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General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: AdderallApocalypse on June 24, 2008, 02:54:57 am

Title: Your religous history?
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on June 24, 2008, 02:54:57 am
What is your history concerning your viewpoint on religion? It seems that a lot of people here are some kind of religous skeptic, so I felt this topic was appropriate.

As for me, well when I was young, like 6 and younger my family used to attend church. It was a Baptist Church, and I never payed attention or studied Christianity at all. I guess I was too young to care? Well, I never thought about religion, and things such as why the universe is here or why life exists. When I was 8, I was a deist. My parents told me a few times we came from monkeys(*sigh*, I didn't know this was called "evolution", and they butchered what it was). I believed a god created the universe, but had no intervention from that point forward. I thought this for a while until I was about 14, when I became an atheist. I still believed in ghosts and spirits until I became like 17 or so. Now I am pretty devout to what I believe. I don't believe in a deity, ghosts, and I believe that everything happened naturally such as abiogenesis and the evolution of life. What about you?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Farren on June 24, 2008, 03:49:24 am
Oh I think I've got a pretty good story about this.

My parents aren't very religious. I'm not absolutely sure about my Dad's beliefs but I guess he considers himself Catholic (after his mother, whom I never went to church with, but I knew to be a very faithful and yet  spiritually/intellectually balanced) although he doesn't practice it. My mother is an opportunist when it comes to religion, she wont go to church or even talk about religion for a few years but every once in awhile she feels compelled to involve herself with it in some form or another for a very short period of time. She considers herself Pentecostal, although, like my father she doesn't really practice it. Except for her bi-annual bouts of religious epiphany or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Just in case no-one knows what the Pentecostal sect of Christianity is, this is the wikipedia definition of it:


My definition, in layman's terms and my own experience is that these people take the bible very literally and are pseudo-evangelists. They speak in tongues frequently and if you do not believe, or are very young and do not understand what they are doing (this is important) it can be pretty frightening.

When I was young I went to church with my grandmother, whom is Pentecostal. At first I didn't really have a problem going because I was very very young and just thought I was going to hang out with my grandma. (I think the earliest I can remember going was at like 4 years old). But as I got older and became aware of where I was, I started liking it less and less. When I went to church at first the people would act normal and sing hymns and stuff but near the middle of the sermon they would all start freaking out and talking in tongues. I didn't like this at all and asked my grandma why those people were doing that, she tried explaining it to me but I still didn't understand and thought it was bizarre (I'm about 7 at this stage I think).

After awhile I got to thinking about the whole church experience and decided I didn't like it at all, so I tried to stop going. But my Mom thought I needed some "Moral showmanship" or some stupid shit so I still had to go, but I tried to find ways out of it whenever I could.

Eventually I just stopped going completely, except for like holidays and stuff because my grandma wanted us all to go.

After I turned about 11 or 12 I decided that I didn't believe in their god. I wasn't exactly sure if there was a god, but I knew that I didn't believe in the traditional christian one.

Then I went into some stage where I really got into paranormal stuff like alien abductions, ghost stories, etc...
I think my mom thought I was turning into a satanist or something (I don't know what the hell her problem was) but she tried forcing me to go to church again and I remember being PISSED OFF about it and fought every inch of the way into the damn building.


Looking back though I remember a few instances of the preachers at the churches my grandma went to being complete bigots. They weren't all FUCK THE NIGGERS AND THE JEWS but you could see an underlying racism in the message that a few of them were spreading.

I also remember the last time I went to church with my grandmother, (I was like 14 I believe) all these people got up out of the pews and started shaking and talking in tongues and stuff (this was pretty normal in the churches she frequented) and I saw these two little albino kids in the pews across from my brothers and I rolling their heads around with their eyes in the back of their heads, they looked like some "The Hills Have Eyes" mongoloid spawn or something, (they seriously looked pretty unhealthy like their family had had an extensive past of inbreeding) sitting in the pews imitating their parents' that were in front of the alter rolling on the floor and jabbering in some stupid gibberish you could tell they were making up and it scared the shit out of me. It must've been one of the saddest/most disturbing things I've seen in my life and I think its partially that and my natural lack of faith that have completely put me off of religion.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Mama Luigi on June 24, 2008, 04:24:06 am
I was never fond of religion; I had great disdain for attending church as a kid, and grew to hate it more as I grew older. My parents are Lutherans; they had me in Sunday School, put me through First Communion, made me attend stupid retreats and stuff, eventually forced me through confirmation (where I would ask questions like "what created god?" without even knowing that this was a popular rebuttal to first cause myths... I also was very skeptical of the concept of heaven because perfection would get boring after an eternity… or so I speculated). Around the age of 13 my dog died and I was pretty shaken up by it. It led me to think about things like death and the nature of existence and I started becoming more interested in philosophy. I began frequenting atheist websites and forums in the quest for truth and things became increasingly obvious to me: the Christian god is a lie. I had a few lapses of doubt in which I called myself agnostic (I was gullible enough to be thrown off by the bible codes but I eventually realized they were bullshit). I was finally permanently settled in my atheist belief around the age of 15. Ever since I’ve had a greater appreciation for life, so I’m glad I was disillusioned, even though it put me through a bit of turmoil when I was still trying to reconcile my beliefs ("buh… but what if I’m wrong and I go to hell?").
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Jeff on June 24, 2008, 05:08:55 am
I am more and more curious if you all are atheists out of rejection of organized religion or because you truly believe there is no and has never been a supernatural force in the universe. How does one fathom the beginning of the universe without such a belief to fall back on? That things just...happened? I suppose that is all fine and stuff but I don't really see how that is all that much different from using the supernatural explain the inexplicable.

I am technically a Catholic, but out of rebellion to organized religion I became an atheist until I became overwhelmed with the bleakness of that belief and the inability to answer questions like the one I mentioned above. Plus I just find it hard to believe that something as beautiful as the world and the universe just happened to come together out of chaos with no shaping force. So I called myself agnostic because I was unsure of the existence of or nature of a supernatural being. This too, I could not help but view as a temporary state, since it was only the status of indecision about something and not a real belief in anything. So finally I settled on Deism. I cannot believe, with all of the horrible things that happen, that god really cares, but at the same time I cannot help but think there must have been something there at the start to set it all in motion or to apply some divine insight to the order of things.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Ryan on June 24, 2008, 05:22:06 am
Quote from: Mr. Sunshine on June 24, 2008, 05:08:55 am
So finally I settled on Deism. I cannot believe, with all of the horrible things that happen, that god really cares, but at the same time I cannot help but think there must have been something there at the start to set it all in motion or to apply some divine insight to the order of things.

this is more or less what I believe. i think that if there is a supreme being, he really doesn't give a shit about us.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Warped655 on June 24, 2008, 05:27:14 am
Started out in a family of very lazy catholics. (We rarely if ever went to church). and I had some belief in it even. then after merely thinking about it deeply for a while I began to doubt. That doubt grew, to the point were I became an agnostic. And my own logic points out that god can't be proven to exist, nor can he be proven to not exist. And to just guess would be stupid. so I'm pretty sure I'll be agnostic for the rest of my life. I also want to be immortal. If I was offered immortality I take it with out batting an eye, rather then let myself die and gamble with my existence.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: XxSylverxX on June 24, 2008, 05:28:20 am
grandparents are catholic, both my parents are atheist, i go from atheist to agnostic 50 times a day.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: crone_lover720 on June 24, 2008, 05:39:11 am
0-12   christistan (lutheran)
13-16 DEVOUT atheist
17-18 who could give a shit??
19+    idk maybe, who knows

I didn't have too many remarkable experiences with religion. there were some funny times in catechism (chemical W, holy water) and some fucking horrible people who are nonetheless SAVED how couldn't they be they're in the choir, that's it

