These statements are very upfront and honest, props to you. It reminds me of when I was young. I was raised catholic, and I can remember praying for lots of stuff. Both egoistical stuff as well as stuff like world piece. I wasn't even raised that hardcore a catholic, but I had all those childrens bibles and illustrations, and everyone told me god was real, so I drew the connection and tried to be as good a christian as possible. But apart from that, I was scared. I was extremely scared of being watched. It was a childs naive way of seeing "God watches over you", and it freaked me the fuck out. I was afraid of getting naked in my room because I didnt want god (or anyone else for that matter) to see me naked. I took god like a literal person, a physical being with xray vision watching me every second of my life.
Incidentially, it was also the time of my life where death scared the shit out of me. Despite me fully believing in the (childrens) bible, I was.. unhealthily scared of death. I remember my elementary school teachers talking to my parents whats going on with me, as it's not normal for a seven year old to be frightened of death that much. It wasn't actually that I was scared it would all end - it was more that I was afraid how God would judge me.
And then happened the best thing in my life: I started doubting things. At first it was very simple things. Maybe god does not watch over me every second? Hm... felt uncomfortable at first. How do you know if he's watching you right now or not. How do you know he wont punish you for eternity because just the moment you stole the sweets ouf of the kitchen he'd be watching you, crossing you off the "heavens" list. I think I just took a leap of faith.
With my new freedom found, I dug into the whole idea of not taking everything literally deeper. It took me a few years, but I just started questioning anything (not just religion). It took me some time to get really comfortable with it, because that stuff was what defined me for a long time, but at the end of the line, it all came down (for me) to the fact: The bible is a book. It's printed by machines. It's made of paper. It burns when you set it on fire. It swims when you throw it in water. There's nothing magical about it. It's words written by someone a long time ago. People told me it's the word of god. But how would they know? They knew because the bible said so. They had no more knowledge than me why it's gods word. They just were told by someone (their parents) that it's gods word. It's a book that's saying about itself that it's the word of god. It's like me writing on a piece of paper that this words were written by god.
And at this point, everything went very quickly. Let's see what is left of my religion when I take the bible out of the equasion. It felt like pulling the lowest stone out of a game of Jenga It still was a mind game at this point, a "what if?" scenario - what if the bible is just a story? And I thought about many things with the "what if the bible is just a story" thought, and not just did it sound plausible to me - it sounded a lot more realistic. When you have the bible as your foundation, you try and draw those crazy lines to make everything in line with the bible. Once you remove the bible of that picture, you dont have to draw crazy lines any more - the connections all make sense without drawing a line. There is no need for a god or a jesus to make sense to the world. The world makes sense in its own way. And fuck the world is beautiful. I felt a freedom in my life that just feels so damn good. I'm not part of some grand master plan, I'm merely a random piece of goo in a universe that's so vast that my life doesn't matter for any supernatural being - it's just me and the people that I know and love that are what matters.
To me, it felt like being raised in a dark prison the first 10 years of my life, and stepping out into the sun, and catching your first beams of sunshine for the first time in your life. It felt damn good, and still does.
Very interesting story and I have to say I've never had those thoughts or ever been scared of Him watching me, in fact it was comforting. I think we were raised mostly the same except we had different religions. I think Catholicism does that to young people, it scares them because they have to be good to get into heaven and even if you are good you will probably go to purgatory for a while. Unlike my Christianity where, honestly, it doesn't matter how good you are just have Him in your heart and hopefully you follow Him in your life. If you do something bad, ask Him to forgive you and He will, not some priest. It's not a free pass though, you're supposed to be an example for people who aren't Christians. I have doubts sometimes but I quickly dismiss them because as I sad earlier it's pretty obvious to me that He's real. It's only human to doubt but it's your job to dismiss the doubts and know the truth and in my mind the truth is God is real.
It all comes down to this:
Don't you think doubt is important? I don't mean religion; do you never doubt what authorities tell you? Because I think the ability to doubt (which is kind of a synonym for curiosity) is god's greatest gift to mankind 
Yes, doubt can be a good thing. I was talking about how it's good that I don't doubt my beliefs because who would I be if I was someone who didn't even trust the things I stand for as a person? I'm not a very skeptical person really, whatever the government tells me I believe, honestly. You could say i'm foolish but eh, whatever you want to call me I don't mind. Now my sister is very skeptical she tells me all these things about the government that they're hiding from us. I'm not sure if I should believe her sometimes or if I should. That's just a nice comparison between me and my sister.
