I'm hoping I can get a fresh perspective on this from the users here. I was raised in a religious family but always thought myself as more god fearing than god believing. For example, if I was scared of failing an examination or not doing well at a job interview, you could bet your life I would be at the feet of the gods- why risk taking a chance :)
But as a person who studied science and believes in the theory of evolution (they really should get rid of the word theory for this), it becomes tougher and tougher to accept the fact there is a GOD. When different religions profess that their GOD is the ONE and that we were all created by him (HIM is different for different people), it confounds me. With the overwhelming evidence in front of us today, how can we still believe that we were just magically created by someone and dropped on this planet.
I accept the argument that science does not have the answer for how it all started (after all-- there must have been something before the big bang) but then neither do the people who say they were created by some divine person (at least not with any shred of evidence).
I listen to and read articles by Richard Dawkins (The GOD Delusion should be a must read) and Sam Harris and they make excellent points- it is sometimes tough to argue that. I used to convince myself that everyone should have faith but that is different from actually believing in a religion. Religion divides people on a principle which if you think about it has no standing-- no one can say how it started- its just a group of people who believe in the same thing. My favorite meme of religion is a picture of a blind person leading millions of people with a blindfold.
If peoples faith is so strong, shouldn't we try to challenge ourselves to find out the eternal truth rather than hiding behind an illusion? Mind you, I'm still in between- I don't know if i can ever be completely atheist but as I read more and more about the advances science has made over the last two hundred years and busted millions of myths along the way, I wonder if humanity will ever reach a point where everyone will one day accept the fact that maybe there was no creator.
Thoughts?