Are you religous?

[mrchimp]

**** religeon, it's a means to power, ignorance and hope for those tooweak to go through life without it. There's no evidnece of God, although there are slight scraps of evidence for life after death that does not make an convinceing argument for spending your life worshipping something that every year is made less credible by science and the actions of those who are indeed religeos.

Lets take the effect of catholic teachings in certain parts of Africa and asia for example, because the pope (who is a complete and utter idiotic toff, that knows absolutely **** all about what he speaks) has decided that condoms are evil, millions of people now think the same and are trying to use natural forms of contraception that simply don't work causeing the spread of aids and overpopulation. When a catholic official is ever approached about such problems they always without fail tell you first that condoms have viral sized holes in them (bullshit) and then ramble on about promoteing the family unit. Meanwhile there are single mums liveing in a box with 8 children, because they were told not to use any form of contraception ever.

What some people don't seem to understand is there is a difference between ignorance and stupidity, there's no doubt alot of religous figureheads are intelligent, they would have to be to convince others to believe in something there is absolutely no evidence for. The problem is they believe what they want to regardless of evidence and feel to scared not to believe it or atleast question there beliefs because they might get sent to hell or even worse lose there job and power.

Religion brings order to chaos, but also chaos to order. In this day and age it is obsolete and any goverment that is controlled by religion is a bad thing.

 

[Brian Damage]

I'm an Voyagerassian. I worship Seven-Of-Nine's curvy butt.

*Chortle! Hehheh!*

Seriously, I believe that whatever you believe in is real for you.

 

[Fat Tony!]

lol poor badger just cos u have a concept of wot god is it doesnt mean u believe in it . I.e u can say there is no such thing as flying cows and yes I'd then say a flying cow is a cow which has wings. That doesnt mean i believe it them.

 

[Sparky the Fox]

the issues some of you have with religion are with specific actions of specific establishments, not the entire religions. simply because they choose to use the shield of religion as their justification doesn't render the religion itself inherently wrong. people are mixing up causes and their respective effects here. also, because someone understands something differently than you does not necessarily make them ignorant or stupid. i think for any human being to say they know truth is pretty arrogant, as the prerequesites for truth are omniscience. so with this in mind, i don't agree with the people who say their religion is right and everyone else's is wrong. everyone has their own means of reaching their personal truths, which give them understanding about themselves.
i think science should be used to explain the physical, external world, and religion should be used to help us deal with notions of consciousness and humanity.

and here's a thought: people can be religious and be realistic. religion is rarely used as a great obscurer to knowledge, because rarely are science and religion at war with eachother. being of a religion that advocates questioning everything (even its teachings) until its validity/invalidity for you becomes apparent, i don't believe in god because i've seen no personally compelling evidence for there to be a god, both by science and deduction. but if evidence does arise, then i'll consider it again.
so yeah sweeping generalisations may be tasty, but they're made out of kittens

 

[not28]

Originally posted by chu
I have met Jesus, he is one crazy guy...

lol:cheers:
Anybody seen the movie Dogma? That sums up religion for me.

 

[NJD2003]

the jesus in that picture IS from DOGMA, anyways i'm religious, I'm pretty sure i'm the only mormon in this forum.

 

[not28]

Originally posted by NJD2003
the jesus in that picture IS from DOGMA, anyways i'm religious, I'm pretty sure i'm the only mormon in this forum.

Oh yeah.
When I wrote that, the thought hadn't even occured to me. :dozey:
I guess I've seen Buddy Jesus so many times I've forgotten where it originated.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Mmmm, sorry if I confused anyone... with my fuzzy logic... let's say it is not wise to think deeply while drinking.... really really bad idea.

I personally don't believe in god..... but Buddhism seems nice

 

[Stone]

Well let me put this to you.....

I'm religious,
And you know what religion I follow.....

It's Atheism

I am quite the religious Atheist, I religiously don't go to church every sunday and religiously take the lords name in vain...

...Ok maybe I don't, I respect other people beliefs, even though I do believe them to be a whole load of tosh myself, I respect them....

and another note, this thread will never be as good as the me and farrowlesparrow one, from back in the old days

 

[The Mullinator]

Im not buddhist but I think it is the best religion out there. The more people think they are being governed over by a higher being, and the more they feel like this higher being will protect them when they are in trouble makes us feel insignificant and weak. This can only limit us as a species.

