>I don’t see how this is the case at all. This may be true
>for some, but the root of opposition to SS marriage has long
>been religious dogma, a view that it is just plain wrong,
>unnatural, things like that. I wouldn’t put population
>growth in the top five reasons people give, now or ever.
>
>Further, how many societies have ever been so completely
>consumed with homosexuality that a decrease in population was
>a serious and real threat, regardless of perception? Has there
>ever been a justification for this based on the threat of this
>actually happening?
>
>Further, it’s not just SS marriage, but the treatment of
>homosexuality as a whole that is at issue, and I was simply
>giving but one practical example of how people impose their
>religious views on others, and this is absolutely one of
>them.

Let's start with this. The bible isn't a collection of real accounts nor are most of, if not all of the stories a direct revelation from 'God'.

Me personally, I can't rule out that there could be something greater than humanity that we've labeled as "God" that passed on wisdom to our kind during it's infancy to ensure we advanced as a species.

I also can't rule out that the bible wasn't created or altered by humanity; those early humans who learned a few key things about our nature and sought to help us progress but also control us.

Historically, there were less of us in earlier generations. If each gender evolved to the point that they didn't desire each other, the species could become endangered. We likely weren't smart enough back then to figure out alternatives. So rules were levied, tied to morality and placed in the 'good book', no matter its origin, to circumvent the fear of extinction.

Hence, it became moral law/code, whatever you want to call it. And some societies indeed deemed it against the law and punishable. Religious Dogma is the gate keeper for status quo. Without it, the laws don't hold. Shame and punishment are tied to them to ensure obedience to it.

It's just like parenting. Not sure why people don't get this. But just like parenting, the techniques evolve with the child's understanding of the world.

>There’s rationale, and there’s good rationale, but again,
>I’m speaking specifically as an example of the way people
>use their religion to impose those beliefs on others. And
>whether or not each side has “a” rationale, what matters
>is whether or not they have *good* rationale based on reality.

Good is subjective so it has no place in this discussion. You and 7.5 billion people won't see 'good' the same way. And what if you're in the minority rationale? Does that make you right or wrong?

You frame this argument as if our existence is absolute. "A wise man knows that he knows nothing" or however the parable goes. God, or the concept of, is part of our reality. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist.

If I told you my 3rd cousin removed, from 10 states over, slept with Beyonce yesterday, how could you prove it did or didn't happen? For all we know, it could be true but neither of us was there to confirm it. Ask her and she might lie for obvious reasons. My cousin might not have had the ability to net concrete proof suitable to your belief system. Society didn't have tools to record the way we do now and those that did record events, actually gave accounts of what they deemed "Gods" or higher powers.

Were they all liars? Ignorant of what they saw with their own eyes? One might question why we don't see this entity with such clarity today and again I relay it to the parenting example. Once your kids are of age, you become less prevalent in their lives and eventually, you pass on and they lose you completely in this existence. Who's to say this entity hasn't done the same (as in, become less hands on)?

>What laws are based on religious morality?
>
>The truth is that religious morality is far more broad than
>people would like to admit, and by and large our laws are, in
>reality, based on a foundation of harm in contrast to
>well-being.
>
>I.E, lust is considered a sin, even thinking such thoughts,
>but that’s not illegal.
>
>Murder, by contrast, is listed as a sin, and is illegal.
>Killing in general is treated with layers of contextual
>qualifiers to classify the nature of the offense in order to
>hand down a sentence.
>
>And to be clear, the actual legal process is an entirely
>different subject from the laws themselves.
>
>Also, which laws based on religious morality are being
>changed, exactly? Because morality that is supposedly based on
>religion is, in actuality, the morality they’ve plucked from
>the panacea of morality present in their religion, generally
>discarding the things that the morality of their time has also
>discarded.

I've already given an example (homosexuality is against the law in some societies) but most of our laws are based on morality derived from religion.

-Do not harm others (murder, assault, sexual deviancy...pedo, rape).
-Do not covet others property (theft, polygamy)
-Pay your fare share/tithes (taxes, etc)

Beyond legality, there are social laws that people are shamed for as well that are all tied to religious morality, such as the example you listed (lust, also lying to name a few).

