http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=97898

http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=97898

None of this is to say that agnostics are better than religious people. I just think that this void - the void that allows really smart people to believe in god - is a built-in defense mechanism that allows people to get on with their lives.

I wouldn't disagree, but feel it necessary to note - that's the point of 'belief' - to get on with one's life. If that's what people need to get through- even really smart people, that's fine. If you don't need that, that's fine too. What's not fine is to waste a lot of effort on searching for something to believe in - you either do or don't (unless you're ready to join a cult)
Not wanting to be a dick, just stating an observation.

Why? Why does he allow event like this to happen?

I used to be a 'religious people are stupid' style atheist. But one of, if not the, smartest people I've ever met was a deeply religious man, and that really caused me to rethink my position. However people respond to the fact of their small place in an infinite universe is up to them. Religion becomes troubling when it undermines the skeptical doubt that makes it possible for people to live alongside one another peacefully. But non religious views can lead to the same place. The problem isn't religion. it is fundamentalism.

I used to be a 'religious people are stupid' style atheist.

So I'm not making it up. Some people really do think along these lines?

I have been on a spiritual "quest" for some years now. I really, really want to believe in something, anything. I have many christian friends that I truly respect and love that seem to have this depth to them that I don't have. That "depth" is spirituality. They have a quite reserve and calmness to them that is something to be admired. My mother is a Buddhist that attends Unitarian Universal meetings and after decades of soul searching, has really seemed to find an inner peace. I have many Mormon friends that I have respect for and even though I don't agree with the politics, most of them seem to have an inner peace that I just don't have.

Then my father died and I realized that he, like me, always seemed to be searching. And then it dawned on me, searching for the truth is a kind of spirituality. The search for meaning is what it is to be human and maybe us agnostics/searchers are really the most spiritual people on Earth. Maybe these people that have found "inner peace" or the "holy ghost" have really just given up or have let fear taken over. It would be a lot easier for me to believe in God, then to know that when I die, that's it. I won't see my family in the "afterlife."

So I have come to realize that this "depth" that religious people seem to have, the thing that makes them seem so stoic and full of inner peace, is really just emptiness. A void in their quest for knowledge.

None of this is to say that agnostics are better than religious people. I just think that this void - the void that allows really smart people to believe in god - is a built-in defense mechanism that allows people to get on with their lives.

I didn't sleep much last night...