Thread: Why is the debate about god so shallow?

Isn't the whole debate over god just an extension of the cultural debate going on, rather than a real debate on the philosophical concept of god? People make it out to be, you either believe all these stories in some book are true or you don't. If you frame it that way, then of course believing in the literal story of creation, which we now know makes no scientific sense, would be silly. How ever that does not mean religion is false.
There seems to be ignorance on both sides. I saw an atheist ask a question about hinduism, where he asked, how could any one believe in so many gods? That question itself shows his ignorance on the subject of spirituality. The gods of hinduism are meant to represent some deeper spiritual truths about existence, not literally some magic beings in the sky. Such as Shiva the destroyer and transformer symbolizes the aspect of nature which destroys and transforms. The concept that all things must pass, every plant, animal, star, and galaxy will be destroyed and its energy transformed.

The Biblical stories are meant to be taken literally. They're either true or they're not, and they've pretty much been proven wrong. That's not to say that they're not valuable. Some of the rules work, some don't. You shouldn't follow the Bible without question. Some things just don't work.

Because You have a Small "g".on God
For those of us who truly know him there is no debate

you can start it first. later, many would answer your question.

The "debate" is really just scientists and atheists trying to educate theists about proven scientific concepts and natural processes, and them rejecting it as the work of the devil.

That means that your concept of God is just a metaphor making stories about God in all forms worshipped into just a symbol for a moral code.

In your explanation the scriptures are all parables or stories with a message and God or Shiva are principal characters.

Well the story of creation is not meant to be taken literally NOW, since it has been more or less debunked by science. This is the religion backtracking, which kind of weakens their whole stance. What's next? If we discover that Jesus never existed, will they say that he is just the symbol of an ideal too?
If/when the whole thing is debunked what will be left? Just a nice idea about how people should treat each other, etc?

God is too abstract for there to really be an intelligent debate about. It really is nothing more than what you believe, and your own thoughts about it. You really cannot change anyone elses.

Unfortunately, the average believer does not interpret their own beliefs as liberally as you've interpreted them. So there's that.

But I've seen people make serious cases for and against God on Y!A - it's just not done very often because most people aren't interested in having a philosophical debate. And a lot of people who think they are don't know how.

Because - and I hesitate to say it - the average person is dumb. Or, perhaps more nicely put, there is simply too much going on today for us to keep track of. We are constantly being bombarded with information at a rate unthinkable to anyone even as recently as fifty years ago. We are not evolving quickly enough to keep up - so we in practice, relatively speaking, got dumber.
Specialists and dedicated thinkers get stuff done because they don't allow themselves to be distracted.

George Carlin once lamented "Consider how stupid the average person is. Now realize half of them are stupider than that!"
And 'stupider' is not even a word. Irony.

Anyway... because we are relatively speaking dumb and scatterbrained, and have little time to give considered answers, we resort to snap judgments, clichés, soundbites and preconceived notions. I think this lies at the root of the shallowness of any debate these days... the profound debates notwithstanding.