>This is a false equivalency.
>
>I’d also say this needs further clarification. On the face,
>it seems that your referring to religious conservative views
>as the other feels that a lack of moral structure is bad. If
>that’s the case, I’d say a more accurate assessment is
>that a deviation from the moral structure they’ve culled
>from their particular interpretation of their religious views
>is bad, not a lack of moral structure.
>
>“Moral structure” is a broad term that could include any
>number of moral concepts, many of which would directly
>conflict with one another. I think nearly everyone would cite
>a lack of moral structure as a societal negative, with the
>disagreement centering on what constitutes a good moral
>structure.

I think the equivalency is very true. Forgive my assumption but I believed your 'more accurate assessment' was implied based on the discussion we're having. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

However, perception is the key to all of this. Some have evolved in their views, others hold to prior established structures. I don't disagree that morality is often conflicted. But that doesn't negate my argument.

Look at it this way; if you've been doing something for 35 yrs that you deem successful and then all of a sudden, someone comes along and tells you that it's not successful and you need to change what you're doing, are you just going to up and change your process on that persons stance?

>What are those compromises and solutions between faith and
>logic?

Faith can be respected and logic can be applied.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" - Pope Francis

^^^This is what evolution looks like. It's not an overnight process and will be tweaked along the way, but logically applying faith with logic leads to these views. This is where morality gets adjusted (I mean if a Pope said it...) and we begin to alter things based on modern society.

>Thing is, we’re always learning more. And simply choosing to
>fill in the gaps in our knowledge and understanding with a god
>is not a way to gain that knowledge.

Who said this was what we were supposed to be doing? Seeking to know more should absolutely be our focus but a fool would speak in absolutes when we can't even travel to another galaxy and report back accurate information yet. God could ultimately be a crutch by which some of us need to rely on for confidence as we explore the unknown. But to kill the God theory out of discomfort through evolution or because of an arbitrary theory that we'd learn more is a bit arrogant.

Maybe there is indeed a God. One can't prove otherwise to date.

>What things are understood through assumptions?

The human existences.

Scientific theories (until their proven and even then, to my earlier point, it's just to get a concensus on the discovery), what the universe is like, how humanity came to be, or hell, why it even exists. All assumptions we've made to try to understand why we are here. No man was there at the beginning and can't, with 100% definitive certainty say they know.

>Sure, we can just select random answers on a Scantron and hope
>for the best, but that’s not a good way to determine if
>those answers are correct.
>
>Making assumptions in this regard doesn’t help us understand
>anything, not in a vacuum. I’ll grant you that the more an
>assumption is widely accepted, the easier it is to move on to
>the next thing, because ignorance is bliss.

All humanity does is make assumptions as we don't definitively KNOW anything. The things we think we understand, we box into a universally accepted principle (let's all agree that this hue is called...Blue, that gravity keeps us on the planet) so that we can capture new info pieces.

>That’s not a change in logic, that’s a change in the
>understanding and application of available information. Logic
>itself did not change. Sure, the application of logic is used
>to reach those discoveries, but that’s not an example of any
>changes in logic itself.

The only thing that can change logic is logic lol. And indeed, logical information changes prior logical beliefs. This is like saying "Math isn't changed by math". If someone found a logical way to make 2 = 1 without breaking prior established mathematical law, it would change math. I wonder what other's thought when coefficient equations were introduced to math "You can't make letters represent numbers! That's not logical!". Until it was called a variable and made so.

>I don’t see what’s illogical about two different words
>with entirely different usages that are spelled the same but
>are pronounced differently.

Of course you don't, because you've been taught it all your life.

>This isn’t a failure of logic at all. It’s an example of
>semantic versatility, for lack of a better term, but this is
>not a demonstration of logic “failing” in any way. If
>anything, it demonstrates an application of logic.

This makes no sense. Two things that are exactly the same, are different. And that's logical? LMAO @ semantic versatility.

This is a logic fail if there ever was one.

1 does not equal 1
Red is not Red
Tear is not Tear

Tell me where's the logic here?

>That said, I think “logic vs faith” is increasingly
>showing itself to be a false dichotomy in this discussion,
>with “logic” being a red herring.
>
>There’s faith, and there’s reality.

I think logic falls insecure of the things it can't grasp and dismisses them as failing reality. Reality is the existence in front of you. By definition, it dismisses idealism. Without idealism, humanity doesn't evolve. Doesn't learn more. Doesn't question whats beyond. I believe reality needs a God to push exploration (which is likely why the concept exists in our reality). Logic is the practice of trying to capture God in a box aka trying to understand the grand design, if there is such a thing.

