well put and very true. My fiancee mentioned the Einstein quote to me the other night while we were both discussing our spiritual journeys over the last 10 years. So I dug it up without really researching it and posted it here to see the responses I would get. I did a bit more research on it after you brought it to my attention how it was taken out of context and I find more comfort in how Einstein viewed religion and science over how I was taught it. I can't accept the world just exists because, it's too perfect and complex of a rejuvenating system to have just accidentally happened. I also can't accept humans are here to be tested and a better world is waiting for them only if they pass that test. So I'm somewhere in the middle I guess, a higher power... sure, a judging power... not likely. As far as where we go after we die, I tend to think about where we were before we were born... that's most likely where we will go.

Good post and I think your take on it is pretty commonplace. At least in Norway, those who are religious tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I hope you don't think that scientists believe the world with all it's living organisms is merely an accident though! It's generally thought to be the result of billions of years of cause and consequence.

What of theistic evolutionists? Those that believe that evolution is god's chosen mode of creation. Not that I believe in an anthropomorphic god, but I believe I fall into this category.

If I was a christian, that's something I could lean against. Even higher-ups in the vatican have defended evolution claiming it's compatible with christianity and for example see it as God's hand in nature.

Some sources :

The Vatican claims Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity - Telegraph
FOXNews.com - Vatican Official Defends Evolution Against 'Useless' Creationism - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

I don't really know of course, but it seems to me that the separation between science and religion might be stronger in America than it is in Europe.

I think it's mainly reactionary. I'm making the assumption that there's a much stronger evangelical presence in America than in Europe. I think you see more of a defensive stance to the atheism in America; a product of being proselytised by dogmatic fundamentalism. Whereas in Europe its more or less a matter of an objective understanding of a particular belief structure being incompatible with what one knows about the physical nature of reality.

I like this thread you guys sound like lil geniuses while i mispell the very word cause I can't download that spellin **** due to some sort of defect in my computer. Or it may be my brain i don't know i don't care anymore but yeah ya'll keep on keeping on this is making me think. Stimulate me god knows I ****in need it

seriously, I feel compelled to turn in my Christianity card after reading through this thread. Thinking about how the world came to be and how all creatures have evolved is so huge. When I think of "higher power" I don't think "God", but literally whatever power was necessary to start it all in the first place.

Religion can really be a mind ****. Discussing religion with my fiancee, I asked her what keeps her faith so strong and her reply was simply "talking to God makes me feel better". I asked her what if it was some how proven that God or none of what you know God to be truly existed, would you feel deceived? and she said "no, I feel like the idea of God listening to me and being there when I was afraid, lonely or sad was helpful to me in my life and often necessary". So I took that as God really is whatever you need God to be within' your own life, without buying into the hype you can simply just take it as a means to find peace within' yourself.

I believe its real, i mean this thing exists doesn't it, but me believing it, not really

I can kinda' understand what Christans mean and how they are so determined to believe despite all the evidence against them cause I've felt something too inside. It sounds lame but it's true some things just have to be felt. And for about a month I felt somethin' and I thought about it day in and day out wondering what it was. It's hard to explain I'm not even going to bother but after a while it just went away and so now I'm stuck here wondering was it god or just some kind of mind trick I've fallen in? Ever since then my music style has changed and I've pretty much been a completely different person I don't look at anything the way I did before. It doesn't sound like much on a post in a thread but it's extremely strange and now I feel even emptier than before cause no matter how hard I struggle to feel what I felt those days I just can't. I don't have big words and all this knowledge but if there is a god I don't think he thinks the way we do. Meaning we could think all day about it and never figure it out it's something you gotta' to feel. Although it's impossible for me not to think about it constantly

I know what you mean. When I was younger and not so eager to figure it all out I would have my spiritual moments. I would go to Church on Sunday and feel good about myself, I would write different types of music that I felt good about. I still write music I feel good about but it's different, it's not as "magical" as it was. Perhaps it's just being young and going through a phase? perhaps it's dissecting the very thing that can't be dissected and not allowing that spiritual channel to flow through as it did when you didn't think about it at all? to be honest even if it's all a crock of **** there is something very moving and uplifting about faith, religion and the morals that go along with it. Sometimes I wish I was still that kid that believed without questioning, simpler times.