If ever science was to prove that the Noah story is completely real, I'd just like to state that I am incredibly impressed and thankful to Noah for managing to collect two of each of those little mites and springtails that I occupy my time with in the lab. Highly impressive!

On a more serious note, I think prayer might have some real benefit in the shape of placebo effects or a collection of positive effects that stem from positive thinking and self-empowerment. I don't believe that the mind can move mountains (unless that mountain is merely a product of your psychosis ;)), but it can certainly do a lot.

If you kill them, you can post in that topic too -> what the largest animal you could kick to death? ;)

Well .. one thing is, though, they're quite small. I look at them through a microscope. ;)

Getting back on topic I would like to make a few extra statements

In life we have needs and wants, I think that when asking God for a want like money which was used in that video you are "foxhole praying". Prayers are not answered when someone prays in this manner. If we could all pray to win the lottery and it was answered we would all be rich. Or realizing that only one person can win the lottery at a time might help. I think that there are coincidences that people have tried to link to prayer when it comes to asking for outlandish things. I don't think that we should ask god for things at all, I think that its more of a strengthining of the mental state, for instance to ask for stability or strength to overcome certain situations. Cars, clothing, money and love these are all things that god knows we have control over, or do not. Our goal in life is less to be given all of these things free, more to have experiance with them on our own individual mortal level. God knows this and you know this, without experiance your are not worth the shoes you walk in. We are supposed to grow old and wise.

If there is one thing that bothers me about Christianity - well, ok, there are a lot of things - but, one of the big ones is how a literal interpretation of the bible has produced a personified God. Everyone imagines a big guy up in the sky with beard and robe deciding what he should be doing to/for us all the time. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For one, God would not have a physical manifestation. God would be an all pervading energy that lives within everything. Why would he need a body? He is an all powerful intelligence and a body would just limit him. Praying "to him" is a completely fruitless effort. There is no one entity to pray to...God would be everything all the time.

The above is just one of the things I've thought about over the years, and I'm not sure what I firmly believe in terms of a greater power, but I feel there are definitely greater energies at work than what we can see. I think the only reason we would call that energy God is because we aren't even close to understanding it scientifically. Creating a religion and worshiping something out of a lack of understanding is just something humans do to help rationalize the world around them, but I am of the belief that nothing is beyond explanation.

A possible contributing factor to the idea of God as a man in the sky is the line from Genesis which says he created man in his image. Although that doesn't necessarily mean that God has or sometimes takes a human-like body shape, I think a lot of christians have interpreted it that way in the past .. and continue to do so!

Of course, God manifesting as an old man is an ancient idea :)

http://2menoffaith.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/god1.jpg

The thing I've always loved about that painting - God's wife is freakin hot.

But, yeah...God has been personified throughout human history, but not until Christianity was a literal interpretation of a religion's sacred text taken to such an extreme. Christians are raised to look down on other religions because of their polytheism, but fail to understand that a lot of times those gods are worshiped as metaphors for what they truly stand for. The Hindu Gods, for example, put this into perspective perfectly. There is a god for everything, but everyone who follows this religion understands these physical being don't exist. They use them as vehicles for understanding the finer points of the lesson being taught.

My personal favorite has always been Kali:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oster1940s.jpg

I won't relay the whole story behind this particular picture, but Kali represents the primal and aggressive side to humans while Shiva (the dead guy) represent the logical side of humanity. There is a massive war that Shiva tries to calm, but fails so Kali is called to fix it up. She goes into a blood rage, kills the opposing force, but is so messed up on the carnage that she starts killing everything. Not until she kills Shiva does she realize what she has done and gains some sense about her. I'll leave this story to your own interpretation since that is what it is for...but I always found this particular tale fascinating.

There are to many factors within the idea of religion to be completely faithful. The biggest pain to me is the amount of different religions there are. Should we just pick one? The thing is how many are there and which one is the correct one?

So after thinking about that I just decided to have my own little thoughts ideas on how it all works.

That's the best way to do it. No one is right...how could they be? Religion is nothing more than a way to ease our minds since there is no way to explain what happens after death. I honestly mean no offense when I say this since religion can really help certain people, but following one specific religion just shows you are not confident enough in the world to try to figure things out on your own. I personally love the mystery.

A quick question to you, Duga, and of course anyone else who want to answer. Do you believe that there is a sort of moral code that we will be judged by after we die?