>But that’s just the thing: it’s not about boxing faith
>into a “logical explanation.”
>
>It’s about showing how faith does not hold a foundation that
>comports with reality. There’s faith, and there’s reality.
>There’s belief, and there is what can be demonstrated to be
>true.
>
>And because faith does not hold a foundation that comports
>with reality, it is not a foundation for decisions that impact
>our reality.

This is short sighted. Before humans could travel beyond our atmosphere all we could do is believe there was something there. By your argument, we shouldn't have explored what's beyond our planet because it wasn't part of our reality. Science and mathematical principles have all been developed around belief in something that wasn't yet provable.

Exploration is the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it. Many humans have had the testimony that they've been in contact with a higher being. There's recollection, spanning centuries, of these types of encounters.

We have a duty as humans to continue to explore this theory.

>So if there's no evidence that there is a soul, there's no
>reason to believe such a thing exists. The inability to prove
>it isn't really the problem of the person requesting proof; if
>someone is asserting things they cannot prove, they don't get
>to duck that problem by pointing out that they can't prove it.
>The inability to prove it demonstrates the problem.

Ok, so why is that when a body is damaged and ones life ends, we can't simply repair the body and restore the life? Soul is a descriptive term, like "Red" is used to describe a color. Life-force, electric current that keeps you alive, etc, could be used. It just describes the essence of humanity. The evidence is that we can't simply restore that life-force to the body once it is gone.

But none of us can see it, can touch it, can smell it. Life is there, then it isn't. We can't explain that yet. Where does that essence of humanity come from or go to if from and to anywhere?

>Correct, and even then., the fact that these things happen are
>also demonstrable. We can point to examples of these things
>actually happening. The fact that it is not airtight or
>guaranteed to pay off 100% of the time is immaterial.

>Yes, but we can actually look and see whether or not a company
>actually pays out. We know for a fact that they do pay out,
>regardless of the times that they don’t. Further, there's no
>way for *me* to know, but my heirs do, and again, these
>companies won't last long if they reliably failed to pay out
>just claims. It's a calculated risk to be sure, but it hardly
>"fails". It's a real, genuine thing, and even the risks of
>loss can be accounted for in reality.

The counter to this is to say, you don't know what happens when someone dies, but the person who dies does. If someone is dead, they can't prove anything from where ever they go.

So the dead person, if we could contact dead people, could testify as to what happens when we die.

You can't reach across the isle here. If there's no guarantee that a life insurance company will pay your heirs and you can't verify that they do as you'll be gone, why buy insurance?

You want proof that the contract you might enact with a God is verifiable on 'this' side of the isle. Other's may have testified on the behalf of this God but you don't believe it because those people have never died and had the promise delivered in a verifiable way or you find it hard to believe that they might have had an experience you can't fathom.

>An insurance policy is an imperfect contract.
>
>Faith isn’t a contract of any kind. It’s a belief one
>holds and hopes to be true. It’s a belief that there is not
>only a second party to fulfil the other end of a contract they
>hope exists, but also that this second party is the one is the
>one they believe in. Faith is very far from a contract.
>
>An insurance policy, flaws and all, is an actual contract. You
>can call an actual person who represents an actual company and
>talk about said policy.
>
>Faith is a far, far cry from a contract.

This is your perspective and you're limited by only the things you've experienced. But, to materialize your example:

-You engage with a company you hope to be legit (could be a scam). You believe there's a secondary party who will fulfill the other end of the bargain (though you'll likely never meet the person who will process payment if they do). You meet a representative from the company to discuss this contract which you've allowed your faith to believe will be honored when you die.

-A person who's been introduced to the theory of God chooses to believe the entity exists based on the many questions they/humans have about existence (and our inability to answer them) and the immense scope of the design of our existence (though, it could be a scam). This person believes there is a secondary party (God) who will fulfill the other end of the bargain (though, if they ever meet this entity, it'll be when their life ends). This person goes to a Church to meet representatives of said entity (akin to a company rep) to discuss this contract which they've allowed their faith to believe will be honored when they die.

>This is a false premise. There’s no good evidence to suggest
>we were anything before we were born. Saying “we don’t
>know where we were” implies that we preexisted in some form
>prior to our physical birth, and that has to be demonstrated.

There's tons of evidence to suggest we were something before we were born. Biology itself explains the construction of the body pre-birth, but where exactly does 'essence' originate from (i.e. Life force)?

