Religion – your views

[Adsolution]

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.

Ah, that's what you mean. I can only agree, since we're likely the only animals that have wills that exceed our instincts, but I still don't think that God is a good thing to compare that to, since believing in him requires us to accept more than what our sensory input provides. Believing that we exist in some kind of conscious form is trivial.

[saerleiya]

since believing in him requires us to accept more than what our sensory input provides.

True. But exceeding our instincts doesn't mean we are using our sensory input to do so. Something that convinces you to live is at a metaphysical level: It can be an idea, a concept, not related to the physical world. I don't know, could we tell that believing in the existence of God is an idea, a concept?

Believing that we exist in some kind of conscious form is trivial.

Descartes, my friend, where are you? :3

[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.

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.

You raise an excellent point, and to be honest I don't know if I've thought it all through. But the great part about life is that I have its entirety to think this through All I TRULY know is that some (but not all) parts of the bible are either stretched beyond reliability (has anyone seen a person with wings?) or are outright fiction. Maybe one day I'll just hang the religious coat in a closet and become an athiest, I dunno. But thanks for saying this to me Adsolution I really appreciate it

[Snagglebee]

I believe in God and I believe life is just a test if you suit to heaven or hell.

[Adsolution]

You raise an excellent point, and to be honest I don't know if I've thought it all through. But the great part about life is that I have its entirety to think this through All I TRULY know is that some (but not all) parts of the bible are either stretched beyond reliability (has anyone seen a person with wings?) or are outright fiction. Maybe one day I'll just hang the religious coat in a closet and become an athiest, I dunno. But thanks for saying this to me Adsolution I really appreciate it

Ah gut, I'm glad you took it the right way. ;3

True. But exceeding our instincts doesn't mean we are using our sensory input to do so. Something that convinces you to live is at a metaphysical level: It can be an idea, a concept, not related to the physical world. I don't know, could we tell that believing in the existence of God is an idea, a concept?

I was moreso using it in comparison to believing we exist versus him. We must formulate the concept of God, like any other complex thought. We understand that we ourselves exist from our earliest memory. If someone were to ask you if you're "real", if it's something you've never been asked or even thought about before, chances are you would blurt out a 'yes' instantly, bypassing a lot if not all thought because "Like how could I not be?"

[Dart]

You raise an excellent point, and to be honest I don't know if I've thought it all through. But the great part about life is that I have its entirety to think this through All I TRULY know is that some (but not all) parts of the bible are either stretched beyond reliability (has anyone seen a person with wings?) or are outright fiction. Maybe one day I'll just hang the religious coat in a closet and become an athiest, I dunno. But thanks for saying this to me Adsolution I really appreciate it

Ah gut, I'm glad you took it the right way. ;3

As always. oh, I notice you visit this thread fairly often, any reason as to why?

[Adsolution]

I notice you visit this thread fairly often, any reason as to why?

As in, I post in it often? I just find it interesting. Threads where actual depthy conversation can take place I put on higher priority for myself.

[Dart]

Oh that's cool. And really shows some character considering how most people would avoid very in depth conversations like religion.

[Adsolution]

And I usually avoid game threads (bar the You Game) since I don't get much from them. Once in a while I'll go on a game-posting spree if I'm feeling energetic, but in most cases I like to make posts that contain something that can be replied to.

[Shrooblord]

I like them most too - but I do enjoy the randomness of some of the game threads most of the time.

[Adsolution]

I might enjoy them more if they were more personally interactive, that's why I made that rules suggestion post in the "I have never" thread; most of the game threads are just people walking in and farting.

[Shrooblord]

I try to be relevant in the Backronym game, for example, trying to think of what the acronyms stand for that also relates to the word the acronym is itself. I encourage creativity in the forum games.
But some of the games are supposed to be silly, and that's fine - if you want to hang around and be silly, there's your place!

[Xenon]

This is definitely one of RPC's most interesting (and best) topics, in my opinion. But for me, I have to really be in the mood and have sufficient free time to write a long, formulated response. Those situations are sadly few and far between for me at the moment, but I still get a buzz from posting little responses here and there, and I don't think those messages are necessarily less valuable to the forum.

As for forum games, I quite like to post in TPAYG, because you're pretty much guaranteed a response directed at you personally.

[Dark Lum Lord]

Generally speaking, I'm somewhat fluid. I tend to shift between agnostic atheism, plain atheism, agnostic theism, and apatheism. I identify as atheist most often though. I'd say apatheism fits me like a glove, though, since I usually have a lack of fucks anyway -- finding it irrelevant to my life to begin with.

[Keane]

I'm not really sure if I'm agnostic or atheist. Honestly, concepts like afterlife or being reborn more scare me more than comfort me. Not in a hell sort of way, but I don't think an afterlife is necessarily something that means peace and rest. I also wonder if people who think being reborn is such a beautiful, comforting idea ever consider that you could potentially live a pretty satisfying life, only to start from scratch in a new life with an abusive family or a less wealthy part of the world.

Death doesn't really scare me, or at least not entirely. I'm pretty okay with accepting that it's gonna happen and there's a pretty good chance nothing good comes after it and unless you get yourself into a history book you're gonna be forgotten at some point. I am pretty afraid of dying before ever getting to experience certain things. As in, what if tomorrow I get into a car crash. There'd be so many things I didn't get to do yet.

[DandyGuy]

I'm not really sure if I'm agnostic or atheist. Honestly, concepts like afterlife or being reborn more scare me more than comfort me. Not in a hell sort of way, but I don't think an afterlife is necessarily something that means peace and rest. I also wonder if people who think being reborn is such a beautiful, comforting idea ever consider that you could potentially live a pretty satisfying life, only to start from scratch in a new life with an abusive family or a less wealthy part of the world.

Death doesn't really scare me, or at least not entirely. I'm pretty okay with accepting that it's gonna happen and there's a pretty good chance nothing good comes after it and unless you get yourself into a history book you're gonna be forgotten at some point. I am pretty afraid of dying before ever getting to experience certain things. As in, what if tomorrow I get into a car crash. There'd be so many things I didn't get to do yet.

Some people believe you can never truly die only (so to speak) remix your life with the knowledge you gained here. For example its like me dying today and waking up in 2009 thinking it was a dream. (Just another theory) In my option it seems better then reincarnation or hell.

[RAYMANIA]

Atheist... Or rather, I believe in Rayman

[OCG]

So your god is Polokus?

[RAYMANIA]

In a sense, yes

[OCG]

I see...