Religion – your views

[Dark Lum Lord]

Less arguments, more peace I say.

As do I. Less arguments and more peace would more or less solve all of our problems, funnily enough.

[Bradandez]

Quite so.

[Adsolution]

Well, I might as well come out and say that I'm an atheist leaning more on the "non-theist" side. That's all I have to say, because I'd rather not spend an hour typing up twenty paragraphs on this subject.

You know why? Because there's nothing to say. The only time an atheist should actually have to describe his position is if religion presents you with a contextual fabrication to argue against.

[Dark Lum Lord]

Well, I might as well come out and say that I'm an atheist leaning more on the "non-theist" side. That's all I have to say, because I'd rather not spend an hour typing up twenty paragraphs on this subject.

You know why? Because there's nothing to say. The only time an atheist should actually have to describe his position is if religion presents you with a contextual fabrication to argue against.

Oh no, no. There is no need to waste time and energy arguing over whether or not an imaginary friend with quote on quote "divine powers" who does nothing but sit on a cloud and watch his children die and spread idiocy and corruption to other lovely individuals right before his eyes in the first place. The only thing to be done when one presents an argument of lies taken out of a holy fairy tale book written over one thousand years ago by morons who had the intellectual capacity of a potato is to sit back and laugh, of course.

[spiraldoor]

Oh no, no. There is no need to waste time and energy arguing over whether or not an imaginary friend with quote on quote "divine powers" who does nothing but sit on a cloud and watch his children die and spread idiocy and corruption to other lovely individuals right before his eyes in the first place. The only thing to be done when one presents an argument of lies taken out of a holy fairy tale book written over one thousand years ago by morons who had the intellectual capacity of a potato is to sit back and laugh, of course.

Now this brings me back. I was an edgy thirteen-year-old myself once.

[Dark Lum Lord]

Oh no, no. There is no need to waste time and energy arguing over whether or not an imaginary friend with quote on quote "divine powers" who does nothing but sit on a cloud and watch his children die and spread idiocy and corruption to other lovely individuals right before his eyes in the first place. The only thing to be done when one presents an argument of lies taken out of a holy fairy tale book written over one thousand years ago by morons who had the intellectual capacity of a potato is to sit back and laugh, of course.

Now this brings me back. I was an edgy thirteen-year-old myself once.

We've all had our grungy emo angsty, rebellious, "edgy" moments, now haven't we?

[Adsolution]

Over the past few months, three Mormon groups have presented themselves to me and asked me if I believe.

The first time I was at my friend's place test-playing a piano in his garage, I was happy, and then they walk up, interrupt my playing, which made me sad, and ask if I have time to listen. I say that I'm getting paid as a piano tester (I made myself happy with my jokelie) and that I don't, but they gave me a free DVD, called "He lives" or something, which made me sad. They then asked if there was a phone number someone could reach us at, and my friend began to give him his phone number, and I got sadder, but then changed the last number, and then I was happy. I forgot to mention, one was a short nerdy Asian kid, and the other was a burly white dude.

The second time I was at home, and the doorbell rang, and I was neutral. Since nobody ever has any damn patience, by the time I reach the door five or ten seconds later, they're already starting to leave, which made me neutral. I open the door, and as they turn to face me, I feel sad, as the truth of their purpose dawns upon me. They walk up to me and ask me if I believe, and I just say "no, but everyone else in my family does". They ask me why not, and I say "I just never got into it. It didn't personally make sense to me". They tell me it's about time that I learned, which made me sad, and they open their books and I sneezed because allergies, making me happier. I don't know if it was related, but they closed their books after I sneezed and stood there silently for a moment, which made me happy. I said that I had to go now. They told me that they would visit me again to see if I'd found Jesus shortly, and then I was sadder. Also, one was a short Asian dude and another was a white burly dude, but not the same ones as before.

The third time my brother dealt with them, I don't know how, but then he came to me and said "these guys are craaaaazy, do you know what they believe in?", and I felt happy.

