You sound a lot more reasonable than the Baptist pastors I listen to at Dad’s church every week, and I have to preface any discussion with the fact that we don’t come at it from equal positions. I have no cherished beliefs on the topic of theism. I certainly don’t expect to hear anything I haven’t heard already, none of which has been the slightest bit persuasive. But were that to happen I would simply adjust my views. I think it’s different for a believer, and it’s not particularly kind of me to poke at beliefs that you might cherish.

I could have no love or respect for the god Dad’s pastors describe. That god is either cruel and vengeful or indifferent to human suffering. As the pastors repeat every Sunday, “You don’t go to heaven because you’re good, you don’t go to hell because you’re bad, all are fallen, all are condemned and none can secure ransom from hell but through the sacrifice of Christ”. Back to fathers and sons; if their god placed the curse of eternal damnation on humankind and required his only son to be tortured to death in payment for that sin, then I want no part of that god. This doesn’t worry me of course because the whole lash up is almost certainly what it appears to be, the cultural/religious tradition of an ancient society, mutated and morphed through the milinea into its current murky form.

I think if I tended towards religious beliefs I think would be drawn to the words of the Dalai Lama, “This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicate philosophies. Your own heart, your own mind is the temple. Your own philosophy is simple kindness”. Or as Jesus was purported to have said, “The kingdom of heaven lies within”;)