Jesus is your parking space.

   Many people believe in such things as Asphaulta. My Grandma was one. I found it silly, but she loved it and I honor her for it. I'm not a religious man though. You must remember that, while Jesus may have walked this earth, he was also a believer of a book. He was given his position by other believers. He was destined to live the life he did because of written prophecy which people then followed because they were believers in the said prophecy... Prophecies that are put into writing are interesting things. They have a tendency to either be interpreted by their believers to have transpired, or they are facilitated by their believers and made to transpire.
  There is nothing more than oral, and later written lore, to back up the god concept. All gods are conceptual. The interesting thing is that even when the nature of the concept is spelled out it still seems to survive... I illustrated this in telling you that there is a little part of me that wants to believe Asphaulta really does make a difference. In reality I was creating the "grace" of Asphaulta by putting the pieces together as I hoped they would be. It is an interesting thing, the mind.
  I have read a good portion of the bible... I have also taken comparative religion courses. This neither validates or invalidates my authority. Authorities are often wrong. The belief in the bible is authoritarian belief. You believe it because you are told it is true. There is no solid real world basis for the belief so you are left with faith.
   I see religion for what it is. I don't waste my time trying to disprove scripture. The god of the bible is limitless and leaves little room for dispute only due to the nature of the character. Religion altogether is an ideological cultural phenomena. It has a strength in that it gives us a sense of protection and, in religions with afterlife myths, a cure for that horrible problem of mortality. It also draws strength from empathy because parents have an urge to tell their kids that everything will be OK. In the end though it is only philosophy. A philosophy that has survived for a long time because no other better philosophy has been accepted. There are many philosophies about god. Most of them are similar because of the nature of the concept. Based on the nature of reality and the physical world that we actually can know most of them are extremely far fetched and delve into the world of metaphysics. Metaphysics are conceptual, for they can currently not be shown to exist.
  The likely truth is that all of our concepts of our origins are flawed in some sense. The major flaw in the god concept is that it requires an assumption; God exists. In science we are to only gather data, make an hypothesis, test the hypothesis and either accept the findings or throw them out for a new hypothesis. Since I can't obviously convince you of the conceptual nature of god I will give you this question and obvious nature of the only answer. If everything that exists needs to have a creator, who created god? Endless regress is what we come up against with this hypothesis. There can be claims made about it, though with only speculative basis. You may even say that faith is necessary, and we all know about the problem with faith. You are left with an assumption. A grand speculation...

The following is only to illustrate my point further:

"There is nothing to indicate the god you hypothesize about when you pull into a parking place – nothing."

There is nothing to indicate the god you hypothesize about when you read your bible - Nothing.

Clearly there is something that I can give you to indicate that Asphaulta exists. I get parking spaces up front all the time! All the time! But you wouldn't believe me. You have to know the love of Asphaulta to understand. You have to experience it for yourself.

Jesus is your parking space.

A Grand Speculation (More about Asphaulta)

   Design is purely a conceptual hypothesis. To say there is evidence for design is to show that you have put the pieces together in your pattern finding mind; putting a creator into the world a priori. Real science does not make grand assumptions. There is no evidence that stacks up to show that there has to be a god or a designer. Creation is an assumption based assertion.
  The reason that there are so many God/Creation concepts is that we try to find reasons for everything. I pray to Asphaulta when I  pull into a parking lot. A lot of the time I get spaces up front. I could attribute those spaces to a pleased Asphaulta, and attribute a poor space to my displeasing Asphaulta by, say... speeding. I could assert that Asphaulta is absolutely real. You wouldn't be able to dispute it because the circumstantial evidence adds up to her existence.
   The problem Asphaulta, and every other god concept, runs into is that it is an inference based on experience. If you break it down, a person who never prays to Asphaulta will get the same random parking spaces, some up front, some further back. There is no reason to say that Asphaulta actually exists beyond human inference. As disheartening of a realization this is for us believers in Asphaulta and other gods... it's unfortunately true.
  The odd thing about this is that, even after realizing the reality of the matter, there is a little part of me that actually believes that Asphaulta makes a difference when I do happen upon a space up front after praying to her. It shows a common trait in humans to attribute coincidence to a design, or a larger reason. We want god to exist.
   Many will undoubtably discredit this because of the absurdity of my parking lot goddess. I probably would too. Please realize though that the god I speak of is no different in conceptual structure than yours, or any others', god.

One more thing... To say that evolution doesn't rule out a designer is true. To go on and say that implies a definite, undoubted designer is a leap of speculation.
A Grand Speculation.

God. A Grand Speculation. (BETA)

God is only a construct of the human psyche.

This is based on naturalism. As I like to put it, the natural is what we wake up to every day. What we know exists because it just does. We can stop believing in it, and it's still there...

   There really is no disputing that we are all sense based creatures. We see, smell, hear, feel, and taste the world. What we interpret from these senses are purely a product of our mind's often faulty interpretation of information.

