'God' might be real. It's not stupid to believe it is.

I understand your concern. It's difficult for me to put a notion forward, when I don't have any certain beliefs on the topic. I wouldn't say I believe in God, but I consider it a fair 'theory'. When I hear atheist talk, I often find they don't understand what religion is, and a result a lot of their argument are simply void of substance. I really want to argue with a staunch atheist, even though I consider the atheists perspective of the world to be possible. I have found that atheists, that I have heard, seldom make the points that I would make in question of religion. However I am wanting to argue with someone who believes god is not real with certainty, and that the belief in god is stupid. If you do not believe these things, then we pretty much agree and this debate is pointless. Please address this point first if you don't mind. So lets begin. The universe we find ourselves in, or even just the body we find ourselves in, is a mystery to us. We know enough to keep ourselves alive, aka how to manipulate the environment, but it pretty much stops there. All we have is an advanced version of the same thinking patterns that animals have, so we are not very suited to thinking that doesn't necessarily manipulate our environment in a way that keeps us alive. So we are very good at problem solving, but not so good at philosophy. We cannot hope to 'reason' that god, or nothing of the sort, exists without question. We can believe that they don't exist and I'm almost in that camp myself, but to be sure is to be foolish. As our mind is not capable. Also, the world makes no sense. The history of the universe and the origins of life we can almost explain on some level (though not fully by far). But even if we could, it still wouldn't explain enough for me. This is because we cannot explain the laws that govern the universe. We know some of them, like large objects attract objects more than small objects. Like heat creates uniformity and cool creates structures and patterns. But these laws are unexplainable. They are consistent throughout the universe and down to the atomic level, and yet they exist without form. What would you have in a space in which you removed all the atoms? Well, there would be nothing physical, but the laws of the universe would still be present. These laws and there operation are so far beyond our comprehension that, as far as I know, we have not even distinguished it as an area of study in its own right. We know the laws and research them, but we don't research how they work. We instead research how things we know (atoms), respond to them. If that makes sense. 'Why' big things attract other things, and 'why' heat creates uniformity are too far away from our understanding of the universe. So, there are laws that govern the universe that where not created by the Big Bang, and where there before it. Indeed, these laws made the Big Bang possible. These laws also made possible the universe and everything in it. Most importantly it created you. So we know that there are laws that govern, we know that within the space that they govern substance has been added. This substance has lead to planets and stars. Lets just pause here. How utterly strange that seems, laws govern a space, substance added at great heat, massive forms are created due to the gravity 'law'. It makes no sense. But now, life arises and now the laws have allowed for a being that is able to contemplate these laws and appreciate their beauty, even perhaps comprehend the creator itself. So there are laws that make no sense how they work, they govern absolutely everything and where here before the Big Bang, and they have created us. This argument I make because it demonstrates to the atheist how the Big Bang and evolution mean nothing to religious belief. One can know the history and the atomic science behind the universe and know nothing of the laws that govern it. On religion. So religion has existed in every society. Period. Atheism is recent. Everybody has felt a presence, imagined or not. But I'm going to talk about the religion of the majority of the world, one in which we have no name for, but instead rather unfortunately divide into three: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Acording to the hebrew calander, this belief dates back about 5700 years, as you may well know,this is as old as civilization. Almost exactly. So there was a designer to the laws of the universe, what would be the point? Well the brain is the most complex thing we know in the universe and we are the only things that can comprehend the universe, so it would seem that life has something to do with it. If that thing was to contact life how would it do so? So the Adam and Eve metaphors has many true translations. Let me explain: according to the story we started off living in the garden of Eden in the right way, and living as one with nature. We lacked the 'wisdom of god' that was only available through eating an apple that we where told not to touch. Without this wisdom we lived in harmony and happily. Now if this story is a true metaphor, we could assume these people where our pre-agricultural ancestors. Now anthropologists believe that the lives of per-agricultural people where far better than almost all human life thereafter and even in the most modern societies today there's an argument about whether this life would be more fulfilling than life today. These people had incredible sense of community, no prejudice, no inequality and did far less work and far more art, music and dancing than post agricultural societies. They also where far healthier, almost completely free from disease and starvation, ate better diets, the list goes on. This is all fact and I don't have a source readily available but please research it yourself it won't take long to see. So back to Adam and Eve: we lived in nature at one with it, the story says. That did actually happen. Now the apple. In the story the apple represents wisdom and knowledge of god. Knowledge of right and wrong. Now this apple could represent agriculture. Agriculture made us wise, it stops us thinking about nothing but food. It is agriculture that made possible learning, religion, evil. This wisdom, obtained from the apple, brought joy and misery, and knowledge of god. For it was this time that we began to worship him. We worshiped him because we took the apple that made us outside of nature. God said eating the apple was a crime to be punished. Surely agriculture has caused all the evil. For without a surplus there can be no tyranny. So eating the apple and being punished for it is a perfect metaphor for the discovery of agriculture and the world that would follow. Discrimination began with agriculture. So Adam and Eve is a perfect metaphor, true or not, of a history of mankind only discovered in the last decade or so. But apart from that, the 'Christian' religion has been about for as long as cities, in its earliest form. Nowadays almost everybody follows it, as Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all the same. Also, religion has been the voice of peace and compassion in a world where compassion and peace are unheard of. I am talking about a hundred years ago at least. But peace and love to all is not obvious. Aristotle didn't even fathom it and he was a social revolutionary. So the fact that religions fundamental message is love to all, makes it stand out from the psychology of the time. Nowadays it seems obvious but it wasn't back then. Religion has been the only thing driving peace in history, and without it we would still be living in a feudal system. If your a baron, what's to stop you raping who you will? Nothing. But with religion, there's an all powerful god above all men and he will punish you and and he demands righteousness and justice. This is a saviour to the majority of the population, who are terrorised by there overlords. sorry ignore that i just found it reloaded on my computer it was the argument i had ran out of time posting. still no votes please