Oh God!

Well, does this concept exist in reality?

I have read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. Quite a good book despite being, by his own admission, totally partisan.

Ok, agnosticism: I reject the idea that science cannot examine/answer the question of the existence of god. Any part of 'the universe' that is a cause for effects within 'the universe' must be examinable and therefore, in principle, there must be an answer. I would tend towards placing agnosticism on a completely different axis to belief. Whatever your strength of your belief in the existence or otherwise of god, you may have serious doubts in the evidence for god's existence. For example, as a friend of mine once said (perhaps quoting someone else), "I cannot scientifically justify it, but that doesn't matter, I believe he exists". This suggests strong belief and strong agnosticism. The same could be true of other permutations too: "the case for/against is strong, but regardless I believe he does/doesn't exist".

So, do I believe? No, I don't. I have never believed, despite various attempts to induce me to do so (including Sunday school at a young age). However, I never really cared much, either. I think the popular term is something like 'Apatheism'. Turning to Dawkins' book, the real Copernican revolution amongst his arguments was when he pointed out the wrongness of teaching religion. Teaching children that belief should outrank reason is clearly wrong. If belief were to always win, then we would never have identified cures for illnesses, never have invented flight, never have discovered nuclear power (yeah, that last step's a doozy - but it's not an out-and-out negative. I'm sorry, you're going to have to think about it). The benefits of reason over belief are clear. We should always teach children to question and investigate. So, now I believe that religion is a negative force.

Of course, there is one thing that religion is good for: 'opium of the people', I think was the term that Marx used (I am, of course, referring to the 'baby-doping' interpretation). There are (at least we are told) people who would follow any crackpot regardless of religion. That there are just plain bad, or stupid people. Yeah, maybe - I've never moved in those circles. The assertion that giving these people 'good' religious ethics suggests that we're brainwashing them into being good people. Let's assume that most religious ethics are good, "don't kill", "don't steal", "be nice", etc. It's a great pity some religious leaders have cut their sedative with speed!