Do you have a religion?

[Funnygurl555]

Re: Do you have a religion?

Religion usually tries to address the existence of a god, although I propose another option: the existence of a god is not relevant to the problems we face today on this planet (i.e. apatheism).

The only consistent part of religion I've seen is inconsistency. Which god is the real one? (So much violence has happened over this question, it's ridiculous) Why are there so many religions? Why is God personified when in fact we'd be talking about an entity so powerful to create an entire universe that has no reason to exhibit any sort of human characteristics? What basis do assumptions of God have to our current problems today?

What does remain consistent is findings from the scientific method. It's mostly common sense if you think about it: an observation is made, you make a hypothesis and test it. Then you support or refute the hypothesis.

Advancements in quality of life and technology were not handed down by some God. Sure, this hypothetical God might have defined the rules of the universe (such as gravity) but does not propose solutions to our current problems.

I agree with this a lot, but my religious friends propose that while we currently face problems on Earth, in the end, these problems are inconsequential and that focusing on reality precludes many people from seeking unity with God. So, instead of thinking about things the way you do, their thought process is, "Focusing on problems on Earth are vain. Our real life objective is to come back to God."

edit: ight still goin

Raised a Southern Baptist, much more of a Taoist at this point; still identify as a Christian although I'm by nature a pretty shitty person so I'd be the worst example you could find of one.

People who call themselves shitty people tend to not actually be shitty people, in my experience. The real shitty people don't notice or acknowledge their shittiness, lol.

How did you get into Taoism, though?

I’m still claiming to be a Christian but I feel like that it just helps me cope with reality. It’s hard to explain but when I started to really become s believer, I noticed that it made life have more meaning and I didn’t feel so lost.

I am writing this post while drinking so im having s tough time elaborating.

I related to this a lot two years ago and sought religion to find meaning in my life. Now, my life is driven a lot more by goals, and that has made my life seem meaningful enough for now.

[Walrusizer]

Re: Do you have a religion?

No, lack of evidence

[rushyrulz]

Re: Do you have a religion?

No.

I was also expecting this to be a Shodzzy thread.

Will read thread and elaborate if needed.

[Funnygurl555]

Re: Do you have a religion?

shodzzy's a cool dude

[MikeShinoda12345]

Re: Do you have a religion?

Yes, Christian.
I'm more comfortable talking about faith and personal matters in general over PM/Facebook rather than on this public forum, though.

[rushyrulz]

Re: Do you have a religion?

No flame here, just responding to Dossar's post. If you don't want to read it, don't click the spoiler!

I'm pretty sure these where rhetorical, but I'm gonna answer them anyway:

Which god is the real one? (So much violence has happened over this question, it's ridiculous)

The fact that nobody has any actual substantive evidence other than their holy books (and this isn't valid evidence either) leads me to believe that nobody does know, nor can they really know at this point in time which, if any, is the real one.

Why are there so many religions?

Religion tends to vary on geographical location. Going back to the time when the world wasn't so connected, people in their close circles all over the world developed their own brands (sects) of religion. This isn't just true of Americans being mostly Christian and Indians being mostly Hindu, etc, but even people in the Southern U.S. being Baptist and midwest being Catholic.

This is NOT assuming that there was one true religion to start out with and everyone branched from there, but our human nature drove us to try to create these divine, supernatural explanations for things we didn't yet understand (God of the gaps), and this small seed of unknowing evolved (ironically) into the religions we have today.

Why is God personified when in fact we'd be talking about an entity so powerful to create an entire universe that has no reason to exhibit any sort of human characteristics?

The Bible and Qu'ran both have something along the lines of "God created man in his own image", so people are just following the book here.

What basis do assumptions of God have to our current problems today?

People always have and will continue to do crazy things in the name of their God(s). See: islamist acts of terror, crusades, etc.. So in large part, religion is causing our current problems today. People like to cherry pick the Bible and preach that it's "the good news", but it's the same book that advocates slavery (Exodus 22), execution of homosexuals (Leviticus 20) in the same chapter that condemns adultery and the Long Island Medium. One might claim that they do not follow the old testament, but I personally don't understand why, since God is a being that is timeless (Isaiah 57) and Jesus is, in fact, God himself.

[Travis_Flesher]

Re: Do you have a religion?

Why is God personified when in fact we'd be talking about an entity so powerful to create an entire universe that has no reason to exhibit any sort of human characteristics? What basis do assumptions of God have to our current problems today?

The problem we face is terrorism. We must actually accept a new god, not the God of olde. Sporadic terror attacks in an otherwise peaceful world will likely never cease, but to cope with the uncertainty, our people should update the olde beliefs into a more modern 'bible'.

Sure, this hypothetical God might have defined the rules of the universe (such as gravity) but does not propose solutions to our current problems.

Everyone instinctually knows that they are the spawn of a superhuman architect, but that knowledge alone is not why we're here.
Consider this. Most of us attended public schools from an early age, we have that in common. Most of the textbooks were written in the 1950's, before the deluge of postclassical thought.
I conclude that what used to be metaphysics should now be part of basic physics, integrated with our worldly common sense.
Nowadays it has become apparent that we are dealing with more than Isaac Newton here and religious people should really focus on that.
Over the past few years I have felt a much greater sense of peace and happiness in the people around me. I believe terrorism could be done with in the not-too-distant future. Nonetheless, religion is very interesting.

[Dynam0]

Re: Do you have a religion?