[Dart]

Eh, I more so believe that the "all mighty" is not mighty and can only do half of what the bible says he can. In example I believe it actually took him millions of years to create the earth and not 7 earth days. I think if your going to word for word believe a 1000 year old text that was translate numerous times (from Ancient Egyptian to ancient Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, I believe) then your crazy. so yeah I believe in a divine being, but I look at him from a rather different perspective. I guess you could say my belief is McDonalds, the Big Mac picture looks huge and amazing, but the real thing isn't nearly as amazing.

[Shrooblord]

What an analogy! I like your style, dart.

Whether you believe in a higher power or not should be a personal journey of self-discovery. Not a journey of commercial self-robbery. Religions have in the past and continue to be money drains more so than faith givers and this saddens me. Why are the institutions of control behind the religions so greedy? Why can't they be the prime believers that other religious people can look up to? I mean, people still do, but in the end, those in charge are usually corrupted with money and/or power. This, to me, is a flaw I'd like to see change. People should be able to believe in something without being 'part of the club' or 'the communion' or 'the church'.
It's as if there were a club of people who favoured strawberry juice over orange juice and then started having meetings every Friday morning to discuss why the strawberry juice was so holy, much more so than the orange. That makes about as much sense to me as institutionalised churches do.

[Adsolution]

Eh, I more so believe that the "all mighty" is not mighty and can only do half of what the bible says he can. In example I believe it actually took him millions of years to create the earth and not 7 earth days. I think if your going to word for word believe a 1000 year old text that was translate numerous times (from Ancient Egyptian to ancient Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, I believe) then your crazy. so yeah I believe in a divine being, but I look at him from a rather different perspective. I guess you could say my belief is McDonalds, the Big Mac picture looks huge and amazing, but the real thing isn't nearly as amazing.

Whereas I don't have a problem with people believing in something for a spiritual sake, as something inspiring that keeps them going, I must say that I find 'humanisations' like this quite strange. Why are we attempting to make the actions of something that naturally defies the laws of physics more relatable? Is there any reason you believe that it took him millions of years to create the Universe and not seven days? I suppose the idea of having a relatable idol is wonderful, and I suppose anyone realistically has the ability to question whether it did actually take him seven days, but isn't the whole relatable half of Christianity covered by Jesus? If you think that it's crazy to believe in modern teachings due to the possibility of the Bible having been distorted over time (which I doubt has actually occurred to any notable degree), how is it not at least as crazy to even further obfuscate the 'religious truth' by replacing globally-recognised 'religious facts' (from the Bible, whether distorted over time or not) with your own completely made-up ones that are simply parametric modifications of the originals that have a no higher possibility of actually having happened and believing in them?

I also understand being skeptical of certain religious teachings, as anyone with half a brain should at least question some of them instead of following blindly, but I think you've taken the right step of attempting to be open-minded (dishing away the mundane ignorance of most religious followers) in the wrong direction of closing yourself off even more by becoming a hypocrite. It makes me question whether or not you've actually thought this through.

[Disionity]

[saerleiya]

It's hard to say that God is real and religion is right. Though having been raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I keep an open-mind, but every time I question God's existence I always get a "gut" feeling that he is real, thus never coming to a resolve on the matter. I guess in other words, I haven't quite seen any evidence to prove that the act of religion is wrong or that it is right. At this point, I believe the only thing that religion certainly does is give people hope, a purpose to keep going, an answer to why the world is in it's current state, etc. Though it begs the question, why did God create us in the first place? Jehovah's Witnesses believe that those who are faithful to God will survive a great tribulation and the end of the world's current state. After those events take place they live in a cleansed perfect Earth, with perfect bodies to live as God's loyal subjects for eternity. Why do we serve God in perfect conditions? The only explanation I can think of for this is "God doesn't explain his motives, because he is so perfect we can't comprehend them". While I did discuss these concerns with others and everything makes sense with explanation provided, there is still no actual proof that anything as such mentioned in the Bible exists, leaving room for doubt.

Religion are right in a certain way. One thing that is common to every human being here on Earth is that they are believing in/loving something. If it's not in God, it is in something else. if you are not even loving or believing in yourself, what is the difference between you and an animal? Actually, no difference at all.