Again, we can't explain these things, humanity hasn't figured them out so to call it false demonstrates an intellectual arrogance in light of rabid ignorance. "A wise man knows..."

>>and we don't know where we go when we leave. That window of
>>ignorance lends to anything being possible.
>
>Possibility must be demonstrated.
>
>“Anything” is not possible. Is it possible for you to
>shoot fire from your fingertips? Not through technology, but
>actually shoot flames from your fingertips.

With atmospheric and genetic evolution/mutation...who knows? Possibly.

>It’s possible that you can buy a lottery ticket and win a
>million dollars. We have enumerable examples of this
>happening.
>
>It’s not possible for you to purchase a lottery ticket that
>then physically turns into a million dollars. We have never
>observed this happening, nor have we observed anything
>suggesting it could happen.
>
>It’s possible that I can own a Lamborghini some day.
>
>Regardless of how likely this is, the possibility exists
>because I exist, as do Lambo’s, and they can be obtained for
>a price.

Lottery tickets in 2087 might actually be a credit card where it turns to a million dollars instantly. And lets not act like we don't have instances of one thing becoming multiple things via processes.

A lack of observation doesn't mean a lack of possibility. The evolution of society is grand evidence of this. If someone who was 45 in 1915 were dropped into today's society, I'm sure they'd see things they never imagined were possible.

>What *is* the value of faith? And the value of faith in….
>what? Is the value of faith in one deity equal to the value of
>faith in another?
>
>And is there any good thing accomplished by faith that cannot
>be accomplished be reasoned examination of real-world evidence
>and the application of the actual information gained in the
>process, to govern our choices and behaviors?

At some point, society might well kill the Theory of God. Maybe we evaporate into nothingness and cease to exist in the mass universe when we die and there is no consequence to our humanitarian/Earthly decisions beyond what happens to us on Earth.

But I don't think society is mature/evolved enough to handle the finality of that declaration. I mean, Trump is President.

The looming possibility that if we don't make, what are seen as, positive choices in life, it could have consequences should there be something beyond this existence keeps us somewhat honest as a species.

Removing that safety net too soon could cause havoc. And, again, we don't know if the theory is simply a control mechanism or if it's rooted in some sort of truth.

I've never seen a singular atom in my life...but I believe they exist.

>Correct. The fact that every doctor cannot save every patient
>with cancer doesn’t detract from my point.

But it does, you made it seem that they were only healed because they went to the doctor. Why them and not the person who wasn't healed?

>Faith does not then become a “stronger” cure for cancer,
>and in fact there’s no good evidence to suggest that faith
>has any impact on curing anyone, for anything.

Again, faith isn't about evidence. We've established this.

>Whether one “sees” it as favor via is immaterial to
>whether or not that’s what it actually is, and I think
>that’s critical. If you apply and interview for a job, and
>pray that you get this new job, and get it, was the prayer why
>you got the job?
>
>How would we demonstrate that to be the case? Attributing
>something to faith doesn’t lend faith a own side to a coin,
>because what people think/feel/attribute believe is immaterial
>to whether or not those things can be demonstrated to be
>true.

But the thing is, we also can't prove the opposite. You can go through the entire logic tree of why and the defense could always point to inception.

We, as a species, never know origin. Ever.

The problem with this (your) method is, the word faith exists. Things have been enacted in reality due to faith, devoid of proof. So to devalue faith because one disagrees with it is short sighted and counter productive to humanity (I've covered why earlier).

>For what, exactly? Sure, I understand certain arguments for
>how faith can help someone get through a tough period, form a
>psychological standpoint, not the standpoint of some
>intervening deity or other guiding force, and even then, faith
>isn’t “needed”. It’s just convenient.

This entire statement was contradictory. You just listed reasons, I've listed reasons earlier with the most important being, humanity doesn't evolve to what it is today without faith.

>In what way does humanity and our societal structures fail
>without faith?
>
>Philosophically, even.
>
>If we only get one shot at life, with no second life to live,
>no promise of reward or punishment for what we do here and
>now, this life then becomes far more valuable and important.
>
>But still, that’s just philosophical musing. Is it
>demonstrable that humanity fails without faith?
>
>Also, we need to define faith in some of these statements,
>because faith seems like it’s being used as a generic
>catch-all.