Quote from: mr. sunshine
I am more and more curious if you all are atheists out of rejection of organized religion or because you truly believe there is no and has never been a supernatural force in the universe. How does one fathom the beginning of the universe without such a belief to fall back on? That things just...happened? I suppose that is all fine and stuff but I don't really see how that is all that much different from using the supernatural explain the inexplicable.
not knowing > believing in something that's maybe made up, basically

also I'm making a pretty banal statement here I know, but how is saying 'god did it' any better? how's saying god was always around easier
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Jeff on June 24, 2008, 05:44:40 am
Quote from: Rendpppppr on June 24, 2008, 05:39:11 am
how's saying god was always around easier
Because both statements are just as intangible and unknowable. That is why it is a belief and not an objective truth.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marmot on June 24, 2008, 05:45:03 am
Quote
I am more and more curious if you all are atheists out of rejection of organized religion or because you truly believe there is no and has never been a supernatural force in the universe. How does one fathom the beginning of the universe without such a belief to fall back on? That things just...happened? I suppose that is all fine and stuff but I don't really see how that is all that much different from using the supernatural explain the inexplicable.

i am atheist because i truly believe there is no god.

you dont have to "fathom" the beginning of the universe to be an atheist. besides we cannot talk about  a beginning of time before the big bang because before the big bang there was no movement and time is movement, anyway, even religious people cannot fathom the beginning of the universe because they would have to look for the origin of their god.



Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Wil on June 24, 2008, 05:46:38 am
I had only just stopped being religious around when I was 17, but before then I had juggled around many religious ideas. My family had never been very religious, only to the point where if either my mother or father felt guilty enough they'd be motivated to finally drag everyone to a local baptist church. My father's family was very religious and in fact they were Pentecostal, so I know what that discomfort feels like having experienced several of those worship services. I could remember walking to the car in the parking lot thinking "I wonder what Martians would think if they saw my grandmother flail her arms around like that on the ground." I just couldn't get over the silliness and meaninglessness of it... but of course that was my experience with Pentecostalism, not Baptism.

Baptist churches were a lot more relaxing, and in fact I was baptized at a really big one a few miles from where I am now. Unfortunately I guess, I did not remain Christian and finally became agnostic before eventually becoming an atheist. I didn't believe in a god because there was no evidence for him.

And I did spend a lot of time thinking about the beginning of the universe question, but for the time being I'm going to wait for some evidence to come out that will explain why it even happened at all. It really just comes down to God being the filler answer again, and again, like it was when he was used to explain how life came about, why the sea is so tumultuous, and why thunder strikes the ground.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Randy Moist on June 24, 2008, 06:16:19 am
I come from a big Catholic family and so did my dad. We were pretty much the average church going family for the early part of my life. Go every Sunday, don't sleep but not necessarily terribly observant either. All the major holidays, and hitting up church when visiting uncles and grandparents in other parts of the state. For the most part our faith was 'required' by my dad (my mom came along but wasn't the least bit forceful and if dad wasn't around we'd probably skip mass and sleep in). We all got the early sacraments; first communion baptism and confession (never regularly though because that's some bonk stuff and you hear stories about how people make stuff up for it when they were too good for the week [blessed ][/blessed] but the truth was you'd never tell your priest you wanted to punch your brother for being an asshole nintendo hog, and I think my parents realized what a dumb one it was).

Then shit really changed. It began with my older siblings. My sister got into going to church with friends who were I dunno Lutheran? So we ceized FAMILY MASS and whatever appeal to church there was as a uniting experience was gone. We had all had to have religious education 1 night week until then but our parents stopped making us go once we could make our own decisions on religion. Then the other big shift came but it wasn't felt right away. My older brother (also the oldest) came out when I was in middle school and uh our church is fairly progressive but I think he caught on to how the Catholic church typically perceived gay people and wanted no part.

The rest of us carried on as normal until when I was a little older (maybe freshmen year) and I started to question stuff and of course religion comes with the territory. Me and my dad would go for runs and talks about stuff, usually science (he's a scientist) but also current events. Well before one run I saw some latest decision about some priest who couldn't be a priest cause he was gay and of course at that time it got me all fired up. And I kind of really went after my dad on how he could still support the Catholic church despite my older brother, that none of my extended family knew that he was gay because no one knew how they'd react, and how he reconciled his science with his faith. He gave his reasons and I fired back and it was uh probably the longest I've ever talked with my dad on a single issue (we never did the birds and the bees). And it continued past the run until after dinner and we started agreeing I guess but he left it mostly at ignoring the institution and faith and I thought it was done.

I was actually really surprised then when my dad released everyone still living in the house from having to go to church no questions asked and then even more so when soon after he said he planned to take a break. Before this my dad and I were the most active Catholics and I had decided to take the steps to be confirmed. Part of it had been not finding the answers in other religions like Daosim and Atheism also not being something I could get behind, and another part was that I could tell that the amount of freedom he'd give us in deciding our religion would mean none of my brothers and sisters would be confirmed, something I think mattered to him. I dunno now I look back and dunno if I would have done it again. My dad was also my classes teacher but then stepped down. I decided to go ahead with the process until the very end and then decide then if I was actually going to be confirmed. My dad still supported me and over time he began going to mass again with me but uh we don't have crosses and shit on the walls anymore and it isn't as big a part of his life. I did get confirmed and I mostly made the final decision because I think it is what my dad wanted and to me it was just a title and I could live with myself if uh I didn't believe in it down the road.

But I stuck with church going into college, and my dad slowly picked it back up but like I said not with the same enthusiasm as when we were kids. A side note but he is really supportive of my older brother and there was a time he was MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN A MAN AND WOMAN and was very unresponsive to boyfriends or relationship news related to my brother; but he's 180'd for sure, encouraged my brother to come out to the grandparents, was very supportive when my older brother was helping raise his boyfriends son and I dunno I'm proud I guess.

Anyway that brings me to my more recent days as I guess an agnostic. Basically in my first semester I tried to be a good Catholic since I had some friends who went it, that made it easy but then Wisconsin had the amendment to ban gay marriage vote and the Sunday beforehand, we not only got these terrible pamphlets on why to VOTE YES and PROTECT THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE but we also got a sermon on it. I remember being really angry and embarrassing my friends because I was just whispering 'bullshit under my breathe and tore up some pamphlets. I left and uh my Catholic faith ended that day I guess. I took a class on Daoism thinking ILL LEARN SOMETHING NEW but it turned out to not really be that great and I kind of just see organized religion as a waste of time now probably should have learned that sooner.

Short: Religious inspiration and growth by my paps, now I go to college.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Blitzen on June 24, 2008, 06:43:16 am
  Being Irish, my whole family is Catholic on both sides (even the Ukranian chunk of my dad's family is Catholic). As a kid, when we were closer as a family and more involved in the community, we would go to church more. As the years went on, I went through the rites, not really understanding what was going on or why it was important. I never really doubted God. When we went into philosophy class in high school. I explored intellectually the argumentation of theology. Accepting God as an unconditional in an argument allowed a fairly good basis for argumentation: if I could relate something back to God and have it make sense, and the other person accepted the theistic premise, I could probably win the argument. I didn't understand how or why this worked.

When I started working at the photo lab, I met a girl who was to become a good friend of mine. She claimed to be an athesit. We would have civil philosophical arguments about the nature of the universe and the nature of ethics, the composition of the self and the validity of Christianity. These inquiries allowed me to further explore, but the idea of what God was or how Christianity made sense to me was still a bunch of airy things I didn't have a complete grasp on.

It was out there plugging trees into the Canadian Shield, where you have nothing to do for eleven hours a day but walk, plant, and think, that I realized that God is Truth. And what is the (capital T) Truth? The truth is what we can understand but cannot realize, what we can reason but not know. The Truth is the reality which is skewed by our perception. The Truth is the moral which is skewed by our accustomed or legitimated ethics.