If I see the color blue, I am receiving photons of a certain spectral form which then my mind weighs against my other senses, and what they are percieving at that moment. Eventually I see blue (it could actually be a different color, but if the surrounding environment and other sensory perception leads my mind to blue, that is what I see). This is just how we work.

   These senses are beyond slightly fallible. We can hallucinate, have insane dreams, and even completely change personality, or who we are our proverbial soul, with a little viral infection or brain damage.We also like to order things from a child putting the square block in the square hole to Faces, patterns, and so much more... We like to make order of coincidence as well.

   Here is a demonstration of this from my own experience. When I go to the super market I say a little prayer (I know, atheist blasphemy). It goes like this, "Asphaulta, Asphaulta, goddess of grace, please will you grant me a parking space?" This is said with the implied intention of getting not only a parking space, but a good one, preferably up front. When I say this little wish, some of the time I get a space right up front, sometimes a little further back, rarely though do I not get one. Of course that goes without saying. There always will eventually be a space for me to park. The interesting thing is it happens that I tend to remember and cherish the instances where I get spaces up front more vividly. Something in me fools me into thinking that saying this prayer improves my chances of a closer space. Any statistician would tell you that's a matter of chance, in reality. But in my mind, in some way, I think I am, or rather Asphaulta is, making a difference.

We sensory creatures see not just order, but also interaction where there is really only random coincidence. This disposition leads us to come up with all sorts of reasons, true or false, for things to happen. The concept of god comes from this. Our testimonies about god also come from a mixture of our fallible senses, and our desire to make sense of everything..

   There is no reason other than presumptive hypothesis to assume that god exists. Belief in spite of this is supported by followers of religion because they are conditioned by society, churches, parents, etc... to perceive certain experiences to be explained by god. To further back the idea of god, psychologically, we have the problem of mortality and no control. God, the concept, helps us with these dilemmas by comforting us with ideas of control, via perceived prayer, and protection. In reality there is no need for god as an explanation for any experience at all. Coincidence is everywhere and supposed successful prayer, as displayed with Asphaulta, is only our ordering of it. It really is just our want to believe and often our lack of understanding of our perception.

God is only a grand speculation.

"Fundies"

Fundamentalism is the lack of ability to think outside of the box.

I have found in my short amount of time on twitter that there are many people who claim, and would even go so far as to think, that they are free thinking people. They claim to think for themselves, but fall into the philosophy of another. The worldview they often reach is in the scope of generalization. They say things like, "all Christians are idiots!", "all theists are fundies", and much, much worse. Not only does the act of name calling create walls of disdain, it also solidifies the view that all atheists are hateful people who are miserable and angry.

That being said. I will hold my view that theism is the wrong answer to life's questions. I will not tell anyone what to believe, but only what is wrong with their belief.

We are all products of our environment. We think the way we do because we were taught to by the experiences we have. Being a theist doesn't make you an idiot. It does make you assume your right. You're probably not.

~Jesus and his Dinosaur.

Religious people, fine by me.

Religious people! God is an idea...often a very good idea, when it comes to psychological well being in terms of death and your human lack of control over reality. Again, it's only an idea. If you think prophecies will or have come true, you're wrong (and like to read into coincidence). If you think god speaks to our spirits (also only an idea), you're wrong. If you think god creates disasters because of sexual acts, you're wrong (and quite possibly a bit obsessed).

If you understand that god is an idea, but still choose to believe in it, whichever one it is, and proceed to think with your mind and not with your figurative "bible of choice". You're fine by me. :)

Sunday School

You can dine in heaven or hell,

I'll be fine in the dirt.

I'm so sick from these situations,

Watching little four year olds getting hurt.

Because they're totally susceptible to your,

Socialized belief,

And it's totally irreparable you're nothing,

But a thief,

Because you steal away your own children just to,

Adjust their minds,

Tell them what their allowed to believe

And waste away their time,

And you can walk out through the arches

Just like taking off a coat,

But they cant escape for a moment,

To them the devil, it is no joke,

You don't understand my plight

no evidence I've seen is quite

anything other than delusions

I don't want to go to Sunday school

Teacher keeps giving me nightmares

and I dont want to be mindless,

Just like all the other kids,

Mama, I Don't wanna go to Sunday school!

Give me one good reason why you,

think I need to pray,

I don't need an insurance plan,

I don't need a just in case,

And would god need my worship would he,

Want me to waste my time?

Would he like to see what I could create

In my given time?

If there is a god above I mean no disrespect,

I'd rather try to believe in love,

then we'll see what we get.

Truth

For some reason people dance around the truth an awful lot. They don't want to tell you that maybe you've got some egg on your face, or a bat in the cave. They don't want to say, "I disagree" (At least I don't). It's a problem that we all have. A lack of honesty due to an attempt to be PC.
Be blunt, it's important.

P.S. Don't be ignorant about it.