Seeing the post about Christianity, I was just wondering about what other religions (or lack of) we have here. I personally am agnostic. I can’t accept something that could very easily have been just made up by some guy that was bored like 1500 years ago, but I’m also not arrogant enough to say that there couldn’t be some sort of god. I have a buddy that’s more into eastern religions…some of those can be pretty interesting. What about the rest of you?
I’m not in any way religious. I went to Sunday school and church some as a kid but it just never “took”. I went later as a teen (my buddy lied and said there were some hot girls there) and it didn’t feel very good then either. I’ve been in Christian churches a few times since and I’ve never felt it was a place for me.
Maybe my believer is broken. I’m plenty happy the way I am. I’m lucky in many ways. I have a great family and a really good life. I can’t imagine things being much better. I don’t have some yearning ache in my heart to know this God dude or why we’re here or anything.
It’s great for the people it works for but for me it just isn’t it.
technically i am catholic. i was baptized and recieved my first communion. however i do not practice religion. and to be honest i realy dont know if i believe that there is a god or not.
“I consider myself 40 percent Catholic and 60 percent Baptist. but I’m in favour of every religion, with the possible exception of snake-chunking. Anybody that so presumes on how he stands with Providence that he will let a snake bite him, I say he deserves what he’s got coming to him”
Careful the “made up 1500 years ago by some bored guy comment”. We don’t want to start a forum disaster like the Iraq posts. I honestly can say I am of no religion. Yet I believe in almost all the aspects of Chirstianity. I don’t feel it is a requirement to call yourself anything, after all Christianity did not exist during the time of Chirst. I don’t believe in the Bible’s english translation, or really any other translation than those languages that is was originally written in. I will not argue with Christian’s beliefs that it was written at the direction of God. But I do believe it has been edited and mis-translated over time for the benfit of the few and detriment of the many. I have formulated my own perspective of Christ, adopted everything that was good from mostly the old testament. I do believe though that when other religions call upon Allah, Nirvana, The Tao, etc they are essentially referring to the same God or a different aspect of that same God. Most people who follow the core beliefs of the major religions are good people that need direction, that when truely called upon comes from deep within themselves. If they follow it truely I welcome them as my brothers.
My father is Jewish and my mother is Greek (Orthodox), and while I was raised secular-ish, we celebrate Christmas, Easter and the High Jewish Holidays, but our primary holiday is Thanksgiving. Thats Canadian Thanksgiving. And to those of you who know the “rules”, to be Greek your father has to be Greek, and to be Jewish your mother has to be Jewish, so I guess I’m just…Canadian?
I have no God. Raised as a Catholic (forced choice that goes along with childhood and background), and currently atheist.
I got to that conclusion by studying Jewish, Eastern and Catholic philosophies, comparing them with history (and historic leaders of each movement), checked up to see if it stood its ground vs the cult movemement warnings, thought about the consequences in real life, look at it in the transaction analysis mode (who gives, who takes, who loses power, who takes it, win/lose). Got some interesting thought changers along the way. The exercise gave me the data (principles/paradigms) and ideological foundations, different viewpoints of the same situation, but it pretty much stopped there.
Not to denigrate any religion, though. Take what floats your boat. Some people need it. I personally just don`t need any. Again, no disrespect. As long as your religion does not criminally go against any of my rights, fine. I prefer (20th century mostly) biographies as alternatives: comes from real people, who did real things (recently), and certainly more credible.
Genetics, math, neural network and chaos theories, memetics, studies of crowds, science (and the scientific ideology) makes far more sense to me: ideas can be debated, tested, upgraded. Call me a Geek. Vote Borg ;0)
Call me narrow. I wont get bothered by what is humanly out of control. And dont get me started with guilt. ;p
(Change honour for religion in the bold part. Sums up some of my thoughts about religions in general.)
'Tis not due yet; I would be loth to pay Him before His day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ‘tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set-to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? no. What is honour? a word. What is that word, honour? air. A trim reckoning!–Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth be hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon:–and so ends my catechism.
(William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part I ACT V. 1. Scene I. The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury.)
really interested in the eastern philosiphies-not necessarily the religous aspects. the asian thought process is so far advanced philosophically -it simply makes the most sense to me.
daoism, the tao, the search for one’s particular place in the universe, harmony with both life and death. this view is the only one that truly puts me at peace. taken in it’s broadest scence it encompasses All other belief sytems (NOT RELIGION)
Faith, hop and charity. The greatest of these is hop.
So we used to spend every sunday hopping. We were forced to hop everywhere. The worst part was that my mother insisted on serving soup every Sunday. . .
After a near fatal car accident and a few hours on life support I can attest that there is an afterlife. I don’t C how anyone could honestly believe that human beings just “happened”. I don’t go to church regularly and I think alot of regular pew fillers are the biggest hypocrits in the world. I do acknowledge that there is a god, a creator… and that’s it. I don’t, however, understand how any rational person believes that the creator of life cares about the minute details of a person’s life. For me it’s about energy… if u release negative energy into the world then U will get that negative energy back eventaully.
I’ve been reading alot on Buddism. Seriously. Everyday I receive via email, “Daily Buddist Wisdom”. I read 'em and if they hit some type of chord with me, I have a little book where I record them.
Here’s one I rec’d this morning: “Drink deeply. Live in serenity and joy. The wise person delights in the truth And follows the law of the awakened. The farmer channels water to his land. The fletcher whittles his arrows. And the carpenter turns his wood. So the wise direct their mind.”
These really help sooth, calm my nerves and I had read several the morning before my contest. Helped me redirect that nervous energy to more profitable uses.
When I was a kid I did go to a Christian bible school. I had a co-worker try to sway me into Cahtolicism. I just don’t believe in alot of what is being touted in any religion; especially Western religious philosophie (I’m with pitt in that Eastern religious philosophies are proving interesting).
If there is a God, then there is. For now, I’ll be a good, honest person of character.
People in my home town thought my family was weird, but it’s just that we were all dyslexic. I guess it kinda looked goofy, us always going on Sunday to worship Dog.
At risk of an imminent lightning strike, I worship women.
But I’m interested in the midget thing. Those little fuckers fascinate me. Esp. the ones that can kick themselves in the head. Cupcake, hopefully you can help me started in my midget-quest.
“I’m confused. Are you NOT supposed to greet women by checking out their melons?” - me, just now.
I was a christian until I was kicked out of sunday school at age 7. I’m serious they actually kicked me out. It was easter and the sunday school put on an easter egg hunt for all the children. Instead of hunting for candy eggs (the yummy pastel colored candy ones with the white sugary centres)like everyone else I just took them from the kids who had already found them. I would’nt take them all, only about half of what they brought in. I just did’nt see the point in hunting for my own eggs when I could simply twist someone’s arm for their’s.
Anyhow, that incident hurt me emotionally and ever since then I’ve been at odds with christianity for trying to restrain my right to free expression and creativity.
Faith is always a touchy subject for people. More so than it should be in my opinion. I guess we all have beliefs based on our own personal truths and throughout life those personal truths tend to change as we experience new things. It’s kind of like your buddy tells you how cool it is to own a private jet and a 12,000 square foot home. It doesn’t seem like it could ever be real if you’ve never experienced it in some capacity, but go ask the guys that own the jets and mega-mansions and they’ll assure you it is indeed real. I’ve made the mistake in life of writing things off just because I’ve never experienced them firsthand. I’ve learned to stop doing that and that faith does precede everything else. Imagine the first time you got ready to attept a 300lb bench. If you’ve never done it you probably weren’t sure that you could, but you had faith and then it happened. That is kind of how God has worked in my life. I had no faith and I saw nothing (even when He was doing things). When my faith increased He opened my eyes to the world in a whole different way. The bible went from a fictitious life-lesson book to a reality. And guys, let me tell you, whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or whatever…the bible-the writings from thousands of years ago have described to a T, the world we live in right now and it is coming to pass more and more each day. In fact, it prophecied that in the latter days most of the world would deny Christ altogether and that being a Christian would definitely not be the popular choice-it would come with a price. Sounds kind of familiar doesn’t it?