IMO there is no god but ourselves. I am the god of myself, and you are the god of yourself. No one else can play god over me. When I rely on myself then when I accomplish something I feel good knowing that it was me and only me that did it. When I have gone through tough times and survived then it makes me feel good knowing that I got through myself, I was not being protected by anyone, I protected myself. That gives me strength.

 

[DimitriPopov]

Its amazing how vocal the Atheists are and the religious people just vote and keep quiet.

Im catholic , I dont go to church very often but I still believe. I dont KNOW what happens when we die. I follow the commandments as well as I can. The Bible is a set of rules and morals , the Old Testament is the rules morals and stories , the New Testament is a Historical fact for the most part , a History of Jesus. I try to be a good guy and do right , mostly because it feels good to help people , religion is in the back of my mind.

The message of religion is to Do RIGHT and treat others with RESPECT. How that is a bad thing to some of you astounds me.

Because men distort a good institution to meet their will does not discredit the actual institution or its core values.

 

[MrD]

Originally posted by DimitriPopov
Its amazing how vocal the Atheists are and the religious people just vote and keep quiet.

This is exactly the kind of thoughtless statement that provokes wars!

I cannot believe you just wrote that.

EDIT: Also, i don't know if you noticed but there are more non-religous voters, so it follows that there will be more non-religous posts! Its like the old "you're more likely to crash in a RED car" myth.

 

[MrD]

Originally posted by DimitriPopov
The message of religion is to Do RIGHT and treat others with RESPECT. How that is a bad thing to some of you astounds me.

Because men distort a good institution to meet their will does not discredit the actual institution or its core values.

(sorry for the double)

I think we a treading over dangerous ground here. Especially so because most of us have the same set of core values anyway: "treat others with respect". There is no reason to even have this discussion. The people we despise are those that don't treat each other with respect, and these types of people clearly exist among both the religous and athiest groups (ie. crabcake's child molesting priests and their non-priest counterparts).

It is silly how religion always manages to provoke these same types of arguments time after time.

 

[The Mullinator]

Originally posted by DimitriPopov
Its amazing how vocal the Atheists are and the religious people just vote and keep quiet.

Im catholic , I dont go to church very often but I still believe. I dont KNOW what happens when we die. I follow the commandments as well as I can. The Bible is a set of rules and morals , the Old Testament is the rules morals and stories , the New Testament is a Historical fact for the most part , a History of Jesus. I try to be a good guy and do right , mostly because it feels good to help people , religion is in the back of my mind.

The message of religion is to Do RIGHT and treat others with RESPECT. How that is a bad thing to some of you astounds me.

Because men distort a good institution to meet their will does not discredit the actual institution or its core values.

You are absolutly right, the main purpose of religion is to try and ensure people do the right thing and treat others with respect. We really shouldn't need the threat of being punished however to ensure that we do the right thing but unfortunatly many if not most of us do. :dozey:

The definition of being a "good person" in the eyes of major religions is basically the same as what an athiest feels is a "good person". What athiests are upset about however is not what religion is supposed to make people feel (happy, rightous, at peace, etc.) but how it goes about doing it as well as how it intrudes on other parts of life. I mean supposedly in the Christian religion if I don't go to church, pray, or believe, then I will not be in heaven when I die. Yet these things do not dictate whether I am a good person, I know I am a good person and I know what to do in order to remain a good person. So do I really need the guidance of religion? Do I really need to be forced to hear the teachings of how to be a good person when I already know how?

Of course that is just me, there are many people out there that do need guidance in order to prevent themselves from doing "evil" things. In which case being forced to go to church and to believe is the perfect way of ensuring that they have the chance to hear what should be done and therefore have the chance of being "good".

I am an athiest because I first of all because I believe in science. Second of all I like to know that I don't need a higher power to give me strength, I aquire all of my strength from myself. Third is because I know I don't need to be forced into being a "good person" because I already am one.