To me, the world then consists of an absolute truth, the actual, and then the billions of individuals who occupy it, attempting to understand it in thier own way, including myself. So how would I come to understand this world? Well, I'm Catholic, so let's see what this Christ guy had to say, I thought. As I read the Gospels, and learned more about the most fundamental aspects of Christ's message, the things he described: reciprocal altruism, unconditional compassion, humility, patience, a desire to become better people, an enjoyment of life and of each other that can exist without worldly things. If I accepted Jesus's teachings as the Truth, then maybe things would begin to make more moral sense, and I could learn to be a better person.

My background in history helped me understand that cultural things like cannibalism, sacrifice, maybe even warfare, are not morally relative in thier context, but then present of the desperation that leads men and societies away from the moral into their most expedient or un-novel solutions to ensure survival and dominance. For me, there's no two ways about it: people killing and then eating other people is bad, and although the extermination of many American indigenous people was a very sorrowful thing, it is a good thing that institutions like sacrifice and cannibalism and self mutilation (all popular in the pre-industrial Pacific Northwest) were brought to an end.

But was I so different? Everyone does bad things. I do really bad things. I'm proud, pretentious, arrogant, vain, I've got the worst of it all. Things began to happen in my life where I could see that I could be a better person, and instilling some of that unconditional compassion and humility that Christ was talking about should be something I try to take to heart everyday.

I began to think of Christianity in new ways. Being a historian, the Bible could only ever be that to me, a history. It could convey a message, but as far as it was directly representative of the Truth was to always be in question, but it may contain within it elements of the Truth, as all things do. What's important then?, I asked myself.

  I'd come to try and wrap my head around how to be a Christian, and I thought of a symbolic model that was representative of how I had come to understand things, if I needed to explain it to someone else. God the Father as the metaphysical God, a first cause, the source of The Absolute Truth of the universe, the thing that makes the stuff of the universe work, the most perfect of the Platonic Formes, how I won those arguments in high school (by practicing involuntary exegesis) etc, etc.
  Jesus would then be what? The son of God? Well, I can't reason that. What I can reason though, is that Jesus's ethic is something that I accept as true and good. Could Jesus then be the source of all moral truth?, I thought. Well, this is the way I want to try and live my life, this is the ethic by which I have come to understand what is right and wrong, and even though I may never reach it, I can understand how it incorperates into everything.
  What about the Holy Spirit? Well, maybe that's just the idea that there is something more to all of us, that we all contain in us some Truth, some bit of us that is more that what we can observe, the Self in each of us, which cannot be reasoned away.
  Of course, I would still try to further understand what God is, what the Truth is, and how to live my life in a way that lets me try to be a better person.
  In as far as understanding Catholocism, the Church as an institution is something I have been grappling with, being a historical skeptic, and not completely being able to accept the premise of an Abrahamic God, and of course being a little sour at the millenia of hypocrasy, the ritualism, the rites, etc. If I could come to understand how these things fit into what Jesus was talking about and not just being part of the socio-political quasi-monarchical institution that led these things to be, I might be able to eventually become more accepting of Catholicism, and probably start going to church again.

So yeah. The most wholehearted reason why I believe in God today, is because I have chosen to believe in Truth, and I have come to understand that Truth as many things, including the teachings of Jesus. All the while, I've considered the alternatives and have the counteraguments presented to me by my family, friends, classmates, co-workers, internet forum goers, and I've weighed the counter arguments, but the completeness of the theological and theistic model has helped me make sense of the world and understand how I can be a better person in such a complete way that the alternative never look complete.

I have a hard time finding people who think the same way.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Farren on June 24, 2008, 07:18:19 am
Quote
Religious inspiration and growth by my paps

Man, I REALLY like your story and I think the relationship you have with your dad, where you can just talk with him like that is fantastic. I've never really had that sort of relationship with my family (especially my dad), you both seem like really reasonable/level headed people to just come to a consensus like that.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: lassekongo83 on June 24, 2008, 08:10:00 am
The only contact I had with a church in my early years was in school, usally around christmas. I never thought a lot about spiritual stuff. I never asked my parents about any god/gods from what I can remeber, I guess both were athiests, and I still think they are. There was just so much more interesting things to think about. And now when I think about religions I just think of them as fairytales that have brought some really bad people and some interesting culture to our world.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Kaworu on June 24, 2008, 08:58:23 am
I used to be an athiest until last year I had something of a breakdown and now I'm like "maybe there's some cool dude or woman or floating-badger-face up there making UNIVERSE MUSIC(the sound of everything)" or some shit, but I don't know.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Yeaster on June 24, 2008, 10:04:29 am
Well, I was "born" a Baptist and I still am and I plan to remain one. I believe in some parts of the Bible (God, Jesus, all that) but I'm not a huge fan of the whole going to church thing. Maybe it's because I'm young and I was forced to go a lot during my teens so I'm just "rebelling" now, but my church is so dry, and as if late, it just seems like a cult.

I like church school, though. But in terms of actually attending the real service...I can't do that. I'll go every once in a while, but I'm content with just reading my Bible every Sunday.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Mr. Actionist on June 24, 2008, 10:09:55 am
Used to be a christian (go to a christian school, etc) but eventually thought of it as stupid (I don't exactly remember why). Just recently I started reading about philosophy on wikipedia and it turns out I'm an agnostic existentalist. Or something similar.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Vale on June 24, 2008, 10:10:22 am
Long story short, I was born into a Muslim family and I studied in an "Islamist" school in Saudi Arabia for 3 years (from the age of 8), but after I moved again I started growing out of my faith.

Now I'm agnostic. The whole idea of religion is pretty far-fetched to me but I do believe in a higher power that is neither "good" nor "evil".
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: baseball19225 on June 24, 2008, 01:02:08 pm
Quote from: Marmot on June 24, 2008, 05:45:03 am
i am atheist because i truly believe there is no god.

you dont have to "fathom" the beginning of the universe to be an atheist. besides we cannot talk about  a beginning of time before the big bang because before the big bang there was no movement and time is movement, anyway, even religious people cannot fathom the beginning of the universe because they would have to look for the origin of their god.

ya this



i'd be called an atheist because i don't believe in any gods, though the term seems kinda dumb since it's describing what i DON'T do. oh well who cares.

come from a fairly non-religious family i think. both my parents had Christian upbringings (and met on some church camp) but aren't religious now. my mother calls herself an atheist; not sure about my dad. his family was particularly more religious than my mother's (his brother and mother are all churchy, still) but he deos nothing now.
through pretty much all of my childhood i didn't believe in anything. we had religious studies in one of my schools (only there for a year and a half though) but i just looked at it all as stories. i even remember back then (when i was 6 or 7 or so) some classmates trying to tell me i came from god and i was just going "nuh-uh" (that said, my knowledge then was basically "from my mother's stomach" becasue HEY i was just a kid).
don't remember going to church any times back then. maybe through school or something on a trip. i think i also went to some activity day with religious undertones during the holidays, but didn't take anything from it. i just went because it sounded like fun, not even knowing that god wuld come into it (and ignored him when he did).
so yeah i've just gone through life with no interest in religion for the most part. never had it put in my life, and i felt no need to take it to myself. i only go to church for weddings and baptisms and such.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Lars on June 24, 2008, 01:25:43 pm
someone or something pushed the ON button...
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: thecatamites on June 24, 2008, 01:59:34 pm
I'm a bit surprised to hear so many people talk about how atheism is depressing and stuff... I'd be more depressed by the traditional religious belief that the world is perfect and that mankind was the only thing to fuck it up, and how if something good happens it's because of god, but if something bad happens then it's because of man. I dunno, I think there's a weirdly comforting sense in the idea that there's no real hidden meaning to life, and that no matter how important we think we are we're basically just a miniscule fluke of chemistry on a floating rock and nothing we can do will ever make a difference to the universe at large. It kind of puts all problems and stuff into perspective for me... It's hard to get worked up about exams or whatever when you think about the sheer scale of the universe and how little we actually matter to it...
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: manoftheponcho on June 24, 2008, 03:12:41 pm
I take a more personal approach to faith.  I accept the basic idea that you can't prove that God exist; however, I often talk to God as though S/He does.  It amounts to basically talking to myself, but hey, try to prove me wrong.  Because of the intensely personal nature of a relationship with God, I believe all religions that claim to know His/Her absolute truths are either misguided or deliberately misleading.  Hence, I don't force my personal beliefs on other people, and the last thing I would expect is for my beliefs to be made law.  But hey, I'm used to being in the minority.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Jayce on June 24, 2008, 03:27:53 pm
Agnostic = Win

That's my get out of jail free card with any religion because they think I'm open for conversion when I personally know that I won't budge one way or another in terms of religious opinion...

