Steve-your post has encouraged me to enter my thoughts.

During college I "wandered" religiously over a 1 year spiritual walkabout if you will. I attended multiple different services incl Christian (Episcopal, Catholic, New Wave, American Baptist, Southern Baptist and an African-American church). I also attended Jewish, the local Bahai group's service and joined a friend for his Muslim prayers one evening. I learned something new from each experience and was welcomed by each Faith community.

Yet I felt drawn back to my home church.

Science? No....I think instead a yearning to return to the familiar and comfortable. I now chair a committee and sit on another and feel as strong in my faith as ever.

May I ask what Church? It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Mormon?
I've got that inquiring mind thing going on. :-)

American Baptist

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Thank you Blurf.

No secret that there always have been a distinction between the church (both Catholic and Protestant) and those who are trying to carry out scientific work in order to be able to obtain results of significance.

Now there may seem that even the Catholic church is doing a better job when its comes to its position regarding science. They are still concernced about well established principles when it comes to faith, but in my opinion there is unfortunately much lack of spirit and enthusiasm today when it comes to the Protestantic church and its beliefs.

We are supposed to believe in Jesus Christ. Is it time to start believing in a God being THE creator of everything, both bad as well as good?

There are references on YouTube as well as other places to what may be described as the "Book of "Psalms" (possibly verses).

When I had my religion hours at school quite a number of years ago, I could not resist having a look and reading the contents of the last chapter in what was supposed to be the Bible (and not the book for the songs we sing in the church ("Book of Psalms").

By the way, I am stuck on the title of this last chapter right now. I will get back to it. Perhaps someone else has the correct translation?

It came back to me: Something like the "The Revelation of John", whose contents are both enigmatic, puzzling and mysterious.

My beleave is that God has hand the world over to Satan for a while to prove that Satan can not look after us. Just like a child that say I can do it better than you dad,You would perhaps say" there's the tools try and we will see.

Can you prove that both God and Satan exist? Or are these just further fabrications of mythology?

Let's even assume for a moment that they do exist... would it even be responsible for God to "hand over the world to Satan" to see if he can do better? In the meantime, I'm going to let my 8 year old niece drive me to work and drive herself home to see if she can do any better.

God as you would do i hope would take over by before things are totaly ruined. satan was an angel so was no child.

I think it would be easier to understand that it would be irresponsible to hand over a machine like a car to an 8 year old child, as it would be irresponsible to hand over the entire universe to a being thought to be "evil".

you maybe right but i will hope God is there my friend

I respect that right. My skepticism prevents me from Believing.

that is only right we must all follow what we feel is right not as others tell us

Chaos and chance are just two examples out of many which tends to imply the existence of a divine creator.

It is the way we interpret these different subjects which leads us to certain or specific conclusions regarding separate things and events as they appear to us.

Unless we are able to put different things together in a more general context, we will not be able to find a complete solution to everything, we will only be able to solve each problem individually.

that is only right we must all follow what we feel is right not as others tell us

I prefer to lean toward logic and rationale over feelings and emotions, which are never a good way to lead one's life IMHO.

Chaos and chance are just two examples out of many which tends to imply the existence of a divine creator.

How so? You assume that there must be an outside force acting upon chance, or that chaos is caused by an outside force or being. If we have not observed such behavior, there is no reason to conclude that there is an outside force.

It is the way we interpret these different subjects which leads us to certain or specific conclusions regarding separate things and events as they appear to us.

Agreed. Unfortunately, too many people make their interpretations based upon a very limited or primitive understanding of the universe. In order to provide a better foundation of understanding, we need to use the Scientific Method to weed out the false interpretations.

Unless we are able to put different things together in a more general context, we will not be able to find a complete solution to everything, we will only be able to solve each problem individually.

Until we can see everything empirically from a higher level of context, there's no reason to assume one event or solution is directly related to another.

Do science and religion always go hand in hand, or was science perhaps dealing the first card?

The Stone Age man was supposed to be learning by means of his daily life experiences. He discovered that fire could cook his meal and warm and enlighten him during the cold nights of winter.

Whether the Stone Age man ever took the time at having a look at the Heavens, did he ever bother about religion as it is currently being thought?

Or did he ever make any thoughts about a divine creator?

No, rather he became a witness to Nature's daily brutality and wilderness.

Is it easier to believe in a God from events which could be occurring which we are experiencing or otherwise able to observe or being thought of as "good", or is a possible that a God (or Satan for that matter) may be shown to exist by means of events which from our point of view is thought of or regarded as being bad?

Do science and religion always go hand in hand, or was science perhaps dealing the first card?

Science is a tool to better understand the world around us by way of the Scientific Method. Religion is nothing more than a philosophy intended to provide moral balance to people's lives. Some religions and its people assert that morality comes from a deity, but lack evidence to support this idea.

The Stone Age man was supposed to be learning by means of his daily life experiences. He discovered that fire could cook his meal and warm and enlighten him during the cold nights of winter.

Whether the Stone Age man ever took the time at having a look at the Heavens, did he ever bother about religion as it is currently being thought?

Or did he ever make any thoughts about a divine creator?