 

[MrD]

Originally posted by The Mullinator
We really shouldn't need the threat of being punished however to ensure that we do the right thing but unfortunatly many if not most of us do. :dozey:

I really do not believe that this is the case. IMO the very evolution of our various countrys' justice systems proves that the larger proportion of people are "good". If this were not the case then we would have no justice system because the larger proportion of bad people would see to it that there wasn't one! Society in general is driven by the majority.

 

[The Mullinator]

Originally posted by MrD
I really do not believe that this is the case. IMO the very evolution of our various countrys' justice systems proves that the larger proportion of people are "good". If this were not the case then we would have no justice system because the larger proportion of bad people would see to it that there wasn't one! Society in general is driven by the majority.

People are good based on how they are brought up. If I was to raise me kid by telling him/her to be evil, to kill, injure, and generally be an "evil" person then they probably will become that way. We are lucky that almost all of the different societies on this planet do not think this way and therefor the individuals in them also do not think that way. Many of us may be completely capable of doing horrible things, but because we were brought up believing that those things were wrong and because we will most assuredly be punished if we were to do those things then we remain "good". This is where religion comes in, it trains people to do what is right and tells them that they will be punished if they do something "evil". The majority believes what it is told is right and by what could happen to the individual if they do something bad. People are not inheritantly good, we are genetically neutral. We become good or bad depending on what we are told. We could be told what is right and wrong by either religion, state, or both. Either way we need something to tell us what to do in order to prevent us from doing something stupid.

 

[MrD]

Originally posted by The Mullinator
because we will most assuredly be punished if we were to do those things then we remain "good"

If i am reading your posts correctly then you are asserting that people (in general) only behave well because they live in fear of what will happen if they do not behave well.

I know this to be very wrong at least in my case. The reason I do not go around punching people in the face is because I do not believe it is right to do so (not because I am in fear of being punished) !

Also, more interestingly, there is a mounting body of evidence showing that children who are physically punished are more likely to become violent against others in later life. This suggests the opposite of your theory: ie. that people subjected to punishment for their wrongdoings are more likely to seek punishment of others who do wrong against them.

This surely is against the whole "forgiveness" thing that is an integral preaching of many religions. Using your own argument of "People are good based on how they are brought up." then it would seem that forgiveness breeds forgivers, and punishment breeds punishers. Thus I believe your original point "most people need the thread of punishment" is incorrect, because it is the forgivers that we should be trying to breed.

Most people behave because they are good people.

 

[Frank]

I've been baptized, and been confirmed, or whatever you call it, but I don't believe in God. It just doesn't seem right that someone with a big mighty white beard created a guy called Adam, but he got bored and horny so God made him a f*ckbuddy called Eve. Then a snake SPOKE to them and said that they should eat some forbidden apples, that God had warned them about eating. But they did it anyways and got kicked out of Paradise.

Now my questions from me to you are:
-Where exactly is paradise, because I would like to sneak inside one day
-How come God hasn't visited ever since?
-If God is the MAN who told us not to believe in anyone else than him, then how come so many other people believe in other gods?

 

[The Bear]

Frank in order to answer your questions, read the bible. They are all answered there. Also, the sotry of creation is ussally considered a large metaphoror symbol not meant to be taken literally. But hey what you choose is what you choose though I hope you find God

 

[Tyl3n0L]

No I'm absolutly not religious.

 

[Frank]

Originally posted by The Bear
Frank in order to answer your questions, read the bible. They are all answered there. Also, the sotry of creation is ussally considered a large metaphoror symbol not meant to be taken literally. But hey what you choose is what you choose though I hope you find God

Hmmm...It could be fun to read the bible...just for the fun of it...I need a good laugh!
Are you religous, Bear?

 

[CptTrips]

Originally posted by Frank
I've been baptized, and been confirmed, or whatever you call it, but I don't believe in God.

Choosing to be confirmed is a choice you make if you want to further your relationship with God. If you choose to be confirmed, yet don't believe in God, you are contradicting yourself.

 

[DimitriPopov]

Originally posted by Frank
Hmmm...It could be fun to read the bible...just for the fun of it...I need a good laugh!
Are you religous, Bear?

Good old fashoined mean , ignorant and disrespectful atheist opinion. This is the what I usually see when an athiests jumps into a debate. Luckily this guys the only one to REALLY do it in this thread.

