Your straying from the point, which, simply, is that you don't have to see, hear, or feel something to believe in it. You know it's possible, but it's never been done. It can't be done, yet you could easily imagine it. ( like parallel lines)
Very late response, but this:
You describe parallel lines as an ideal. An ideal of ines that do not touch, and where every congruent point is equidistant between the two lines. You can illustrate this and anyone who understands the principle can tell you you're illustrating parallel lines. =
Nobody agrees on God. On his shape, form or sect. Which of his chosen people are
the chosen people. Whether he's a he, a she (Mary (yes, Marianism is a widely accepted heresy), Gaia) or an it... (errh... Gaia). You can't draw a picture of God. You can't describe God in an equation.
Why should I assume that there's only 1 God? Many religions on earth account for multiple deities. In some cases it would be better for me to not attempt to falsely pray on my deathbed out of a selfish desire to avoid some sort of hell. Even with Christianity it would do no good to pray just-in-case.
I had a good friend in College who was Hindu. Before every exam, he'd visit every mosque, church and temple in the city (Hinduism embraces polytheism). When he left for the US, he married a Catholic. I guess he has his bases covered.
If you pray to God (no name, no nothing, just God) you basically cover all of them. (except roman gods and indian and pagan gods)
Not those that require blood sacrifice. And most monotheistic gods have a rule: "no other god before me..."
God isn't in part of the universe.
Not in your religion, he isn't. The Egyptians worshipped him as the Sun. Many pagan religions worship nature. There are religions which put a Heaven and a Hell on a separate but very physical plane of existence... an idea that has been co-opted by the Christians from the Romans (Hades).
And many versions of Paradise have a very real, material element to them. Virgins don't grow on trees, you know.
Would intelligent design be a better word in describing how the universe came to be?
Intelligent Design describes nothing. It isn't even a valid philosophy. A philosophy of Intelligent design would allow that the parameters that describe our Universe were set by an outside influence, and this led our Universe to develop into what it is today.
Instead, they insist that everything that we see today is static and unchanging and is as it was designed from the beginning. An idea that's laughable in the face of very real evidence of the mutability of organisms, actual tectonic shifts and changes occuring within our lifetime and even measurable climate change (whether or not you ascribe to anthropogenic global warming, there is no doubting that climate changes over time).
It's a childish reaction to the science of evolution and biology. Simply a bunch of otherwise intelligent people saying: "It can't be so because it's too complex to understand."
Science is a branch of study dedicated to observable facts. Religion is more of a mental belief system where almost nothing is proven using observation. Religion is the answer to science, but science can't explain religion.
Religion doesn't answer science at all. It often, in fact, denies it.
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