Are you religious?
Well, are you? Just interested in seeing how everyone round these parts is inclined.
Personally, I dunno what the story is myself, caught in a game of Pascals wager and open minded specticism.
So vote and discuss, it goes without saying that if you disagree with someone's views you don't have to stamp your feet and bore us to death about how you're right and others are wrong
Personally, I dunno what the story is myself, caught in a game of Pascals wager and open minded specticism.
So vote and discuss, it goes without saying that if you disagree with someone's views you don't have to stamp your feet and bore us to death about how you're right and others are wrong
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If he was you'd be going straight to hell bucko
Id gladly go to hell rather then change:rolleyes:...well probably not gladly.
There have been several religion threads that have prospered for quite some time. I think this one has a chance. Especially, since it's a poll, which limits interaction.
I don't believe in God.
In fact, I believe moreso in the idea that everything just happens randomly.
Something randomly becomes something else, which randomly becomes somthing else.
Why couldn't we just pop into existance (if we actually exist in that sense).
As for Religion (which even though is linked to the belief in god, though is mostly a seperate concept), I have never felt the need to pick any up.
Don't think of it as ignorance or offensive though, after all I spent most of my childhood in a church of England school, I went to choirs, assemblys (which always involved praying and a story from the bible), and have been in church.
I just never really absorbed any of it. Most of the morals just seemed like common sense, and those that didn't I just ignored anyway.
I guess I'm one of those odd type of people who prefer to define their own way of life, their own morals and routines.
As for myself, I'd say I fall somewhere between agnostic and confused, but I voted agnostic.
I don't believe in a God who watches waiting to judge, but I do believe there are general principles of right and wrong.
Of course, Sir Terry Pratchett has an equally valid opinion.
So...maybe that isn't the best way to go about things.
It is my fond hope that people will see how tedious it is to argue over something that's been argued over for a long long time by greater minds than the rabble that we are still haven't gotten anywhere.
I mean what're we gonna do, start a new age of enlightenment
I already name-dropped Pascal, boom! However I did not name-drop Pratchett. I tip my hat to you My hat is not a Ushanka, Pants. Ushankas are shit
Of course, back in my single digits, I was 'religious' in the same way any kid with religious parents is likely to be... at such a young age, one tends to just accept whatever your parents tell you.
Then, in my early teens, I still called myself a Christian (protestant) for a few years... mostly because I never gave it much thought, it was just how things were.
However, eventually I started thinking more and more about these things... mostly because once I started pondering it, and realized it all seemed really dumb (to me, I'm not trying to offend any religious forum members here - just explaining how this was for me) and that resulted in really thinking about death seriously for the first time in my life, basically.
At first it terrified me, which had me really wanting to be a Christian, so for a year or so I tried my best to really become one... to actually seriously believe in the things you find in the Bible, and to go to Christian meetings and actually enjoy it instead of being bored out of my mind... but I failed miserable on all accounts.
At that point, though... I had gotten used to the idea of death and it didn't really scare me much anymore. Also, I was so sick of anything related to Christianity after spending so much time trying to convince myself it was actually true... that just giving up on it and not having to bother with any of that anymore - that was a huge relief.
I haven't looked back ever since, and now I can say it would literally take a miracle for me to become religious.
I suspect my brain in some strange way was never 'disposed' to the idea of religion in the first place, seeing as I was raised in such a religious home and all my three brothers turned out very religious (to the point where two of them have chosen to go to religious schools and they're both heavily active in their churches... giving speeches and all... and one of them is going to become a missionary as well)... while I was never able to really believe in any of it.
arent you like 11?
I wouldn't consider myself a fundamentalist, though. I don't believe Genesis or Revelation passage-for-passage. When it comes to creation, I don't believe it entirely; I believe that evolution took place, God intended for evolution to take place, but there was a guiding hand over the whole evolution process (His). As for Revelation, I don't believe that entirely either; I think the world's going to end as a result of humanity's raping of the planet which will trigger runaway climate change. And I think "the Earth burning" works as a pretty good metaphor for global warming.
Anyway, those are my general beliefs in a nutshell.
The term is sadly often misunderstood - Christians, and even plenty of non-religious people, often take the term to mean the belief that there is no god.
However, the more common way to be an atheist is to have a lack of belief in a god, due to lack of evidence.
In other words, it's not a positive belief there is no god, but rather simply a lack of belief.
Which are two quite different positions!
Christians (not ALL Christians, not even close... so don't take offence anyway) will often use this to try and shift the burden of proof over on the atheists - which is something they can only do as long as they insist on defining atheism as a positive belief there is no god.
The reason, obviously, is that such a belief is something you cannot prove and being a positive claim, it's something people would be justified in asking for evidence for.
However, this tactic usually fails as most atheists (in my experience anyway) does not have a positive belief like that, but rather simply a lack of belief in anything supernatural, as I pointed out earlier.
So seeing how holding this position does not absolutely rule out the possibility of a god, or anything supernatural... it simply means one hasn't seen convincing evidence for the existence of anything like that and thus one lacks belief... this means holding this position does not put the burden of proof on you.
1.close, 12
2.nevermind, i meant my family is not religeous
i wasn't on forums when i was 12.
Is there IS a God, I have a hard time buying that he's a loving god, given the fact that he's really kicking the crap out of Japan lately.
However, I will agree with you in one way - this topic is indeed a bit boring when discussed on a forum such as this, where one has to be so very careful and can't go into any kind of depth in fear of inflaming the thread to the point of getting closed very quickly.
In a nutshell, I believe that God created the universe and that he did so mostly through scientifically explainable means; that nature is too complex, variant and beautiful to come from random chance; that I see things in my life and in the lives of others around me that can only be explained by saying that God is actively at work in our lives; that I'm unworthy of His glory; that God has given me mercy from my deserved fate through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and that His Holy Spirit lives in me, speaks to me, and speaks through me to reach others for Him.
Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." - Karl Marx
NINJA EDIT: Apparently Avistew and I are sharing brainthinkin'.
I'm sorry I offended you all so much with my comment.
We're not sharing brainthinking, we're sharing Rather Dashing as a friend, and a Skype call with him.
Dashing has friends? Shit, that might be offensive. Sorry, Dashing.
But you're talking about me with Dashing? I feel I must defend myself...
FTFY
We... we aren't friends? We merely share Skype calls with Dashing?
Calling your self a god is against the rules now?
We ALSO share a friendship, of course. Now let the grownups talk about religion.
I am the one Supreme Being to me. You are the Supreme Being to you. People are afraid of responsibility. Of power. Of control. That's why religion exists. "God" was created to scare people into doing/not doing things, take responsibility for the bad, and make people feel better about death. I say, screw death. Life is the eternal happiness. It is just up to you, not Iehovah, to make it so.