I think I've covered a chunk of this prior but I'll ask this; How many people do you think would commit murder if they thought they could get away with it and had to endure no guilt built around religious faith based social norms?

If we thought logically about the advancement of society/humanity, population control would be plausible and scientific testing on humans and animals should be fair game as we'd advance much further without these restrictions. Less people equal more resources for everyone, testing would lead to advances that might allow us to live longer, heal faster and facilitate travel through the universe.

>That’s not a world without faith. That’s a world at its
>end. Does faith knock the meteor off it’s path? Does the
>lack of faith create the meteor? Because this would simply be
>a world at it’s end, with people doing whatever they wind up
>doing. Some people will loot, rob, steal, kill, others will go
>to church, others will hunker down and board up their home.
>
>We can unpack this scenario forever and for that reason, I’m
>not sure how much time such a scenario is even warranted to
>explore. Why not use the here, the now, the readily observable
>reality instead?

My example was to imply that, humanity without the idea of faith would devolve. An immediate, unavoidable certain extinction would expedite that scenario. I think more people would lose that restraint with certain death staring them in the face.

>Why would anyone make their long term financial decisions
>based on a thing a guy said for which he had no proof? This is
>Pasqual’s Wager, through and through, and by that standard,
>you need to simply accept every proposition everyone makes
>without evidence, just to hedge your bets.
>
>And telling people to “save up” is always sound advice,
>under any scenario, rain or shine, yes?. Adding a doomsday
>scenario without sound supporting evidence doesn’t make that
>advice any more sound.

All good points, all concluded with the response I would have given you; better safe than sorry so may as well listen to the sound advice. We are encouraged all our lives that we need to be good. But what if we chose the opposite?

There's an inclination that people who choose the opposite might actually live pretty exciting lives. And if we only live once and then we are nothing, why waste it on 2.5 kids, a small/moderate home and sludging away for some big-wig's corporate money making machine?

Why not thoroughly plan a bank robbery and live it up?
Why not steal some trade secrets and make a fortune selling them?
Why not do whatever you want, regardless of others affected by it?

>Contrarily, let’s look at a real life example if this:
>
>Harry Markopolis, who had Bernie Madoff pinned from jump,
>could prove with ease, and was completely ignored by everyone
>from people who were investing in Madoff, on up to the SEC.
>This was a simple catch, but willful ignorance and greed
>prevailed until the levee broke.
>
>The investors stuck with him for two reasons: Madoff had a
>stellar reputation, and his returns were consistently on
>point. Comically consistent, actually, once you get into the
>details, and that’s what should have tipped everyone off
>early.
>
>So they had trust in this guy, as did everyone else who
>invested in him, and this was a “who’s who” clientele,
>further reinforcing their happy delusion, because they could
>set their watch to their returns. So they stuck with Madoff
>because he was giving them the goods.

This example fails. This is about investing, not saving. You're trusting someone to grow your money, not preserve it in this scenario. To your point, greed was the motivation here.

>>>>My theory is, use logic to try to understand what's in
>
>>front
>
>>>>of you, use faith to guide you to remain grounded and
>
>From what I’ve seen and experienced first-hand, faith keeps
>people grounded in the tenets of that particular faith, but
>little else. Now, if you’re talking in a very general sense,
>sure. If you decide, hey, I want to do the right thing because
>god is watching/I don’t want that karma/etc, and that drives
>you to good, so be it. That’s how some folks hold it
>together. That’s what some people need to be able to go on
>and do right. I do have minor, less passionate issues with
>this, but certainly not enough to push back in a significant
>way. The issue is when faith, as it often does, becomes a
>foundation to determine how others should live, walk, talk,
>have relationships, etc that deserves the lion’s share of
>pushback.

So your issue is with, what you deem, the oppressive nature of some moral obligations levied by religion? But you do value morality? However, naively, you believe humanity has natural ingrained morality and doesn't need constructs like religion to hold it together (though religion is heavily ingrained into the moral fabric of society)?

>Logic is used to make sense of the facts we can observe about
>reality in order to remain grounded, which is why people with
>cancer go to the doctor, even as they pray.
>
>It’s also why people with amputated limbs don’t ever seem
>to regrow their limbs, because that’s not something that has
>been demonstrated to be possible, no matter how much someone
>may or may not pray for it.

