Originally Posted by Condraz23

Thanks for the replies.

Here's an analogy. Let's imagine that you have a room filled with ten students. They are all shown a small box with an object inside. The teacher does not open the box to reveal the object. Instead, she keeps it a secret. However, the teacher tells the students that the object contained within the box is called a "geirk". The teacher gives each student a small chalkboard and tells them to draw what they think might be inside. The students begin drawing their depictions of the "geirk" despite the fact that the box remains closed and unopenable. At the end of the session, the teacher decides to take a look at the drawings that the children have made on their boards and she is suprised to discover the following findings...

One child draws a tall building as his depiction of the "geirk". This depiction cannot be correct because it is beyond the realms of possible physics, since a tall building cannot fit inside a small box. The other students attempt to convince him that the "geirk" cannot be a tall building, but he is so stubborn and unable to accept that he is wrong that he lashes out at his classmates. This child represents the God of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The teachings of these religions are united by a common idealogy that places blind faith above everything else. These religions are governed by an intricate system of mass indocrination and mental conditioning that removes all sense of logic and reason from the minds of the infected.

On the opposite end of the classroom, one child draws nothing. He comes to the conclusion that there is simply nothing inside the box. This child represents atheism. However, unlike the first situation, this is an entirely possible outcome. Meanwhile, another child draws a question mark which symbolizes his belief that the existence of the "geirk" is unknown or inherently unknowable. Further across the classroom, another child attempts to deduce the characteristics of the "geirk" by using reason and rationalism. He feels the box, he shakes the box, and he measures the dimensions of the box, but to no avail. This child represents deism. There are more drawings, but we will not go into much detail about them here.

The same situation exists in reality too. The unknown object represents God, the children represent mankind, the box represents the limits of our scientific knowledge, the teacher represents tradition, and the children's drawings represent the different depictions of God that exist in our society. In other words, our world is the classroom and that we are the students. Our personal depictions of God are physically real to us but in reality, they only exist as abstract concepts. We don't know what lies hidden in the box, so to speak. More importantly, as long as our different depictions of God do not conflict with scientific evidence, then no single depiction of God can be more "correct" or "incorrect" than another.

How one approaches the "God hypothesis" is usually the subject of great debate. I personally believe that every single depiction of God, like any other scientific theory, should be tested vigorously under the scrutiny of the scientific method. If the particular depiction is incompatible with scientific evidence, then it should be discarded and we should move onto something newer. Thus, Christianity should be discarded as well as Islam and Judaism. Science holds the key to almost everything and it is the only thing that seperates mankind from the rest of the animals. Hopefully, more and more people will follow these ideals and do the same thing as me, especially since there is no truly valid scientific reason to not do so.