That said I choose to be supersticious about things regarding like horoscopes and star signs so I guess that's what I follow.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: EvilDemonCreature on June 24, 2008, 03:50:39 pm
I don't know if it counts as agnostic or theostic, but I used to be almost completely atheist (the only thing I'll beleive with 100% certainty is uncertainty itself). It was basically becasue I was surrounded by all this stigma of what it actually meant to "beleive in God". After many failed attempts at "praying", and some introspection/meditating I started to gain new understanding in spirituality and began to realise that it is not only possible, but evident that a God would exist in such a framework. Although the only way I can accept that is by denying any person/religion/orginization's ability to define God or any "specific" purpose such an entity would have (purpose is there, and you can find it. But it all goes to shit when you try putting it to words or trying to tell other people what it is "supposed" to be.)

For all intensive purposes (at least when christians/etc ask), I just say I'm agnostic.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: kentona on June 24, 2008, 04:40:53 pm
I went through a French Immersion elementary school (Catholic) and then just continued on with Catholic high school (I didn't live in a big town - there were only 2 high schools and the non-Catholic one sucked).

That being said, I never really believed in god.  Until I was about 10 I was off in my own little fantasy world (I was a weird kid)(nothing much has changed), but after that Christianity didn't make much sense.  I remember asking "How did Jesus dying help anything?" (I still don't know the answer to that one) and "Why can't we see god or angels or the devil or even detect them?". 

Then I started reading novels and writing my own fantasy stories and it struck me how easy it was to invent gods.  And then I got to thinking about all the Norse gods, and Greek gods, and Indian gods, and Roman gods.  That's when it clicked into place - that all gods are an invention of man's imagination.  I haven't changed my viewpoint since.  I was around 12 at the time.

I've come to view Religion for the vile thing it has become - a den for bigotry, out-group hate and intolerance, and baseless and dangerous conviction.  I am practically a militant atheist, and often get into arguments with my religious friends because of it (and my Mom).  Luckily, I am also very laid back and easygoing, so I'm never too serious.

Oh, and I got 108% in my grade 12 Christian Ethics class.  I rule.

Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Wash Cycle on June 24, 2008, 05:14:54 pm
I grew up in a fairly devout Catholic household. I guess at some point I decided I wanted to get more serious about it, and I got confirmed in the church. Shortly thereafter, however, I lost my virginity (because lust is a much stronger drive than that to be prim and proper and who am I to deny nature its course) and I couldnt just skip taking communion one week. Thats a red flag in families like mine. If you don't take communion, something is up and everyone knows it.

So... the moment I stopped buying the organized revealed religion shit was when I took communion after committing a cardinal sin and I wasn't struck down by lightning on the spot. It was then that I realized that the whole concept of sin was so flimsy and unnatural and more or less just pure bullshit.

so I still go to church because my mother makes me, and I have an obligation to play drums in the praise team at a very liberal methodist church that has several gay couples and is in general pretty cool about things. I mean I have been asked what I believe in front of a large group at the church and I told them how I feel about religion as well as my experience that I just shared with you guys and they were cool with it and just prayed for me. I don't believe in prayer in the same sense that they do but its a nice feeling to know that people do care about you enough to pray for you heh. A laying on of hands is a powerful experience regardless of whether or not you believe in a higher power.

but yeah I spend too much time listening to sufi devotional music while in various altered states of consciousness to be an athiest, but I dont really know exactly what it is I believe in. I'm just kind of chillin for now.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: dada on June 24, 2008, 05:34:31 pm
You know, I bet that everybody thinks I'm a very ardent atheist. That's not entirely correct, however.

My viewpoint is that since theism is outside of the scope of observable physical phenomena, there is no way to either prove or disprove it. By that measure, both believing and disbelieving in it are "incorrect" in the sense that that no evidence can be found to support either. We've never been able to prove that there is such a thing as a god, but we also don't really know for sure, since we also have not been able to disprove it. It's quite unlikely, but nothing can truly be proven.

So what matters to me, really? If someone were to ask me "is there a god?", I would answer "does it really matter?" If you follow any religion, you will most likely also follow the ethic of reciprocity. Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. Does it really matter that we might be going to heaven someday? Would you be an immoral person if you didn't believe in heaven? Regardless of where you think you're going to, you need to try and leave this world better off than you found it.

So is there a god? It doesn't matter. If I die and see Petrus, I'll know that god can judge me if he wants to. I won't be afraid, because I won't have done anything wrong.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: thejackyl on June 24, 2008, 06:07:06 pm
My parent's were never very religious people, as far as I know.  In fact, I've only been at a mass/sermon/whateverthefuckitscalled twice.

I believe my parents are Christian/Presbatarian (since that's the church my family went to those two times), however I haven't been too fond of the idea that one must follow the Bible to a T if you want to go to heaven (which 90% of my hometown is like, the Evangelistic Catholics that they are), but I am what is called a Deist.  Which means I believe in a God, but do not follow any given religion(my School's Definition), or that God created the physical universe but does not interfere with it.(Wiki Page)

After reading the Wiki, I think I am somewhere between a Deist and a Christian, as I do believe in God, and that miracles and act's of God do occur. (check my post in the death topic (http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=6525.msg1339251#msg1339251 date=1214193042))

Also, Dada brings up a good point.  It doesn't matter what you believe in, as you should always follow the "golden rule": Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marcus on June 24, 2008, 06:31:50 pm
Quote
What is your history concerning your viewpoint on religion? It seems that a lot of people here are some kind of religous skeptic, so I felt this topic was appropriate.

lol college kids.

seriously, religion and ideology is something that changes constantly because people really don't know what to believe.  people who are like "DEVOUT ATHEIST ITS THE COOL THING" now will probably end up following some sort of monotheistic belief in the future and vice versa.  my mother has fluctuated from agnostic to christian to muslim and that's perfectly healthy.

me?  i never really cared until high school then some lame shit started happening, i started praying, lame shit stopped, i'm happier overall and that's all that really matters to me.  i couldn't care less if people don't believe what i believe because everyone has free will and it's their choice.  if someone is feeling shitty i might drop a "turn to god, dude" but i don't walk around and slap people in the face with bibles and curse their names to the depths of hell because, holy crap, they're free willed thinking individuals!
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Cho on June 24, 2008, 06:46:39 pm
I remember the preacher anointing a sick person with oil and having the whole Church lay hands on them and pray because he didn't believe in Doctors.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: YourHero on June 24, 2008, 07:42:03 pm
then he smacked them in the forehead and they were healed!!?!? *_*
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Wil on June 24, 2008, 08:04:52 pm
Quote from: Dada on June 24, 2008, 05:34:31 pm
So is there a god? It doesn't matter. If I die and see Petrus, I'll know that god can judge me if he wants to. I won't be afraid, because I won't have done anything wrong.
This is kind of how I am. If I died and suddenly I found myself standing before Yahweh or Wotan, I can't feel scared because I've spent my life figuring out how to be a good person. If they were mad that I didn't believe in them, well then it's their own fault they didn't provide any evidence for their own existence. I pretty much don't believe in anything that doesn't have evidence, so to me fairies and God exist in the same realm of human imagination.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on June 24, 2008, 08:44:43 pm
Quote from: Marcus on June 24, 2008, 06:31:50 pm
lol college kids.

seriously, religion and ideology is something that changes constantly because people really don't know what to believe.  people who are like "DEVOUT ATHEIST ITS THE COOL THING" now will probably end up following some sort of monotheistic belief in the future and vice versa.  my mother has fluctuated from agnostic to christian to muslim and that's perfectly healthy.
Heh, trust me, I'll never follow any sort of monotheistic religion.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Kaworu on June 24, 2008, 09:22:00 pm
polytheistic religions are where it's at.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Bobberticus on June 24, 2008, 09:33:07 pm
you could call me agnostic, I suppose...

