There is a spectrum from http://www.dhamma.org/ to http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books2/Dhammananda_What_Buddhists_Believe.htm to the one you mentioned.

Likewise from this
http://www.catholic.org/printer_friendly.php?id=18504&section=Cathcom to young earth.

In our more recent history with civilizations the early spirits and gods of the forest became larger gods, often agricultural in nature, and the in the late bronze age the monotheistic idea emerged. In East Asia the whole idea of gods was largely abandoned. Yet Buddhism is filled with parochial “kitchen gods.” Monotheism has largely come to dominate the world, particularly through Christianity and Islam. This tendency to believe in gods or God has little to do with any philosophical reasoning, but that our brains may be wired in such as way that we easily slip into believing such things. We even do it in a temporary sense when we read or watch a horror story — and the movie “The Sixth Sense” was very good. I don’t believe in ghosts (a sort of god-like entity) in any way.

In the ancient world there were the few who rejected the idea of gods, but largely people stuck to their gods. Lucretius argued forcefully against the god-idea, but Romans were very superstitious people. In today’s world there are far greater reasons, in particular the scientific world view, to at least question the existence of the supernatural. Religion has a terrible time with science. However, while science can win on the reasoning front, religion still has that emotional or psychological appeal. Religion seems to easily excite certain neural circuits in our brains.

Lawrence B. Crowell

This is what you get when mixing objective/logical/scientific approach with religion/mysticism/feelings.

What went wrong?
1) Atheists cannot prove scientifically that God does not exist.
2) Religious people cannot prove scientifically that God does exist.
3) There is more than one official God/religion on this planet (historically; plenty).
4) On top of that: Many religious people have their most personal interpretation of God.

Well, Sean didn’t ask for scientific proof, did he? No, not explicitly. But if you ask; “how would things be different if God didn’t exist?”, and don’t accept woolly answers, you’re in fact asking for proof.

You might as well ask; Please Tell Me What “Santa Claus” Means and get loads of inconsistent and meaningless answers.

People are free to believe in Santa Claus or God, or anything else they prefer. The messy part starts when you mix non-logical things with the logical world of science, politics, economics, legislation, etc.

(Many may disagree that politician like George W. Bush meet the criteria for the logical world, but that’s another topic. )

Now, I do believe there is a conscious God as well. But this God is not omnipotent. I believe that He thinks He is God, but can’t prove it. If people on earth can be deluded into thinking their God, then God can be so deluded as well … by a higher power that has not yet revealed Herself to Him, possibly. In the end, God must fear His own jugement if He does not do a good job of raising our family of humanity (and I’m sure you feel it looks like it’s been a disaster).

As far a proving the existence of a conscious God. Well, only He can do that. No army of Christians professing their faith is reason enough to believe. God must account for Himself in a personal way to each person. To expect someone to base their believe on the written word of some ancient men is not reasonable or fair. Those words only amount to a statement of their faith. To believe them is only a faith in just them. It does not amount to having faith in God, just a hope. Besides, what does it mean to believe in something anyway? Is believing in God a question of thinking His existence is a fact of truth? Or does it mean that you ‘trust’ that He will be a good friend (i.e. I believe in you.)?

What is my personal experience with this conscious God? I’m sure you can guess. Mental illness. But I hope you don’t think I am as crazy as that sounds. I do not believe I am God, but I do think He wants me to become as close to his equal as he can get me. No supernatural powers or nothing, but a right to demand some respect from him.

Finally, I do not believe in hell. Everyone makes it. We are all pre-destined to get to heaven. Keep the faith. Keep doing your best. Regards.

These memes are very resilient because they have had a lot of time for evolution. For a very long time, theology was the most discussed and debated topic there was. It made up the vast majority of printed work before the enlightenment. With that much focus, they became very refined in the intellectual circles. I would venture to say that the tenuous nature of most “intellectual” God memes is that part of intellectual discourse requires a measured nuanced approach. You can still see this in arguments made by people like Skinner.

At the same time, God memes had a lot of time to develop among the “common” people. These memes were not as likely to be developed amongst equals but rather handed down from religious leaders. Although they were not as subject to debate, they still had to evolve in order to compete with other theologies and the current economic and political landscape. For example, the “holy father” meme works very well in an environment that is trying to promote the “divine right of kings” meme. The “hell” meme also makes a lot more sense if it was developed as something that was not necessarily subjected series intellectual debate, but rather as a meme that could be understood on a visceral level by the uneducated. You still see these memes in the evangelical fundamentalist community. They make zero rational sense but they were never meant to. Also, since they explicitly reject rationalism, they have a habit of spinning off even crazier memes like pushed by this guy.

And I am entitled to hold my opinion: “I define God as the author and guarantor of the laws of science – the agent that (constantly) “breathes fire into the equations, making a universe for them to describe.”

In light of the recent discussion above such a God could be eternal, atemporal or temporal and “if the universe ’started to exist “from” nothing’, then a self-consistent God too could have started to exist from nothing, with the universe; for ‘nothing’ would have prevented it happening.”

Regards,
Garth