Joedad...I invent things constantly while staying on the rails. My brain things go beep beep when I have faith. I try to be logical. Logic tells me that lovingly prepared sandwiches and free donuts await me in a kind atmosphere. I finally reach that generous place and my logic, plus the happy beep beeps keep me around. Is pretending that you're not pretending that you need to pretend considered pretending? I love God because of the brain tingles. The food, women and community status are secondary to the brain beep that feels so Good. We're all humans, go get a God man! Beep beep. Make ya feel better! JK... not preaching. The neurochemical benefits alone make it worthwhile. I have a good place full of good people to hang out in. I meditate on inventing lots of things including God itself during prayer. I don't think that is a sin. I think that is progress. Why adopt something that is already around and echoing screams from an iron maiden? Logic and the scientifically proven need for a God. The bus looks small and scary but once onside there is plenty of room and many different progressive thoughts floating around. Even if the bus is driving straight to an inevitable state of conscious death... ceasing to exist consciously (impossible) I have at least tingled my brain thingies and I ate until I had to purge with less aware, yet tingling just as much as I, females around me. Dear God if you knew the benefits in my personal community you would understand. Keeping with the topic - it isn't necessarily a bus. It could be a ford Explorer; a subway car; a bike or a damn shopping cart. To assume that I personally do not invent while worshiping my Christian God... Inventing hundreds of things a minute while in meditative prayer is naïve. You just don't know me. I personally forgive you. I go way left field when I pray and eat at the endless buffet made by old women who love their sandwiches so much that you can actually taste love when you bite into one. They have purpose and faith when they make those sandwiches... cut into 4 beautiful pieces and arranged with beautiful precision on that old plate. The brain zaps that are scientifically proven to happen because of their faith give them sandwich power. They may be old, alone and in need of a savior. Watching me eat half of the foot high stacked plate, smile and say thank you psychically could be all they have in this life. I can taste one now. God they are good. I watch my weight so I avoid the junk food donut buffet. I also don't taste the love in them because a hurried man in a car full of screaming children just picked them up at a donut store on his way to Church. Nice intention but less love there. The body of Christ - the bread houses the meats and those old women know this. My church doesn't force communion wafers or anything else down throats. We are kind of meditative through half of the service and we listen to a guy with a nice voice rationalize a mirage that he only feels because a linguistic model to make the mirage an oasis (up to the listener) doesn't and can't exist. Some annoying singing is involved and I wish there were a socially tactful way to give someone a breath strip. Cast an image of what I think during prayer on a television and the television might disappear. I can adopt something that is already around out of logic. What I do with it after I adopt it could be summed up to adopting a rescue kitten. It will grow up to thinking it owns me while I sustain it's life as the protector of a pet in this suspiciously odd life. A mutualism that is unspoken but the brain zaps are there. I get the zaps. The cat gets the bowl of whatever I give it. I think the zaps of faith that are there to give us pleasure through worshiping any God were not evolved. I think the intention to love a God could possibly be the reason you and I were given the chance to evolve. The loving, all powerful God is the driving force behind all. Rescue kittens and free sandwiches sound petty in a world where 10,000 people died of starvation before I managed to finish this post, but hey... logic. You can't solve all of the problems all of the time but you can be aware and solve the entire problem in your own mind. That I believe is what prayer is for in my own life. Like someone mentioned, opiates do cause the brain to zap, but they cost money. Logic... free food, lusty glances from across the sanctuary and "the mechanic" who is a star at church. The guy who is actually honest and will not sabotage your car. It is complex, the way Church life works. The main thing to me is that it does work. I'm zapped by the sandwich power. Dear God I can taste one now. So good I don't even chew. The bread is already moistened by the MIRACLE whip and the ham just slides down the esophagus. I like tasting my food after I've swallowed it. To each their own I suppose. I can say with confidence regarding the actual topic of this thread that not having a God is a God. Trying hard not to have a God is just worshiping harder. I consider most people I meet on boards like this scribes. Very faithful ones I engage on overcast days like this and I try not to express how ironic their very lives are when they pretend that they aren't helicopters crashing into choo-choo trains when they deny, or are unaware of basic human neurochemical discoveries that draw in cheap crayons all over the walls exactly what we are. We're all having fun though. God is great.