Some did, but of course not as it is currently being taught. Some, failing to understand that the moon was a celestial body that revolved around the earth, would attempt to explain the concept to others as if was a physical being that road through the sky on a chariot. Sometimes this being didn't come "out"; was angry and would unleash terrible lightning and mass amounts of liquid to fall to show their anger.

Vikings used to think they could scare away the "evil" being that was trying to take away the daytime sun by loudly jeering at it, pounding their weapons into the ground and shaking their fists toward the being, not realizing that they just experienced a Solar eclipse. Of course, the moon was going to move through the visible path to the sun on its own, but the vikings actually thought their actions had an effect on the event, and therefore would teach their young to jeer and shout at the evil being every few years that it tried to take away the daytime sun.

No, rather he became a witness to Nature's daily brutality and wilderness.

Agreed, but he couldn't explain it, so he would make up answers simply to have an answer.

Is it easier to believe in a God from events which could be occurring which we are experiencing or otherwise able to observe or being thought of as "good", or is a possible that a God (or Satan for that matter) may be shown to exist by means of events which from our point of view is thought of or regarded as being bad?

Good and bad are simply labels we put on certain events to describe pleasure or misery, socially acceptable behavior or unacceptable behavior, etc.

Neither our perception of good events or bad events are deterministic of an altruistic deity or malevolent deity. Events are completely random; there will be events we describe/label as good, and equally there will be events we describe/label as bad. The universe doesn't care about our labels. Events simply happen.

Chaos and chance are just two examples out of many which tends to imply the existence of a divine creator.
snipped ...

I have a feeling that you understand chaos as a state of confusion, lacking any order.

But in a scientific context chaos, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability.

Probably best known as the butterfly effect, where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state.

And popularised as,
Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

At the end of the day there are really only two simple statements that sum this whole thing up.

1. No-one can prove that there is a god, and no-one can prove that there isn't.

But from the beginning of the day to the end of the day and all through the night one can easily demonstrate all the gods are superfluous and unnecessary conjectures.

What the present day crop of nearly congenital western monotheists refuse to tell us is why they are in 100% agreement with all atheists on thousands of gods yet hold out a special pleading for their chosen god.

2. If believing in a god works for you, and enriches your life, then that is your decision, and your personal choice.

This is an untestable proposition. Try with and without belief and measure enrichment on the same person. If that can not be done the claim is meaningless. Anyone thinking he is enriched by belief needs find a way to self test the assertion.

Personal choice confined to a garret is truly personal. Creationism in textbooks is a crime against humanity. Religion at the ballot box is a crime against humanity. Refusal to report a felony is a felony. Exaggerations? Not the last one.

Creationism is no different from teaching a flat earth. Religion at the ballot box is imposing religion by means of the coercive power of the state. Yes, the bible is silent on abortion. Your god never thought it worth mentioning. The bible is also silent on the premises leading up to an anti-abortion position. Believers at the ballot box are no different from the mob stirred up against the Lyceum of Alexandria.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Religion in the UK had it's heyday in the second half of the 19th century, when the Victorians built many thousands of churches, and the hellfire & brimstone Welsh Chapel Ministers were almost a demi-god in their own community. The King James bible stated that the world began in 4004 BC (now apparently BCE...) and you were ostracised from society if you did not conform to the common belief.

Now in the 21st Century, science has taught us that the writings in the bible need to be "seen in context" and these days atheism is socially acceptable. I have an acquaintance that is a lay preacher at his local church, and he is a thoroughly nice guy. He has tried to convert me, failed, but we are still friends.

Each to his own.

Archaeology is a science. That science has shown us conclusively and without fear of contradiction that it was impossible for the Old Testament was written in bibleland. There is no evidence of a literate culture in bibleland until the late 3rd c. BC, more than a century after Alexander conquers the region.

The idea of "seen in context" is trying to salvage unprovenanced religious tradition whose only source is a forgery, the Letter of Aristeas. A van Gogh whose paint is still drying will come with a letter of authenticity. So did the Septuagint.

http://www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html if you want the gory details. The summary is simple. The letter is a forgery therefore the Septuagint is the original. That is all you need to know.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Every Sunday morning I didn't go to church, neighbors called police on me. In two years, the only Sunday morning they didn't call was one Easter morning.

Several times, the coffee shop that opened at 9 a.m. on a Sunday was raided, to harass poor students studying and teachers grading.

Yes, some things have improved.

When my father taught me to drive we went to the local shopping mall on Sunday because the parking lot was empty. It took more than two decades before the blue laws were repealed in all states. Purely by accident about ten years ago I discovered one cannot buy any kind of alcohol before 10 am on Sunday. Hopefully that has changed. But if not there are still religious issues in law after four decades.

Because the Romans exempted their temples from taxes the west exempts its churches from taxes even the most elementary taxes to cover services. Why are churches subsidized solely because they are churches.

And I should need only to mention abortion to make my point. I do not feel like five hundred or so words to outline the crap that is going on now in addition to what is threatened. And for the record I have no problem with any pharmacist refusing to sell anything for his personal moral system. I do object to their participation in any government program including Medicare Part D and doing so. If moral principles are not more important than income then I have made my point.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

I don't go to church.
That is one thing I and the Catholic faith have in disagreement.
I honor my faith in my Lord every day in thoughts and in prayers.

And I think that is sufficient for Him to accept me.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster