Bump. lol
I’m Christian. It’s much easier for me to believe in a loving creator of all things then to believe we just came to be by evolution. I have seen the evidence of God working in my life many times.
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I have tried reading others but KJV is always what I fall back to. I have an NIV and New American and they just collect dust.
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I have a friend who is a Buddhist scholar and a religious studies professor. At first, I was interested to learn about Buddhism as I knew nothing about it. I went to his class, and learned about the Four Noble Truths, the life of Buddha, and the teachings. My friend is not Buddhist, as many (most) religious studies scholars treat their specialty as a historian would treat their specialty.
Over time, read books and became more interested. I really liked the aspect of not requiring (or having any opinion of) the existence of a supernatural being. (For those that don’t know, the Buddha was a regular person who became enlightened, and spent his life telling others what worked for him. They might want to give it a try). I have since meditated regularly, gone to many Zen (a Japanese flavor of Mahayana Buddhism), and even gone to multi-day, silent retreats.
I don’t know if I would really call myself a Buddhist, but there are many aspects I hold dearly:
- The interconnectedness of all life. We are all one, and should see our own reflection in others and treat all life with dignity and respect.
- Meditation is a life changing as any exercise/nutrition program. I practice Zazen, the “just sit” form found in Zen Buddhism. Not long either - sometimes only 10 minutes a day.
- The principle that we don’t require anything else to be whole and complete. Becoming enlightened is essentially seeing the world and reality in all its glory, and realizing we are already all we need (no need for a God to make us complete).
- Impermanence. Everything is always changing, and our suffering is a result of us clinging to the aspects we don’t want to have change.
- The “Beginner’s Mind” concept of Buddhism, made more famous by Zen master Suzuki. To keep your mind open to the experience it is having without critiquing, dividing, and going on auto pilot.
I have personally never had a connection with any religion and have never heard a version of a God I could accept and worship. So I don’t know if I would still be labeled an atheist despite my connection with Buddhism.
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Buddhism does seem like the most chill religion. Seems like it would go well with me.
Hey if it works for you, who am I to judge? Some people really like the linguistic styling of the King James and that’s fine.
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Absolutely. When I was into boxing I would run five or more miles a day. Often I would pray the rosary the entire time I was running. It’s not exactly a calm peaceful meditation, but it still was a nice disconnect from the world around me.
I see from time to time stories about having kids do yoga and meditation in school. “Quiet time to help them reflect.” To which I always say, “Didn’t we used to call that prayer?”
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Agnostic lapsed Catholic. Had to retreat from atheist due to finding I am unable to believe in anything other than an objective morality. So, based on my unwillingness to accept a subjective morality, I am inclined to entertain the idea that there is a God.
I am also anti-abortion and fine with gay marriage provided there is no coercion of dissenting churches, so make of that what you will.
Irish Catholics have had more than a few Earth shattering scandals in recent times, so that may have played into my original departure more than I’d like to think.
TL;DR: Agnostic with a toe still into theism.
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Im secular Jew AKA Chill Saturday NFL on Sunday bacon and ribs rule… Gods got bigger fish to fry then worry about my lunch
Absolutely, part of prayer is the conversation with God, the other is the meditative quality with having to learn complicated techniques to do it. I believe this was deliberate act by God, so that even the lowliest of people can still reflect and meditate without a huge education. After all, does not the Kingdom belong to the least of God’s people? Prayer keeps meditation simple.
You can download it free on your phone.
I also have an annotated version which explains things and also will address controversial words and phrases with their potential alternate translation. I really like it. But it does not have the apocrypha, you will have to find a Catholic Bible for those extra books. Do you need them? Probably not, save for the Book of Sirach. It’s a wisdom book that has many times left my mouth agape. Just in it’s simplicity and matter of fact-ness. So of all the apocryphal books, that is the most valuable. 1 & 2 Maccabees are first to directly mention life after death in the OT.
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Most people are disenchanted by religion because of the bad behavior of it’s adherents. But I say we are all hypocrites, not all the time, but there are all times we do wrong, which we know to be so and do it anyway, even if only by our own measure.