I was raised catholic and all, went to church every Sunday, also religious education and other such fun stuff
When I was young I didn't think much of it, it was mostly boring, and not much else.
I'm not sure what I believed at the time, but religion simply doesn't interest me.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Blitzen on June 24, 2008, 10:08:03 pm
Quote from: thejackyl on June 24, 2008, 06:07:06 pm
Also, Dada brings up a good point.  It doesn't matter what you believe in, as you should always follow the "golden rule": Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you

I think that this sort of "diffuse Christian morality" that exists in Western Civilization is probably kept in mind nowadays by most people who have some awareness of thier own morals, weather they believe in anything or not. Maybe even the atheists ammongst us are inadvertenly Christians in thier ethical thinking because we live in a world spawned from Christianity?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Wil on June 24, 2008, 10:27:25 pm
Well I don't think the Golden Rule, or any other kind of moral rule is exclusively originated from Christianity. There are some fairly obvious ethical opinions that happen to be mentioned in Biblical doctrine, but if anyone actually reads the bible and considers the "moral" lessons it has to offer, it would become apparent that those lessons aren't moral at all and are in fact pretty disturbing. The moral zeitgeist defined by society has the ability to pick and choose which parts of the bible are moral, and which are not. If we know that STONING PEOPLE as a form of punishment is not moral, then there must be something else deciding why this is wrong.

Also, the ethic of reciprocity is apparent in at least 10 other religions, several of which are older than Christianity.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marcus on June 24, 2008, 10:30:31 pm
Quote from: Omcifer on June 24, 2008, 08:44:43 pm
Heh, trust me, I'll never follow any sort of monotheistic religion.

I said I would never join the military or fall in love with a white woman but I guess I'm not good at keeping promises, eh?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Blitzen on June 24, 2008, 11:08:04 pm
True, Wil, but the ethic of reciprocity as the central ethical tenant which superceeds all others is exclusive to Christian theological thought, nescessitating the other "moral lessons" be subject to the scrutiny of compassion that the ethic nescessitates.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on June 25, 2008, 12:36:50 am
Quote from: Marcus on June 24, 2008, 10:30:31 pm
I said I would never join the military or fall in love with a white woman but I guess I'm not good at keeping promises, eh?
I guess not, but me and you are two separate people.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marcus on June 25, 2008, 03:12:28 am
Quote from: Omcifer on June 25, 2008, 12:36:50 am
I guess not, but me and you are two separate people.

yeah man, you're like what?  19?  20?  unless you die tomorrow i highly doubt you're going to stay rigid and unwavering in your firm beliefs for the next 60 or whatever years.

hell, i hope transhumanism kicks in midway through your life and people start living to 200 and 300.  how awesome would it be to remain a working class citizen for 3 centuries and do nothing but theorize and idolize?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Mama Luigi on June 25, 2008, 04:03:51 am
Quote from: Marcus on June 25, 2008, 03:12:28 am
yeah man, you're like what?  19?  20?  unless you die tomorrow i highly doubt you're going to stay rigid and unwavering in your firm beliefs for the next 60 or whatever years.
Uh, idk man, sounds an awful lot like the vast majority of the Christ camp.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marcus on June 25, 2008, 04:09:59 am
Quote from: Mama Luigi on June 25, 2008, 04:03:51 am
Uh, idk man, sounds an awful lot like the vast majority of the Christ camp.

I highly doubt the hardcore evangelists actually pray let alone believe in any of the tenants of Christianity.  There are people who use religion as a crutch to put down other people and it's kind of sick and disgusting.  "Going to church" is more of a source of gossip and communion (communion as in "discussing football with fat sweaty guys and women talking about their nails and neighbors") than it is actual WORSHIP.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Bravo on June 25, 2008, 04:39:07 pm
I don't believe in a God, but I wish I did, what does that make me?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Arnold on June 25, 2008, 04:47:14 pm
Myself, I'm an Atheist which means I don't believe in the Christian god. However, I do believe there is SOME higher being out there that created all of us, maybe several. But I don't believe in the Christian god nor do I believe in Christianity, because I believe the Bible was written by man to control the people. I also believe there is some sort of "Heaven" or spirit world, but I believe hell was a man made concept.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on June 25, 2008, 04:51:26 pm
Uhhh, being an Atheist means you don't believe in ANY god.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Blitzen on June 25, 2008, 04:51:35 pm
Quote from: Bravo on June 25, 2008, 04:39:07 pm
I don't believe in a God, but I wish I did, what does that make me?

Depressed?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Doktormartini on June 25, 2008, 04:52:32 pm
Quote from: Arnold on June 25, 2008, 04:47:14 pm
Myself, I'm an Atheist which means I don't believe in the Christian god. However, I do believe there is SOME higher being out there that created all of us, maybe several. But I don't believe in the Christian god nor do I believe in Christianity, because I believe the Bible was written by man to control the people. I also believe there is some sort of "Heaven" or spirit world, but I believe hell was a man made concept.
You are not an Atheist because atheism is the belief in no higher power, yet you said you believe in some higher power.

Also I am an atheist.  Was born a catholic, parents got out of that and became pretty much deists (even though they don't know what it is) and I became an atheist after studying various religions.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Grunthor on June 25, 2008, 05:19:31 pm
Quote from: Marcus on June 25, 2008, 04:09:59 am
I highly doubt the hardcore evangelists actually pray let alone believe in any of the tenants of Christianity.  There are people who use religion as a crutch to put down other people and it's kind of sick and disgusting.  "Going to church" is more of a source of gossip and communion (communion as in "discussing football with fat sweaty guys and women talking about their nails and neighbors") than it is actual WORSHIP.

This is one of the many reasons I stopped believing in the mystic avenger in the sky.  I used to be a Christian, but stopped following it for several reasons.

1. I actually read the bible and found many of the passages to be absolutely abhorrent.
2. I used to read a lot of history books and the stuff that religion was used to justify is really repugnant.  Murder, genocide, spousal abuse, child abuse, slavery, racism, etc.
3. Other religions had much cooler gods.  Zeus, Ares, Hades, Odin, Thor, Loki, Ra, Anubis, Nu Wa, Shiva, Ganesh, Pele, Kane Milohai, etc. (congrats if you can figure out what cultures those all came from without looking them up).
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Fujin on June 25, 2008, 08:53:33 pm
Religion serves no purpose in my life. I just think there's no point in believing in any "higher powers" or whatever.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Bravo on June 25, 2008, 09:17:19 pm
Quote from: Blitzen on June 25, 2008, 04:51:35 pm
Depressed?
Most likely.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marmot on June 25, 2008, 09:18:41 pm
Quote from: Fujin on June 25, 2008, 08:53:33 pm
Religion serves no purpose in my life. I just think there's no point in believing in any "higher powers" or whatever.

religion does serve a purpose. without god the world and its affairs are objectively meaningless in so far that god was the only one that could give objectivity to morality. To the christian, murder is bad because god said so, to the atheist murder is bad because.....?

it doesnt means that atheists are amoral or whatever, but to the atheist morality is completely subjective.

furthermore religion is the heart of an alienated world. when everything looks horrible and terrible it makes sense to lift your head towards the sky and pray for god.

Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Lars on June 25, 2008, 10:18:34 pm
Quote from: Bravo on June 25, 2008, 04:39:07 pm
I don't believe in a God, but I wish I did, what does that make me?
This is actually kind of my stance. I wouldn't mind being ACTUALLY religious, but I can't just start believing something one day (and certainly no DIVINE POWER etc). Some of the pagan shit seems interesting but new age people are fucking crazy (the large new age groups in Norway fund neo nazi hate groups), so that's a no go. So yeah, I wish there really were religions of love that made sense that were widespread, 'cause I'd probably start reading their holy texts if they were. To be honest though, I don't really know of any interesting religions except BUDDHISM but as far as I'm concerned it's more LIFESTYLE ADVICES than religion??

I'm an ignorant fuck when it comes to religion though so I have no idea whatsoever of what I'm talking about.

One religion that's fucking interesting is the Rastafari movement though. They like, start at Christianity as a fundament and then build on the fact that Messiah is supposed to return to Earth. And they believe that he has returned and was indeed Emperor Haile Sellasie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia) of Ethiopia, who was still alive during the haydays of the movement.

As far as Wikipedia presents them, the Rastafaris seem really relaxed and down with love etc (altho supposedly started off as a racist religion). It's not something I could ever get involved with but it's just a really cool religion as far as I'm concerned, and I sure as hell am concerned!
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marcus on June 25, 2008, 10:27:01 pm
Quote from: Grunthor on June 25, 2008, 05:19:31 pm
This is one of the many reasons I stopped believing in the mystic avenger in the sky.  I used to be a Christian, but stopped following it for several reasons.

1. I actually read the bible and found many of the passages to be absolutely abhorrent.
2. I used to read a lot of history books and the stuff that religion was used to justify is really repugnant.  Murder, genocide, spousal abuse, child abuse, slavery, racism, etc.
3. Other religions had much cooler gods.  Zeus, Ares, Hades, Odin, Thor, Loki, Ra, Anubis, Nu Wa, Shiva, Ganesh, Pele, Kane Milohai, etc. (congrats if you can figure out what cultures those all came from without looking them up).


eh, those are all human desires.  holy books were written by humans and thus are fallible.  humans naturally twist and reinterpret things to their own goals so you can't let past events affect your personal spiritual standing.  people call me a misanthrope but fuuuuuck humanity is really sick and disgusting myself included and nothing brings me greater joy than connecting spiritually in the privacy of my own home.

with that said i find it kind of odd that you listed off gods that support murder, genocide, spousal abuse, child abuse, slavery, and racism (i dunno if it was a joke or not but whatever).
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Fujin on June 25, 2008, 10:44:02 pm
Quote from: Marmot on June 25, 2008, 09:18:41 pm
religion does serve a purpose. without god the world and its affairs are objectively meaningless in so far that god was the only one that could give objectivity to morality. To the christian, murder is bad because god said so, to the atheist murder is bad because.....?
Morality isn't determined (atleast entirely) by religion. I seriously don't need imaginary friends to tell me murder is bad.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: cowardknower on June 25, 2008, 10:55:47 pm
Quote from: Mr. Sunshine on June 24, 2008, 05:44:40 am
Quote from: Rendpppppr on June 24, 2008, 05:39:11 am
not knowing > believing in something that's maybe made up, basically

also I'm making a pretty banal statement here I know, but how is saying 'god did it' any better? how's saying god was always around easier
Because both statements are just as intangible and unknowable. That is why it is a belief and not an objective truth.

HMM What statements are you comparing?  "I dont know" and "god did it"?
orrrr "god did it" and "god was always around"?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Zarad Yachy on June 26, 2008, 01:45:53 am
I grew up having Christianity shoved down my throat.

Now I'm an atheist.

Not because I want to be rebellious to what I was taught as a child, but because of everything I've learned about the Bible and everything else concerning Christianity that leads me to believe there is no God.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Marmot on June 26, 2008, 02:00:00 am
Quote from: Fujin on June 25, 2008, 10:44:02 pm
Morality isn't determined (atleast entirely) by religion. I seriously don't need imaginary friends to tell me murder is bad.

obviously not, but what makes "murder" inherently bad? is it truly objectively bad or its only subjectively bad?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: EvilDemonCreature on June 26, 2008, 02:03:36 am
Using God as a placeholder for some peice of knowledge that you lack should be considered an act of blasphemy. It's what caused me to vehemently shunt Christianity and almost turn atheist.

Although you cannot blame society for going that route. The desire to understand something unknown is fundamental to human nature. It just baffles me when people shunt science just because it doesn't fall under the reign of their "divine explanations". Are they honestly afraid that by trying to understand the world around them and it's nature, that it will somehow kill the idea of God? Any time I look at it, It just seems like such an irrational fear diminishes the worth and purpose of God.

I wish religious people would be more open and accepting of science, because with every new thing I learn as a result of some scientific study/breakthrough, the closer to God I feel. It's almost as if not only can I see the purpose God serves on every (known) level, but I also the manner in which he speaks to us every day.

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way certain that he exists (based on the idea of certainty *and faith*, I know I never will be), but the idea of him existing starts to make more and more sense to me, and it becomes a lot easier for me to beleive in him.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Grunthor on June 26, 2008, 05:12:07 am
Quote from: Marcus on June 25, 2008, 10:27:01 pm
with that said i find it kind of odd that you listed off gods that support murder, genocide, spousal abuse, child abuse, slavery, and racism (i dunno if it was a joke or not but whatever).

Oh don't get me wrong, I'd never follow their religions, but they were far more interesting to read about than the Christian God. 
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Shepperd on June 26, 2008, 05:21:04 am
Atheist Dad, Spiritual Non-Religious Mom, ergo Atheist Spiritual Son.

although the spiritual bizniz is pretty nonexistant right now, I'll get into that when I find love, as for then asshoelr
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Erave on June 26, 2008, 05:30:54 am
I'm a struggling Christian. Though I like hearing about all that great science stuff it makes me feel more and more like this world was planned and had a intelligent hand in its creation. Prayer has helped me through a lot of things. Take it as you will.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: jman00 on June 26, 2008, 06:27:25 am
My mother tried to get me into the whole religon thing, but it was never really my... interest, after a few years of being in a Catholic School, (i failed Religon terribly!) I found it amusing and hilarious, how a lot of people seem to praise a book, and start reading like "hey guys, you remember this part in this section of the book?" Its no different then reading a comic book and being in a convention, and remember a scene from a Spider Man comic in a certain part.

I have nothing against catholics or any other religon for that matter, but all I ask is don't knock on my door to join a god, I'm not interested in that crap. But one thing I should mention, I find it absurd as a god who allows his religious followers to kill under his name, if you're gonna kill someone for god please don't say, "God made me do it." That's just another excuse for saying "I'm drunk off my crocker."

I could go on about how absurd religon or whatever, but now i'm at the point where I will just start confusing myself, and might get flamed from the stuff i said, so i'll just stop right here.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Farren on June 26, 2008, 08:01:35 am
I remember once we were walking around downtown in a nearby city and some zealot christian college students stopped us and had a video camera and wanted to talk with us about god. I was looking at this one guy and he seriously had some strange glaze over his eyes or something like he was on speed but it was like christ speed and he looked creepy as hell like he wanted to rape me or something (thats the only way I can describe it).

Anyways they kept asking me if I believed in god and I said, "No I don't" and they were like HOW DO YOU KNOW THERE ISNT A GOD?!??

And my rebuttal was HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS?? And the guy's eyes got even wider and he was like I..I...I CAN FEEL IT! And one of my friends asked him if he was sure it wasn't just gas.

I can't remember exactly how the rest of the night went but I know we kept going around in circles and they were video taping us the whole time and I asked for a copy of the video and never got it...

