Why do people believe that God is a fairy tale, but they believe in Dinosaurs ? [Spirituality & Religion]

Well put. @CopperCicada

@CopperCicada sorry, wrong.

@Doomflower *shrug* i guess its my own narrative. churches are psychological and spritul abbatoirs

@CopperCicada churches don't help but the vast majority of nonbelievers I've known don't believe because the burden of proof for religious claims has not been met.

@Doomflower I get that. A lot of that In my opinion is still dogma of the religion and has to do with the church though. That's the reason, I am personally spiritual and not at all religious. I don't need a dogmatic faith/church telling me what their version of my god is or how I need to meet or worship my God. 🍀

@ShadowedWhispers your kind of theist is the best kind. You're not trying to make other people live by what you think God/s says to do.

@Doomflower Exactly! In fact my wife who is also here is an atheist. We have been married for over 13 years and never fight about faith. We occasionally discuss faith but neither of us tries to convince or push the other into our way of thinking. We may explain our own rationale but that's where it ends. Our three children can ask either of us and choose their own way. I think they do lean my way a bit as they find comfort in a higher power but neither of us would push them because that would take away their choice and one thing my wife and I agree on completely is choice. 🍀

@Doomflower@ShadowedWhispers
for me spirituality is something best shown to others through one's life, one's actions. it's also something more related to developing personal qualities than adherence to beliefs.

ya. religious narratives. i really don't worry about those much. i've found having faith in narratives doesn't take much-- and really doesn't transform one much. me at least. love thy neighbor-- that's the real meat.

Well said. @CopperCicada

@CopperCicada so spirituality has nothing to do with any gods.

@Doomflower Spirituality either can or not be a belief in a God. It definitely is separate from institutional religion and churches though. It typically is a belief in some sort of higher power or greater connectedness but that could be nature or anything really. You could however be a spiritual Christian, worshiping the Christian God (as I do) but it would mean that you are free from the institution, dogma, and rules. You are able to make your own personal decisions about how to worship and also follow him. Please understand I am in no way trying to push anything or convince anyone, merely explaining what I think and believe in myself.

@ShadowedWhispers I hear that! I like Christians who don't follow the bible because they are way less likely to impose their morality in me.

The Bible is not even the problem but mistranslation & misunderstanding of it. Jesus's actual words take up very little and I honestly stick mostly to what it says Jesus said. When you start getting into what Mark, Luke, Matthew and Paul (who converted to early Christianity after Jesus's death) think of his teachings, it's kinda like a political commentary and I just want Jesus's thoughts. I can add my own spin. The early Christian church still has many equal texts (verified in authenticity) that were not even included in the Bible when it was composed because they wanted to remove the spin they didn't like. So I'd rather have no opinion/spin at all. To add to that many churches add dogma to it based on their understanding that are not even in it. @Doomflower Sorry so long but it makes me sad so many people have such a bad view of Christianity due to dogma.

Verified in authenticity how? What is authentic to you?

Nobody wrote about anything Jesus said until decades after his death and they wrote it in languages that are so different from modern versions they are basically different languages.

Christianity even without dogma requires you to believe in several things we have never, ever been observed or documented by anyone let alone those who were present at the time so why be Christian at all?

Just to be from the same time period as the texts included in the traditional bible. That's about all you can verify for exactly the reasons you stated above. Also the Bible I read is not the King James which is beautifully written but a terrible mistranslation of tons of verses. I personally have used a translation that is very difficult to read because the sentence structure from the original languages is so different from English but it keeps the meaning accurate at least as far as the original texts that it had been translated from. This is hugely important as concepts like hell (from Dante's inferno) did not exist either in the Old Testament or the New Testament. These words were changed for the King James translation and since have been used by religions to create fear of a God who punishes for eternity.
Your last question was why be Christian and that is for myself. I have found personal truth in the unverifiable words presented in the books of Christianity that help me make sense of the world and find my own peace in it. I have no desire to change anybody else's thinking though. My wife is a full fledged atheist and we never argue about religion as we both respect each other's viewpoint. I mean, hell, we both could be completely wrong.
@Doomflower