What I don't like about some people into religions is when they are denying that the others have the right to believe in another religion/god/thing. However we are touching a paradox here. meh :s.

I don't believe in any god, but I'm agnostic, I don't know if God exists or not, and if he's alone. Why would he be? Because in that case, that would mean some people are right, and others are wrong about the existence of their god(s). But as I said before, does His/Their existence(s) really matter at all?
The answer is nope, because at the end, if you deny people the right to believe in something, then you are deying they are human beings.

[PluMGMK]

every time I question God's existence I always get a "gut" feeling that he is real

That sounds like my situation too.

Now that this thread has been bumped, I'd like to just say that I am still a practising Catholic.

[Adsolution]

The Jehovah's Witness thing to me personally, from that description, sounds rather icky. I mean, I much prefer it over the likes of crueler and more judgmental branches of Christianity like Catholicism, but the idea of a "perfect, cleansed world" I just find unattractive in every way possible. I don't want to live in a reality that bears no challenge, that bears absolutely no relation to our current reality. It's like living in a mad fantasy with novel value. Besides, if humans retain their 'free will', there has to be conflict at some point. We're all different people with different minds.

Religion are right in a certain way. One thing that is common to every human being here on Earth is that they are believing in/loving something. If it's not in God, it is in something else. if you are not even loving or believing in yourself, what is the difference between you and an animal? Actually, no difference at all.

What do you mean exactly by "believing in something"? As in, everyone has something technically irrational that they believe in? Perhaps many do, though it would be a rather sweeping statement to say that about everyone when there's no natural law anywhere that states we have to.

Also, from a practical/Atheistic standpoint, we are no different from other animals; you make it sound as if it's somehow a give-in that we are different, no matter your perspective.

While I did discuss these concerns with others and everything makes sense with explanation provided, there is still no actual proof that anything as such mentioned in the Bible exists, leaving room for doubt.

This is precisely the reason I don't follow any kind of religion, and the reason I also don't get why so many people do follow them. Room for doubt? If this were any other practical topic, literally anything that isn't religion, doubt would consume 99.99999% of all available space. I feel like to not come across as offensive when regarding religion, one has to euphemise the shit out of what they say and make exceptions that they would normally never have to make otherwise, as if you have to converse with a child absolutely obsessed with Santa Clause why he probably isn't real without provoking the slightest negative reaction - and right there, anyone who doesn't believe in Santa Clause will agree that 'converse' and 'probably' are two grossly inflated euphemisms. It's frustrating.

I'm not using that Santa Clause thing as a practical argument since I'm not debating, I'm only explaining why the 'angry Atheist' thing is so common (there is literally no practical distinction between Santa and God from a no-exception logical standpoint) and I think it's pretty understandable to a degree. Though on that note, the true source of my annoyance here is that if religious people choose to think in their religious way but also state that anyone else is free to think however they want, then in turn tell their child that Santa doesn't exist, that's the epitome of hypocrisy. Now, again from a practical standpoint, telling your kid that Santa doesn't exist is probably a good idea, seeing as they would be endlessly mocked for believing in him past the age of eight or nine, but, practically speaking, the only reason people aren't mocked for following religion currently is because so many do. This whole thing is a bout of unhealthy, dishonest parental/teaching mechanics, and I don't see how in the world such hypocrisy is supposed to make the world a better place.

^Again, I want to make it perfectly clear that this isn't anti-religion, but that should be obvious if it's read for what it is^

[saerleiya]

What do you mean exactly by "believing in something"?

I want to mean "something that convinces you to live right now, to see a future for yourself and only for yourself". You could refer to it as "hope" in some ways, but it's still not a complete definition of the meaning. It's what makes us different from machines or animals, it's that we are not only following our purpose of reproduction, our given function(s) or only seeking to answer our primal needs, we want to give a purpose to our life or simply what we want to do right now.

As in, everyone has something technically irrational that they believe in

I didn't mean it should be irrational. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. Religion is possibility, but because it can seem irrational to believe in a religion doesn't mean everything you are believing in is irrational...

Perhaps many do, though it would be a rather sweeping statement to say that about everyone when there's no natural law anywhere that states we have to.