But there was some drunk guy down the street that fell over and his beer busted all over the street and we started laughing at him and he was like, "WHAT THE FUCK YOU STARIN AT??"  And one of the students said something like "CHRIST BE WITH YOU!" and the drunk was like "FUCK YOU BUDDY!" in some slurred speech and stumbled off into the night.

It was seriously pretty damn funny and we were there for like 3 hours. I asked the guy if he was actually gonna use the footage and he said YEAH MAN BUT WE'RE GONNA EDIT IT! and I wouldn't be surprised if I saw it one day on some local cable access channel with half the shit edited out and my words spliced together to agree with every question they asked.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Seawed on June 26, 2008, 11:12:13 pm
Well, my grandmother is an extremely religious person. Strangely enough though, my Father never really picked up on it. My mother's side of the family was not hugely religious either. They both say they believe in God though I don't ever recall a time where they have taken me to church. The only time my dad took me to church was because it was a social event he more or less was obligated to go to and no one was around to take care of me.

I live in a country where pretty much everyone is an extreme fanatic. The schools make you pray every morning, afternoon and have assemblies on Mondays where you have something like a mini-church-service. They don't ever seem to take into consideration other people's religious beliefs and they also seem to instantly assume you are a christian as well. They pretty much are strictly religious.

I tried so damn hard to be like them, but quite frankly I just can't.  I cannot worship God in the same way they do. I'm not sure of whether or not he exists, but I feel more inclined to believe he doesn't. At least, the God that Christianity makes out- The all loving, all powerful God who created the universe- yeah, I don't believe that shit. I mean, we all live in the 21st century, and I'm sure we aren't all oblivious to the suffering, corruption, murder, illness, poverty, starvation and so on. I mean, if this all powerful God truly loved us wouldn't he try to end this? Why would he just let us suffer?
There's also the fact that he doesn't present himself in any way at all. He doesn't interact with us, he doesn't carry out any miracles as shown in the bible, and he certainly doesn't fix the huge issues no matter how much we seem to pray. In the end, it feels like I'm just believing in something blindly and I'm not even sure if it is worth my time.
The bible is also a very irritating book because it puts alot of rules and regulations in your life that quite frankly make it unenjoyable.

I find some of the stories ridiculous and I also don't like some of the morals behind it. The "end days" are almost appalling to me because after all this suffering that God LET us suffer, he lets us suffer some MORE. Then he brings the few who still stuck with him, and brings them into a new world with no suffering and sin. The problem is that no sins means no little sins, which means that life instantly becomes extremely boring since alot of the things considered to be sins in the bible are actually just little recreational things that don't affect anyone. You also live a life completely devoted to God as if nothing else matters at all....almost like a slave. And the fact that you're given an eternal life to do this...? To be honest, I'd rather just die the "blackout forever" way because I don't want to put up with that trash.
If God truly existed and had a valid reason, then maybe I wouldn't mind the new world, but worshipping him 24/7/ sounds like a slavery and not much of a happy existence to me.

There's also hell. I mean, you pretty much created angels, and somehow one decided to turn against you. That's awesome. Flawless creation abilities there. Next you throw him into a fucking pit, but wait, you still allow him to have access to your newest creations but you don't want him corrupting them. What the HELL kind of plan is this? Like, are you fucking serious? If you were all powerful, why didn't you just smite him or make him good again, instead of letting him be a problem to you for thousands of years?
So now, you put blame on obviously imperfect beings. You put two inexperienced nudists on a planet and tell them not to eat a fruit and then someone else (who they don't even know is evil SINCE THEY HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL SINCE THEY DIDN'T EAT THE FRUIT!!!) tells them "Hey eat it, God is lying". They eat it, they curse the rest of the species and it is THEN that they learn what evil and sin is. What the fuck? Are you serious? How could an all powerful, all knowledgeable being not foresee this huge logical flaw?

The fact that you don't believe in God also sends you to hell. So sadly, a whole bunch of innocent people in other parts of the world who just happened to be RAISED in a different religion get fucked. What happens to babies? They have no knowledge of God. We're all fucking BORN atheists! Would they go to hell because they just didn't know you? Why did you bother having a fucking baby be born just to kill it? What a great plan and FUTURE as stated in Jeremiah 29:11!
Quote
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
His plan and future for them was to never live a life!

So yeah, enough ranting. I don't have a huge history or any life changing events that make me believe what I do. I just grew older and observed more things and payed more attention to the things people were trying to feed me. I used logic and reasoning to believe what I believe in. I guess I'm lucky that my parents were not huge zealots who'd make me go to church all the time because I'd probably be completely brainwashed. I believe that either God doesn't exist or he is an extremely cruel bastard who hates us.

It gets fustration because I live in a society where everyone is a christian and pretty much ostracizes you if you're not. So I have to PAINFULLY pretend. Although, I don't really have anything against christians, I just don't believe what they do. And the people I interact with actually would disrespect my views, yet I have to be mature and respect their's. Either way, I do, I just believe differently.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on June 27, 2008, 02:05:16 am
You know, I think a lot of people believe in a god for a "god of the gaps". They don't think that natural phoenomena can explain it, so they use "god". They say the universe can't exist forever, but god "is". They believe god doesn't require an explanation, because he "is god". This doesn't follow right with me. Why must your god always be, but nothing else can? What is it's reason for existance, then? How did it learn to do what it does, and why does it do what it does, besides the fact that it is god and just can?
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: dada on June 27, 2008, 06:18:09 am
Quote from: Blitzen on June 24, 2008, 10:08:03 pm
I think that this sort of "diffuse Christian morality" that exists in Western Civilization is probably kept in mind nowadays by most people who have some awareness of thier own morals, weather they believe in anything or not. Maybe even the atheists ammongst us are inadvertenly Christians in thier ethical thinking because we live in a world spawned from Christianity?
The so-called Golden Rule is the cornerstone of any society (along with several other factors). It has been the prevailing principle behind almost every religion and can be found in virtually every culture on the planet. It has nothing specifically to do with christianity, which is just one of many cultures that has adopted it. See Luke 10:25-37 (http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/luke/luke10.htm#v25).
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Farren on June 27, 2008, 06:44:44 am
Not the jews, just wait inri's got my back on this.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: kentona on June 27, 2008, 06:12:40 pm
Quote from: Blitzen on June 24, 2008, 10:08:03 pm
I think that this sort of "diffuse Christian morality" that exists in Western Civilization is probably kept in mind nowadays by most people who have some awareness of thier own morals, weather they believe in anything or not. Maybe even the atheists ammongst us are inadvertenly Christians in thier ethical thinking because we live in a world spawned from Christianity?
Actually, its the other way around...  Christianity (and many many other religions) co-opted the golden rule and made it part of their teachings.  Morality a human trait, not some magic god-like spell.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Blitzen on June 28, 2008, 03:44:08 am
  The influence for the "golden rule" ethic for the past thousand some years in the Western world has been delivered through Christian influence. We don't think about it now, but even as much as 100 years ago, the world was very very much (incredibly moreso than it is today) embrued heavily with religious influence at every echelon. The influence of pastors and preists and the church in shaping the moral culture of the day (for the past thousand plus years) through thier interpretations and preachings of the teachings of Jesus shouldn't be underestimated. The morals and ethics that we hold in the West because of this influence were and are different from those of other cultures (which is a subject of ongoing dialogue between the West and non-west).

Its not as though Christianty was something separate from the rest of society, and as the homogenous mixture of people that it was, it was a centre of social and especially moral education for hundreds of years. So even though the ethic may be universalist, which is why each culture has its own variant of it, it is hard to deny that its primary delivery system in education to Western Civilization was the church, and also to deny that the influence of the Christian church has shaped the popular morals of the western world.

anyways this thread is not here for this debate.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Cardinal Ximenez on June 28, 2008, 09:43:01 pm
I have a somewhat interesting story.


