[orgaelin]

There were so many interesting points made here already by the time I found the conversation. I'll do my best to come back on as many of them as I can!

First of all you (mikemadman) caught my attention with the discussion of nothingness. Biologically speaking, the human brain is incapable of fully appreciating a concept of nothingness, just like it cannot appreciate infinity. The brain is built so that it can only experience or understand things that it has either seen before or can relate to what it has seen before.

I relate so much to most of what you said about wanting to have something to believe, and the drive it would give you if you could find your beliefs, your truth. I used to take comfort from my inability to conceive of smiply 'not existing', untill I learned that the inability was just a feature of the human brain!

Ah well!

On to the subject of religion being there to explain what science can't... I disagree with that idea. I think religion is there to fill in the gap left by those things which *should not* be explained. Sure the nature of matter and space time is fascinating and observable and all that... but spirituality, faith, etc. should be (and should remain) to the adult as a magician is to a child... magic!

Explaining takes away the joy - and THAT is the real meaning of blind faith. Blind faith is where you don't need proof or evidence or confirmation. If you experience something, cherish it, don't analyse it.

Religion is a bad scar on Humanity's already tarnished reputation. Like most people here said, it has been responsible for more death, suffering, deception, and the invention of some of the most terrible torture methods known in the galaxy!

It's not good for society. It is an old and outdated method of control - the forerunner of today's governments that can't just be forgotten about. It has been a drug for those in fear of death for thousands of years, and those in power have supplied it readily and freely(ish) to the point where it stands now as the foundation of our societies. It serves no purpose now other than as a substitute drug for helping people go clean and start believing in science instead.

I like what someone suggested as an evolutionary benefit of religion, but I personally believe that the religious yearning inside of us is not a part of our evolved nature at all.

We have a 'spiritual side' because we are spiritual entities within physical bodies. We don't have souls... we *are* souls.