Just for fun, this doesnt solve your problem. You can look up many philosophical musings on this issue, but suffice to say that a God doesn’t solve the objective morality problem. The generic question comes in the form of “Is an action moral because God commands it? Or does God command an action because it is moral”
If its the former, than anything goes simply because God says its okay (and indeed almost anything does according to which God you choose to follow and text to read). If its the latter, than God is getting its morality outside of itself and there is no need for God to command it because it is already moral.
Also, Atheism and Agnosticism are different things. You can be both, or one or the other. It isn’t a ladder with Atheism on top and Agnosticism right below it. One is a knowledge claim and one is a belief claim. You can claim to not know there is a God (agnostic) and still believe (theist).
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I’ll admit to being a bit blindsided, yes.
Not necessary IMO, but I definitely appreciate the thought. (I’m reluctant to write ‘I accept your apology,’ because that would imply I think you have something to apologize for.)
Such was not at all my intent.
Yup. Reminds me of an exchange on the old SAMA subforum. From memory:
[Warning: Crude sexual reference ahead]
Male poster, responding incredulously to someone’s claims: “Dude, this is the internet. Everyone here makes a million dollars a day and has a 10-inch penis.”
Female respondent (comment accompanied by a crestfallen/sad emoji): “I only have an 8-inch penis.”
Anyhoo, in addition to the utter unverifiablility of claims, the fact that I find it unseemly to discuss personal financial specifics (including how much we donate to charity) in public rendered responding to (what I perceived to be) DD’s rather bellicose challenge (‘I donate 10%. How much do you donate?’) a non-starter for me. But nothing I said was intended to suggest libertarians are less personally charitable than anyone else.
Not at all. But I can see how my too-glib characterization of libertarianism as encompassing ‘upside-down morals’ would grate for someone sympathetic to that worldview.
Anyway, we (you and I) are all good so far as I’m concerned. Thanks for reaching out.
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Oh trust me, I am aware of the issue. I appreciate it merely moves the problem, but it was my unwillingness to concede the point to myself, even in the abstract, that gave me pause. Have you read John Finnis’s work on objective morality? (Genuinely interesting work, not an attack on you)
Also, appreciated. Trust me, I was a hard atheist for years. The distinctions are known to me.
Technically, yes God does resolve objective morality. You cannot have objective morality without an objective measure. By the exercise of reduction all roads lead to a Moral Law Giver and is the basis for the Moral Argument for God’s existence.
It can be illustrated by a simple argument:
P1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
P2. Objective moral values do exist.
C. Therefore, God exists.
or
P1. If objective moral values exist, there must be an ultimate Moral Law Giver.
P2. Objective moral values.
C. An ultimate Moral Law Giver exists.
followed by:
P1. If there is an Ultimate Law Giver, then it must be God.
P2. There is an Ultimate Law Giver
C. Therefore, God exists.
These are some simple but powerful arguments. And the more you dive into the premises, the more difficult it is to deny the conclusions.
EDIT: Actually Subjective Moralism was re-introduced by modern day secularists in order to avoid the problems acknowledging Objective Morals exist causes to disbelief in God. If morals are subjective, the there is no need for God. If not, the need for God does exist.
Even if those arguments were valid in form you’d still have to prove the premises to make them sound, which is where all the hard work is. I see no proof for either of them personally.
And even then you still have to ask if God is giving the moral law because it is moral objectively (which negates the need for God) or is the commandment by God what makes it moral (reducing it to subjective, being whatever that God decides to decree)
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The arguests are valid, you can turn them inside and out if you want.
And actually burden of proof would require that once I laid out the argument, it’s your burden to disprove it.
However, having done this about a million times. I am going to leave it to the experts. When I get to a computer I can paste you about a thousand defences for all aspects of it.
Haven’t exactly been following this thread but I figured I’d throw in a question cause why the heck not?
In Christianity, it is believed that Jesus saved us from our sins via the whole sacrifice himself on the cross thing. Blah blah, we have free will etc. That being said though, if we don’t believe in him, we gon go to hell.
Isn’t that akin to…
A slave owner gives his slave his freedom back. The slave owner tells his former slave, you may have your freedom back but should you decide to not serve me and run away from me, I’ll shoot you.
Any Christians here who’d like to share their perspective?
No. It is like allowing that former slave to run away; however, the slave owner is not THE good.
I smoked 12 packs of cigarettes a day, did not exercise at all, and died from lung cancer. Fuck you for killing me, exercise. Same reasoning.
Hell is an absence of God.