God gave us free will, not really the ability to doubt. That probably came after the fall. With free will we have the ability to form our own thoughts and our own beliefs. I'm not an expert on this, there are so many more people out there who are far better suited then me to have a discussion like this.
Jarold, I have a couple of questions to remove some of the uncertainities of my view on your view on things:
1) How old do you think is the earth? If it is a couple of thousand years only, do you think current geological theories are simply wrong and based on faulty or possibly faked evidence?
2) Do you think all fossil found are fake or simply not as old as they are claimed to be(<10000 years)?
3) If a skeleton found from saber-toothed tiger happens to be real, do you think those longer teeth came from an adaptive potential every big cat has and could a today's tiger adapt in a similar way given the correct stress? Can this happen in a lifetime of a tiger or only over several generations?
I think the earth is somewhere around the 10,000's give or take some. Geological theories? As in things like the layers of the earth? I highly doubt those because one it is subject to a historic science (not sure what the right word is, I think it's historic science) and that is subject to someone's interpretation of when it happened. In Creationism, as you may know, a world wide flood is a much more practical evidence of how these layers formed and how they are not millions of years old. Take for example the eruption at Mt. St Helens, i'll just quote this article in the spoiler because they get my thoughts out there in a better way.
The explosion of Mount St. Helens not only drastically changed the landscape of the Washington area in just a matter of months, it also dug deep holes in the idea that “millions of years” are needed for rock layer, canyon, and fossil formation. Mount St. Helens clearly testified that these things do not require long ages to form.
Layers of sediment: Since the volcano’s explosion in 1980, up to 600 feet (183 m) of strata have formed. Many of these layers formed as debris slid down the side of the volcano and as mudflows and pyroclastic flows (containing volcanic ash, rock fragments and hot gases) covered the landscape around the volcano, adding layer upon layer to the surface.
Canyon formation: According to many geologists, most canyons on Earth were formed as a result of slow erosion by rivers and other natural sources over time—great amounts of time. Contrary to this view, Mount St. Helens tells a different story. A small eruption in 1982 carved a canyon over 150 feet (46 m) deep in a single day!
Formation of Coal: Mount St. Helens also provided some hints concerning the formation of coal. Coal forms from organic materials, and the material found on the bottom of Spirit Lake is composed and textured similarly to many coal beds in parts of the United States. This accumulated material, called peat, was deposited as a mixture of organic debris and sheets of tree bark that was stripped from the surrounding forests during and after the initial explosion. The accummulation of peat and formation of coal does not take thousands or millions of years as required by evolutionary geologists; it just takes one large catastrophe.
Well I only think the missing link fossils are faked and a few other certain fossils. I highly doubt their age though. It's mainly about what I posted above, they base it off of the layer it was found in mostly.
Most likely they were an adaptive trait. I think now though that gene has mostly been suppressed because the lions and tigers are the master predators in their area. The one's with the traits that we have today have survived and for that reason we don't have two big teeth jutting out of their mouths. Before I can answer this question sufficiently I need to really know what the teeth on the saber tooth were used for, was it helpful in the ice age but not after or what? To the last part of the question, I will need to think on it a bit more before I answer.
Just a random fact here on another reason why I think the age of fossils and layers are bogus. We have found fossils of fish and other things a like on top of mt. Everest. What are fish doing on top of Mt. Everest, surely no animal or person would've brought them up there. It would make much more sense about how they fossilized and were brought up the mountain by a world wide flood that brought them to the top and quickly fossilized them.
I have many more fact and reasons I can share on why I think the way I do on the layers, but I have to go somewhere right now. I will discuss more later.
The thing with evolution is that it is incredibly inefficient precisely because it lacks the vision of an intelligent designer. In computer science there is something called genetic algorithms, which use the same principle of mutation, selection and reproduction (mixing) of solutions to find good solutions to very hard problems. You can implement that kind of algorithms in a way that mimics real life evolution, but it is not a good idea at all, because you can almost always improve the results by introducing elements that have nothing to do with genetics, such as starting with a priori good solutions through simple heuristics, applying iterative improvement techniques to the solutions you find using your genetic algorithm, etc.
In a couple hundred million years (I don't remember exactly), evolution invented the wheel for a grand total of three times. Put that in relation to what the human race has been able to do during the last ten thousand years.
If everything is just a random occurrence, a hiccup in life, why can we form logical thoughts? Why don't they just randomly form in our minds like how everything else is? Don't you think there is some sort of intelligent design behind that?
