The doomsday cult that is in the news today--for asserting that the world will end today--has obviously set itself up for humiliation. But how much stupider is this than mainstream religion?
I think you can break up the supernatural claims of religions into a couple categories, testable versus untestable. Assertions of the existence of gods and an afterlife, at least in concept, are untestable. On the other hand, concrete claims of supernatural activity in this world as we know it are testable. There is no hard evidence to suggest that any concrete supernatural claim is true. You can study whether prayer brings miracle cures, Wiccans can move objects with their minds, or that tv psychics can communicate with the dead. Any thoughtful test of these results in a simple conclusion. They are bullshit. If someone strips this away and still feels compelled to hold onto some supernatural beliefs, they might maintain some untestable beliefs, since it takes even deeper critical thinking to wonder why we should believe in something that can neither be proven nor disproven.
The current doomsday cult has made an in-your-face concrete supernatural claim. It is a testable claim and the test is automatic. They say the world will end at a particular time. That time will pass. If the world doesn't end, their supernatural claim is false. Contrast this with more conventional religious beliefs that are not quite so automatically tested. The folly of such religiosity is easier to dismiss merely by not thinking much about it. But it is impossible to avoid seeing the bullshit of a doomsday cult when doomsday doesn't come.
Yeah, I've argued these things with people--late into the night with intelligent people, too. I'm here now with some awareness of the wonder of the world around me and this doesn't require belief in the supernatural.
The basic god argument typically circles back around to the question of how the world came to exist:
The world had to be created...god created the world...what created god?...god always existed...why does the world have to have been created and the explanation of its creation involves a god that didn't have to be created?
I don't think I am a particularly original thinker. I think all thoughtful arguments about this go the same way. My personal sense is that the concept of a god that always existed would be awe inspiring. But this depends on deciding, philosophically, that the world (in some form) could not have always existed. I mean, if we are looking for explanations and we come up with an eternal god, why couldn't the world itself simply have always existed? The big bang was not the beginning of the world. Even that started with that dense mass of whatever.
It is the question of why there is something instead of nothing. I don't know why there is something rather than nothing. I don't know how to find an answer without suspending my critical mind. But the world's very existence, even absent of any supernatural thinking, inspires awe in me. I don't need religious bullshit for that. Can a non-supernatural religion be built on that foundation? I don't know. But my own religious tradition allows for this kind of contemplation.
