But I do beleive there is a God and I don’t think I’m nuts for believing in one. I do not conceive of God in the form of Cybele, or Dr. Manhattan, or a white bearded old man sitting in a throne on high.

I do believe there is some sort of overriding intelligence that designed us, our world. and our universe. Call it the collective unconscious or “The Force”. Seems logical to me that there is a Creator.

Otherwise you gotta believe we are just here through some random process. Which is the same as saying that your home was built by firing all the building material 300 feet into the air and that it all came down as a complete building with running water and electricity.

Now that belief is just plain nuts to me.

That’s exactly how weird every religion sounds to me…

As to prayer and never hearing God talk back, all I can do is fall back on Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. “

Are you including belief in God under your definition of religion? Because if that’s the case, you and Bill Maher probably would have voted against George Washington.

Perhaps you’ll argue that Washington wasn’t a Christian. OK. Let’s say he wasn’t. (Even though he was baptized as an infant into The Church of England, raised in a Christian environment, and as an adult, served as a member of the vestry (lay council) for his local parish)

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_3.html

However there is still there is plenty of evidence to say Washington was a Deist. That means he possessed a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme natural God exists and created the physical universe, and that religious truths can be arrived at by the application of reason and observation of the natural world.

So are you saying Franklin was mildly schizophrenic and that Washington was unfit for public office?

Please clarify.

Clamdobber,
By the way , some nice argument style, Socratic but gentle.

Far be it from me to propose the imposition of an official state religion. That would be like opening the door to Sharia. Boy, then we’d really be screwed.

And just because Franklin believed in God doesn’t mean he had a change of heart. He wasn’t into religion. The term “religion” refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.

Franklin was an independent. He probably always believed in God. He just wasn’t into group worship.

Anyway, I should have framed my argument more clearly, but you know how it is when you’re in a rush and tired at the same time.

I see now, you’re arguement was that believing in god does not mean that one is “dumb” to put it simply, or irrational.

Bill Maher is very outspoken in his opinions. I can definitely see how it would be offensive.

I do not believe that one is generally an irrational person if they believe in god, I just find that to be an irrational belief. But I’m irrational about my dislike of spiders… I mean they’re tiny, but the freak me out, that doesn’t make me dumb I think.

The contention is when the arguement is framed in such a way to make it seem there’s more to it than a defense of a belief, which every person has a right to. It seemed like an arguement for extinguishing the line between church and state.

I think that history shows this to be a bad idea.

I think even Jesus agreed, “give to ceasar what is ceasar’s…” something to that effect.

And I did check out your source. It appears you’re right about his change of heart. I had assumed wherever you got the information would be a bogus source. My apologies.