 

[Sparky the Fox]

dimitri, would you please stop using "atheist" as some kind of insult? you get upset when people insult religion, yet you get back at them by insulting atheism o_o

 

[DimitriPopov]

non-religious persons. Hello political correctness , nice to meet you.

 

[nw909]

Originally posted by Frank
Hmmm...It could be fun to read the bible...just for the fun of it...I need a good laugh!
Are you religous, Bear?

wtf? you could at least be tolerate of other peoples belifes.

 

[Sparky the Fox]

how is wanting to avoid flagrant disrespect of others' beliefs political correctness? you misunderstand my complaint.

Good old fashoined mean , ignorant and disrespectful atheist opinion. This is the what I usually see when an athiests jumps into a debate.

nice way to make a sweeping generalisation that athiests are mean, ignorant, and disrespectful. retribution against the athiests posting in this thread for disrespecting your beliefs gets both of you nowhere o_o

 

[DimitriPopov]

Change everytime I typed "Ahteist" to "anti-religion people" and there ya go. Thats basically what I meant anyway. The extreme Atheists.

 

[Hudson]

Originally posted by The Bear
Frank in order to answer your questions, read the bible. They are all answered there. Also, the sotry of creation is ussally considered a large metaphoror symbol not meant to be taken literally. But hey what you choose is what you choose though I hope you find God

IMO The whole bible is a freakin metaphor. I could go on but you know what would happen, ***IN FLAMES***

 

[DimitriPopov]

Jesus life can be historically documented more or less. The New testament can be proven to a certain logical extent (as far as you can prove anything from 2k years ago)

 

[SpuD]

I put another option in there, because some people beleive in god, but dont really give a damn.

 

[AmishSlayer]

HA! I'm the first person to put "Kinda"...

Goin' out on a limb... alright..

 

[burnzie]

Originally posted by Tredoslop
Jedi?
Oh yeah! That reminds, some time ago on this forum(Or was it another forum?) I remember someone posting a thread saying that in a census, many people chose "Jedi" as their religion.
LOL!

on the australian cencus form (probably in other countrys aswell)

government cracked the sh*ts

 

[mrchimp]

Originally posted by Sparky the Fox
the issues some of you have with religion are with specific actions of specific establishments, not the entire religions. simply because they choose to use the shield of religion as their justification doesn't render the religion itself inherently wrong. people are mixing up causes and their respective effects here. also, because someone understands something differently than you does not necessarily make them ignorant or stupid. i think for any human being to say they know truth is pretty arrogant, as the prerequesites for truth are omniscience. so with this in mind, i don't agree with the people who say their religion is right and everyone else's is wrong. everyone has their own means of reaching their personal truths, which give them understanding about themselves.
i think science should be used to explain the physical, external world, and religion should be used to help us deal with notions of consciousness and humanity.

and here's a thought: people can be religious and be realistic. religion is rarely used as a great obscurer to knowledge, because rarely are science and religion at war with eachother. being of a religion that advocates questioning everything (even its teachings) until its validity/invalidity for you becomes apparent, i don't believe in god because i've seen no personally compelling evidence for there to be a god, both by science and deduction. but if evidence does arise, then i'll consider it again.
so yeah sweeping generalisations may be tasty, but they're made out of kittens

First of all condoms are 99.9% safe and thats a well proven fact not a belief, you can't call me arrogant for stateing that.

second of all religeon is science gone wrong, it's used to explain things science can't and relys on superstition to keep it going. When a valid scientific explanation is found for a particular instance of reality religous people often refuse to believe it, due to the fact there explanation is in some big stupid book that can't be disagreed with (or has come out of some prophets arse who just happens to be appointed by God and is therfor all powerfull).

Third of all everybody who is religous believes there's is the right one. Otherwise they are not religous, how can you have faith if you do not believe what you are worshipping is correct??

forth of all while some of my problmes with religion are specific to certain subject matter, you often find that the same problems crop up over and over again, I think the notion of worshipping a god or spirit is a waste of time and that valuable reasources are wasted on it, now how many religions has that problem popped up in?

