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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not an atheist -- I'm Jewish -- but FWIW, I don't generally feel like anyone is out there watching over me, nor have I taught my children that. [/quote]

Same, Catholic (with agnostic spouse). Words like "God is watching" are used in a literary or poetic sense, but it isn't meant literally, like an actual body up in the clouds with a telescope or crystal ball. That's an immature understanding of what God is, and while it is an easy way for little kids to think about it, we are expected to mature in our understanding, even if we never fully understand -- some would argue we are incapable of doing so. Those unable to grasp higher concepts of philosophy or theology, which is a lot of people, maybe most, need the literary and poetic as a guide to understanding, which may never really come. That's ok. Having guideposts that can be understood is meaningful for one's personal search for how to live and how to comprehend the divine.

I remember in my Catholic college Freshman theology class, a theology professor, after the first papers, gave a lecture "for those who never learned a thing or paid attention to theology past Confirmation." It was amusing. In second grade, we learned about the attributes of God (self-existing; love itself; omnipresent; separate and distinct from the created universe, etc.), and generally that is when your mind should be awakening to the difference between God in art and literature (manifested in form and words), and God in philosophy and theology (attempting to comprehend the reality of existence and the divine, pushing the limits of the known, unknown, and contemplating the possibility of unknowable and divine). Humans will always be limited by linguistics in trying to discuss that which is beyond our own experience.[/quote]

It sounds like religion is the only thing in life that you don't need to/probably can't understand.  And you MUST be a part of it or you are going to hell -  at least that's what religious people say.
[/quote]

Yeah, doesn't add up, does it?[/quote]

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