That's an interesting point of view. Indeed, why wouldn't it be a natural law for people about that? The difference is that in this case it would only apply to human beings, therefore it would be another type of "law" than "natural".

Also, from a practical/Atheistic standpoint, we are no different from other animals; you make it sound as if it's somehow a give-in that we are different, no matter your perspective.

Yes we are, but it's not about taking religion in matter. Do you know a religion telling its believers that we are nothing else than animals, and so we shoud behave based only on our animal needs? Also, by practical standpoint, do you mean physical/physiological? Yes, but it's not what I meant about being different from animals. If you want to be more than an animal with primal needs, you need to do something else that you think is worth getting away from your needs (which include self-preservation, a noticeable element that also defines us as animals), therefore you are believing it's right to do so. Else there is no point doing so.

Just to clarify, I answered to make my thoughts clearer, because by considering your point of view about my comments, my action of translating my thoughts into words wasn't good enough. Thanks for your attention .

[Shrooblord]

I want to mean "something that convinces you to live right now, to see a future for yourself and only for yourself". You could refer to it as "hope" in some ways, but it's still not a complete definition of the meaning. It's what makes us different from machines or animals, it's that we are not only following our purpose of reproduction, our given function(s) or only seeking to answer our primal needs, we want to give a purpose to our life or simply what we want to do right now.

In that case I believe in the religion of having fun. I'm no hedonist, but what's the point in doing things that just make you unhappy (unless they're a necessary evil)?

[saerleiya]

In that case I believe in the religion of having fun. I'm no hedonist, but what's the point in doing things that just make you unhappy (unless they're a necessary evil)?

That post, Shroob', made my day. Thank ya

[sonicbrawler182]

I'm an atheist and have been for about 6 years now, and I don't think I'll ever be able to identify under any religion again (I was raised as a Christian, as most people in Ireland are). However, when I say "I don't believe in gods", I don't just mean I don't believe in their existence - since "believing in" something can also mean to "trust" something, I present that phrase with a double meaning - the first being that I literally don't believe in the existence of gods, and the second being that, even if gods were real, I would not trust them. I find no comfort in the idea of being sent to some promised land after death, be it heaven or hell, and I don't necessarily find the idea of heaven appealing. And I frankly don't like the idea of being watched and judged every second of my life, especially since I get enough of that from humans. And if I ever feel the need to be "doing the right thing", I want the feeling to come from my own flexible deductions and views, and not from the absolute, indiscriminate judgement of some deity I have no reason to trust.

That being said, I'm not against others having their own beliefs, and some of my best friends are religious. I have even had lovely discussions with a local priest since I abandoned my faith. And to be quite frank, I feel that chasing for the extinction of religion is a lost cause - since I believe the only way to end religion is to prove at least one god exists - however, I don't believe any gods exist. So I believe religion will always be a part of the world, or at least, for many generations to come.

Also I'm rainbowising this because it makes this post more amusing.

[OCG]

I believe in existance of god.
I respect all religions.
I do not believe in heaven and hell and nobody can convince me that I will end up somewhere like that after I die.
After some thinking, I came to conclusion that I also believe that fate cannot be changed and that people are just thinking they are doing how they decided, when in reality, that is how it was meant to be.
I believe in reincarnation.
I also believe in stories of people who claim they remember their past life, like recently one boy successfully explained where was he killed in past life and showed the killer. The body was really found there where boy explained, and he knew even how was he killed and all.
No disrespect to people who believe in heaven or hell but I do not like that concept.
At least I want to believe that I will be born again and live life again as someone new. Thats of course unless they don't invent something that can store my brain data in robot or something when my time is near, then I would definitely choose that way since I treasure my life a lot.

[Shrooblord]

I've always like the ancient Greek ideas of lingering souls going to the Underworld and live their lives out there. Then, when it's time and they are ready, they visit the gatekeeper, so to speak, get their minds cleansed of all their divine knowledge from down there and find a body requiring an occupant. And there you go: a new human is born! Or a deer, or a mouse... but usually humans. Souls like to stay with what they've been comfortable with before.