DO NOT FLAME RELIGIONS HERE DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT

I used to think that the more "intellectual" someone was, they are more likely to not be of faith; however, some of the smartest people I know are religious and have some pretty cool reasons for why they are. So yeah, wanted to know if y'all are religious or not, and why?

I don't. I've tried a couple times, but I don't think religion's for me. I think religious people are pretty kickass though.. well.. the ones that aren't pricks, but there's non-religious pricks too.

DO NOT FLAME RELIGIONS HERE DO NOT DO NOT

promoting forum activity oooweeee
night yall

Just to clarify, is flaming is equivalent to criticising here? Just so I don't violate your thread rule. I don't think criticising a religion should be outlawed, it's quite dangerous to operate in this way.

There is definitely a difference between being religious and being spiritual and I think the intellectuals you are referring to would be spiritual. They may say they're Christians or Jews for example but I'm sure like most other rational people they cherry pick portions of the holy text and traditions from which to build their own moral foundations. This is precisely why I think religion as a concept should be discarded; we have evolved morally and we don't need outdated texts to tell us how to behave, it's nonsense. Furthermore, you have Fundamentalists who would otherwise have been harmless people that commit terrible acts in the name of their religious deities. The promise of salvation is an awful thing to hedge your bets on and it shouldn't dictate how people live their lives. You should do good not because some invisible man in the sky told you so or else you'd burn in hell for all eternity, you should do it because it's just common sense.

More rants imminent but at work sry

[One Winged Angel]

Re: Do you have a religion?

Costanza's opposite religion has proven most effective for me personally

Not trolling

[Celirra]

Re: Do you have a religion?

Religion is a good example of a concept I hold a high degree of respect for and can see how it helps many people, and has done a lot of good (bad too, I know), but was just never for me. If I had to answer, I'd say I'm happily Agnostic, though technically if you asked my family they'd deem me Lutheran. That said, my mom works for catholics, and my late grandfather was an atheist, so in general distinctions as such have never impacted my directly immediate family and such.

I've experienced as a third-party both positives and negatives due to religion. It's largely due to religion (well, and the Beatles) that I'm cut off from a portion of my immediate family; it's also thanks to religion that a few people I hold very dear to me have been helped in significant ways over the years. I've seen religion guide people to a terrific way of life, be it Christianity, Catholicism, Muslim ideologies, and everything in between.

While there are holes in each religion, I don't think it's either important nor beneficial to judge due to them. I see it as a way to help people, and to provide support and answers where there may otherwise not be. Whether or not it's "correct" or "logical" is irrelevant with my stance; if there's nobody getting hurt then I see no harm in following a path that can cause great benefit.

Of course, there's radicals and extremists that twist the purpose of religion, they can suck a dick and such etc. But for the most part, I think religion has potential to be life-saving, and can greatly help many people.

[Spenner]

Re: Do you have a religion?

I guess you could say I have some spirituality. We, and everything in this universe has been cut from the same cloth. Our bodies, a crochet of cosmic fabric. I think we are walking embodiments of infinity, just like like the universe as a whole.

It is much simpler to have organization for your beliefs through religion. I choose not to observe any meaning that isn't personal to me. I think it's our job to find acceptance of our existence by our own individual means.

I apply some aspects of buddhism to my life that replicate aspects of cognitive behavioural therapy. I think everyone should.

[SpaceGorilla]

Re: Do you have a religion?

I'd say that there's a distinct difference between a religion and a philosophy and that's the existence of something you can't explain. As far as I know there's no evidence for an actual god or supernatural presence of any kind that has dictation over the universe, and that the idea was probably proposed by someone (obviously a long, long time ago, before science was as prevalent in society as it is today) who wanted to use it to explain things they couldn't - the "god of the gaps" as they call it. A religion can easily indoctrinate philosophical ideals into them, as most do, and for that I think it's great that people can find something they agree on (if it's not detrimental to human progress) and can work towards together. Dispute over which is "correct" in my opinion is childish behaviour but at this point there's little we can do about entire populations of people being raised to believe something that others don't.

I definitely believe in the individualistic way of going about this, where you take what you can observe and turn it into your own ideas about nature and your existence. I have a hard time believing things that people tell me that I can't observe as true.


edit: this is the most genuine thread i've seen in a while jesus christ

[rushyrulz]

Re: Do you have a religion?

I feel kinda bad for people who were heavily indoctrinated. Instilling the fear of eternal punishment for finite wrongdoing into children is very effective for getting them to follow your religion and stay with it until they die.

[MixMasterLar]

Re: Do you have a religion?

How did you get into Taoism, though?

Tai Chi is heavily rooted in Taoism beliefs to the point that you really can't separate them unless all you want to do is slow moving dance routines.

One might claim that they do not follow the old testament, but I personally don't understand why, since God is a being that is timeless (Isaiah 57) and Jesus is, in fact, God himself.

God literally flips the script, that's why.

Before Jesus dies (and goes to hell for three days. I think Revelations starts by having John see him declare that he has the keys to the bottomless pit as a result) people had to prove they where worthy through acts and not doing certain acts. Do this, eat that, don't fuck that, or her, etc etc etc. When Jesus dies things change to a more faith base system with a new set of rules. For a none believer this sounds pretty convenient, I know; that' the reason for it though.

Also as an aside, most of the Old Testament never ever ever applied to non Jews / Priests to begin with. The book of Leviticus? 90% for Priests and Priests alone.

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Do you have a religion?

some of the smartest people I know are religious and have some pretty cool reasons for why they are.

i'll happily criticize your acquaintance pool-

it sucks and they're all stupid