Both sides of my family are traditionally liberal, pro-choice, Democrat Catholics. My mom pulled me out of Sunday school when I really young, apparently because she heard the class singing about "God's little soldiers" and various acts of ensuing violence.

I did not really think about religion at all until I was about 10 or 11. We did not attend church or anything, and with the internet, I found that atheism was compatible with the ideological package of the liberalism my family instilled in me. Unfortunately, I did not pick up on the rigors of its methodology.

However, by about half-way through middle school, I was looking into more esoteric metaphysics, and ended up converting to some form of neopaganism. My attachment to "woo", and thus my views on the mind ended up making my life more hellish than it should have been.

When I turned 14, the onset of my depression crippled me, making it impossible for me to work with my school's standards. The lack of sympathy, understanding and competence shocked my world-view. I now had personal experience dealing with a monopolistic system, and it made it impossible for me to reconcile it with my quasi-socialist views.

However, the lack of activity during the next few years gave me a lot of time to read and think. One book that I read, Gödel, Escher, Bach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach), was particularly influential on my thoughts on cognitive science. After finally going ahead and taking meds, I felt a lot better, if still not at baseline.

Taking meds gave me quite a bit to think about. If altering the brain's functions altered consciousness as well, where was there room for a "soul"? Of course, there isn't any, and the slightest possibility of me believing in any notable world religion collapsed then and there.

My philosophical knowledge has provided me with tools to think about metaphysics to this day, and I even have a few conjectural beliefs based on it.

Jeff, earlier in this topic, somewhat rephrased a version of the cosmological argument for a deity. The flaw in this category of arguments, is that there has to be some sort of ultimate, unexplainable anthropic entity "behind the scenes", pulling the levers that make the universe function. This god of the gaps shows up in many fields I have studied, from the arguments for Creationism, to the arguments for conspiracy theories.

The notions of an "anthropic universe" take us back all the way to primitive humanity, animism, and its possible origins. We are innately biased to think of things in terms of ourselves, and things like ourselves dominate our surroundings. This is an evolutionarily optimal belief. After all, in order to use our theory of mind, our most powerful feature, we need something to map it onto. Unfortunately, this metaphorical understanding gave way to actual notions of intent behind non-intentional events.

My own (rather weak) speculations on metaphysical origins have a more abstract bent. Currently, I have been leaning towards a form of the mathematical universe hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). This seems particularly reasonable to me given my intuition that any given logical statement necessitates some form of quantification, and the relations between quantifiable things give rise to mathematics as being inherently ontological.

However, there are still gaps in this sort of understanding. Gödel's incompleteness theorem is still a completely unresolved issue, and I cannot even begin to describe the implications on simulation theories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulism). Fortunately, I happen to be living in a philosophically exciting time, and theories may pop up from unexpected corners.

Sorry if I rambled.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: fatty on June 30, 2008, 10:40:05 am
Quote from: Grunthor on June 25, 2008, 05:19:31 pm
3. Other religions had much cooler gods.  Zeus, Ares, Hades, Odin, Thor, Loki, Ra, Anubis, Nu Wa, Shiva, Ganesh, Pele, Kane Milohai, etc. (congrats if you can figure out what cultures those all came from without looking them up).
Greek,Greek,Greek,Norse,Norse,Norse,Egyptian,Egyptian,No Idea,Hindu,No Idea,Brazil  :gwa:​,No Idea



I used to be an Orthodox Christian until a year ago when I was unconverted to atheism. I used to be a fan of deism and "GOD IS THE EMPTY SPACE BETWEEN MOLECULES" for a while too.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: jamie on June 30, 2008, 01:46:36 pm
the only understanding of god i can manage when i'm trying to relate to people who talk about god is that god is other people, it is the dominant morality of the people they know and their beliefs etc. so with that idea in mind i try not to dismiss people out of hand when they say the word god or start talking about their religious beliefs, i just think of that. like god is the potential for good in humanity.

that's the decent part of religion though, the part i think can help people get through their lives. i mean i think it's pretty naive and stupid, don't get me wrong here - i'm an atheist and i think people who really believe in a supreme being or creator who governs our lives are just scared or don't know any better. maybe, even as i try to be respectful of people's beliefs, i am still being a superior and condescending prick about the whole issue.

but i just don't take god very seriously. i take religion more seriously because it means a lot to most of the world, and it has the potential to go really sour and then people start oppressing and killing each other. i think it's important to be knowledgable about all the major religions. i haven't read the koran or the bible or anything, but i intend to. right now i am trying to get acquainted with islamism and the more i learn about it the more this stuff really scares me.

so whatever - really i don't care what your religious beliefs are unless you start being a dick about it.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: Grunthor on June 30, 2008, 10:26:04 pm
Quote from: abort on June 30, 2008, 10:40:05 am
Greek,Greek,Greek,Norse,Norse,Norse,Egyptian,Egyptian,No Idea,Hindu,No Idea,Brazil  :gwa:​,No Idea



Almost, though you got the wrong Pele (though I'm sure there's  probably some Brazilians that worship him as a god).
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: fatcatx2l on July 01, 2008, 06:46:45 am
You know, I was just about to not post, but I decided I will. its the internet. if I get flamed for what I'm about to post, then so be it.

I'm Mormon. I grew up mormon and I still am. BUT, what separates me from a lot of people is that my parents are very openminded. they're both centrists, so am I, so a lot of the stuff I have is the way I was raised. I don't necessarily blame religion, and thank it because a lot of the times I'm a lot better off. Yeah, I've been asked about a million different questions... and the truth is I only wish church where that interesting. a lot of it is extremely dry compared to other churches. there's no rock band. we have an organist and a piano. there's no speaking of tongues. there's no casting off of evil spirits by hitting people on the head. we bless people for that stuff but its a lot less interesting than it sounds. Yeah, I know. I've dealt with as much people telling me I'm going to hell or I'm stupid... but not from my own church. most of the people telling me I'm going to hell are people who consider themselves good christians.

In my general religious point of views: I don't really think a lot of people are going to hell. Actually I think most people have a lot of chances. What I've learned at church is that even when you die, and even if you've done things that may be considered "wrong" you still have more chances. yes, there's a lot of confusion about what's in the bible. things contradict. we all know that. but its how you interpret what everything really means. if you take it literally, then things are going to be a lot worse off.

Because my parents were generally openminded people, I too am an openminded person. I used to get harrased a lot by other kids until I told them that I respected them in there choices. I don't write people off immediately as bad people if they're not religious or don't have the same religion as me. It just doesn't feel right to me. There's good in everyone. Many of my friends have a vague belief in a God or some of them even don't. I actually didn't for the longest while because well, frankly, junior high sucked. I did a lot of stuff that really wasn't the greatest for me in the long run.

Yeah. the world is a terrible place. I don't really blame god for that. I know, that's going to make people hate this point of view even more. I think its understandable that people might think that, but I really don't. People are here. Some are good, some not too great. Most of it all comes from some sort of misunderstanding. how to explain the weather? well, there's obviously science to explain that. Yeah, I believe that god controls the skies and whatever, but I don't think he's literally moving it with his hand.

I believe in modern medicine (as most of my church does/should), and I'm sad when people die (people have told me that they think religion is stupid because they're not out their finding cures or mourning the death of people. I felt that was to claim I wasn't human.) I want these diseases cured as much as the next person. I cry when a family member dies. Just because I believe that they're going to a better place doesn't mean I'm not going to miss them.
Title: Your religous history?
Post by: fatty on July 01, 2008, 06:32:45 pm
Quote from: Grunthor on June 30, 2008, 10:26:04 pm

Almost, though you got the wrong Pele (though I'm sure there's  probably some Brazilians that worship him as a god).
I got the wrong Pele on purpose because I was unaware of who the other one was, really.