are always the last of Christians to get with the times.

I admit that Catholics took a few hundred years too long to admit that Galileo got it right, for example. However, Catholicism does not, for example, teach that the Earth is only 6000 years old. Many other denominations believe in a literal, word for word translation of the Bible. Catholicism does not do this, and as a result it allows for the likelihood that the Earth is a few billion years old and that man did actually evolve from single-celled organisms. I think many people have a terrible understanding of Christianity and falsely assume that it cannot be compatible with science; religion and science do not have to be mutually exclusive.

[CORed]

No.