But there are species in our ecosystems that regenerate limbs. We just haven't figured out how to harness that for humanity which would first require a complete change in our morality about altering human DNA. But even those walls are falling;

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/27/health/gene-edited-babies-rice-investigates-professor/index.html

And most people find this scary as sh*t. Why do people cross these lines? Who knows. Some might say, natural selection, other's might say spiritual influence. In the end, if the walls fall and someone successfully harnesses limb regeneration in humans without major side effects, voila! Prayers answered or...natural evolution, whichever tickles your fancy. lol

>If something is beyond me, I can’t respect it, because I
>can’t even disrespect it, because it’s beyond me. I’m
>not being pedantic, but if there’s something that’s beyond
>me, it’s beyond my ability to react to it, either way.

Fair enough. And this is soundly profound. So one has to wonder why you speak so finitely about things none of us understand.

>So getting to the end here, I still think logic is a
>problematic term that creates a false dichotomy. Logic is a
>tool, a means to make sense of, and form conclusions about,
>the facts of reality around us, i.e, information, evidence,
>etc.

This is well said but I disagree with the false dichotomy. You overtly applied logic all throughout your arguments here and it's the only foundation by which you are able argue. When you've just openly admitted, logic is the tool humans use to make sense of things even when they make no sense (tear anyone?).

>Faith, depending on the usage and application, has varying
>degrees of usefulness, but as a governing factor for morality
>and human progress? It’s sorely lacking, and I think this is
>demonstrable.

I agree. And it needs to evolve with society. Evolution is a slow process typically.

>Arbitrarily killing your neighbor is demonstrably bad for you,
>by nearly every possible metric.
>This would change if you did so and somehow managed to not get
>caught, but that presents a separate set of issues.

Let's remove the arbitrary factor from this scenario; If your neighbor infringed on your reality in a negative way and you discerned a way to manage not being implicated, is this ok? Because I think from a self serving stand point, it would be good for the person/killing neighbor as it would remove the negative infringement.

>But getting caught, going to jail, losing your job, potential
>impact to your family, the list of ways in which this would
>negatively impact your life is rather long. And unless
>you’ve been desensitized or are a sociopath (among other
>possibilities, to be sure) or something along those lines,
>this not likely bode well for your emotional or psychological
>health either.

The only reasons they'd not bode well is because of religious based moral norms though. We don't cry when we step on ants, swat flies, eat burgers. Humans are perfectly ok with killing. Hell, in some cases even of other humans. Consequence is typically the deterrent and a huge influence on how we've determined consequence has a skeletal system in religion.

>You have innumerable reasons not to kill your neighbor that
>are demonstrably pertinent to your own well-being and
>survival, and that’s before we get into the issue of the
>general empathy you (presumably, lol, and hopefully) feel
>toward your fellow man.

Why didn't this stop the Holocaust from happening? American slavery? And maybe there were financial reasons but other countries likely got involved due to some sense of moral obligation levied by...you guessed it...religious moral norms.

And even then, killing was on the docket to resolve it.

>This isn’t because a book says some old guy in the desert
>wrote down a commandment he received from a deity on a stone
>tablet.
>
>And until/unless we can prove- actually prove, not assert, not
>assume, not take on faith, but actually prove in the same way
>that we can prove that their factual negative consequences-
>that said commandment came from the aforementioned deity,
>it’s an arbitrary moral standard that does not provide a
>foundation based in reality.
>
>Conversely, we can and do logically assess things like harm,
>fairness, loyalty, etc, and our moral decision making
>demonstrably comports with these.

Prove to me, that humans, inherently care about other's well being, and that supersedes ones own desires (this might be less so with tribalism ties but even then, parents have murdered children and children have murder parents). There's mountains of evidence to the contrary.

I think there are a few norms that hold most of society together and prevent us from going full 'mad max' as a society, religion as a moral shield being one of the biggest keys.

Once you start to break down those morality views, what's beyond that gets...scary, interesting, risky, freeing.

Is that better for humanity? Is not having a God/Parental entity above it all somewhat better for humanity overall? Would whatever replaces it be better or worse?

I dunno and neither do you. Which has been my sole argument. Until we know more (which I doubt we'll figure it all out in my lifetime), I'll pray to God, apply logic to life, evolve it where necessary, based on what I think is the right thing to do and try to enjoy the ride until it's over. Hopefully, the ride will continue somewhere else and not end wherever my body rots.

Lastly, next time, call me man. I hate having to type all this out. lol Matter of fact, if you are going to rebut, do it that way!