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

religeon is science gone wrong, it's used to explain things science can't

I don't use God as a way to explain things that science cant explain.


There is a reason why i don't get involved in these sorts of threads anymore. Everybody (and my statement now is a good example of this) makes statements about everyone else which are based on their experience (how ever large or small that may be), this means we all have a different perspective, so there will always be disagreements even when we all know that we are right


P.S Could people please spell it correctly....Religion

 

[rec]

While I refuse to get into a religious debate, I will post some of my opinions based on 12 years of Catholic education and years of spot-research. My girlfriend is Christian, naive as she'll ever be, unopen to new ideas and unable to challenge her beliefs. Unfortunately I love here, so what am I gonna do.

This will be my first and last post in this thread or on the topic at all.

I voted no. I am not religious, and generally am against western religion. However, I do believe there is a God. I believe Jesus walked the planet, and I believe the bible is very real.

I do not believe "God" is of the image that modern religion has created and promoted.

I do not believe Jesus was the magician he is claimed to be.

I believe the bible is over-rated, exploited, and often too much faith is put in the bible's word alone. Christians today do not follow the bible, the word of their God, they follow their own word. If they followed the bible as fundamentalists do, women would be treated like trash, and anyone with serious disabilities would be cast outside their faith's circle. Examples...

"Man was not made from woman but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman but woman for man. For this reason, a woman ought to have a sign of submission on her head." (1 Corinthians 11:8-10)

"No one whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may be admitted into the community of the Lord. No child of an incestuous or adulterous union may be admitted into the community of the Lord, nor any descendant of his even to the tenth generation." (Deuteronomy 23:2-3)

If you think Christ's ressurection happened, and that it was a spectacular event in history, I wonder if you've ever read the entire bible (new and old testements)... Isaiah reverses the sun's course in Isaiah 38:7-8. If this really did happen, I ask a single question; why didn't countless other civilisations notice such an event. It definately wouldn't have been subtle, garunteed.

I could go into detail about questining "God", but I won't. If any of you care to be enlightened however, feel free to private message me.

I ask anyone who has done any research; does the bible say anything about its own infallibility? The answer is no. The Bible in didn't even exist until several centuries after the last book was written. The Bible was a collection of separate writings by individuals who never imagined their writings would ever be considered divine. Paul came clean, promoting that some of his own writings were not the word of the lord (1 Cor 7:12 "But to the rest speak I, not the lord..." and 2 Cor 11:17 "That which I speak, I speak not after the lord...").

The bible is the word of man, and while most Christians will try to convince you it is the word of their lord, or the word of the lord through man, they are deeply mistaken. These texts were written by men no different than you or I. Commentating events and happenings, bias towards our own beliefs and opinions, as were they.

Protestant and Catholic bibles differ in many ways, thanks to both conflicting beliefs and incorrect/abused translation over hundreds of years also. Each even contain passages that the other religion blatantly contests. So which books are right? There cannot be two versions of God’s word.

Niether, to some extent. The bible is full of injustice, lies and contradictions. If anyone would like detailed descriptions of thousands of injustices and contradictions, private message me and I will grace you with just a few I know off the top of my head, and point you to various sources where you can spend days reading the rest.

The texts are however a brilliant source of wisdom and can definately lead to inspiration and insight if understood and taken on-board with common sense and serious questioning, rather than blind faith.

Faith is a gift, if you have the intelligence to question it. If my girlfriend spends the time to explore other options, explore herself, question her religion and can still come back to me and tell me her views haven't changed, then I will accept and respect her stance.

Until then, I request that all courts world-wide rule that no children under the age of 17 be allowed to attend religiously orientated schools, nor church, nor Sunday school. Children should be able to decide for themselves where their faith lies and what they believe in, it should not be forced down their throat, their decision should not be pre-made for them.

Blind faith may get some of you through your day, cigarettes get others through theirs. These two are more similar than you can possible image. All I ask of believers is that they try to open their ears and eyes, believe what you like, just not blindly.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

There is no god. My brother died, aged 27, 5 years ago. Apparently, this was "all part of God's plan". Really? in that case, God can go and <censor> himself.

Religion is a crutch, with very narrow boundaries. Believe in whatever works for you - you don't have to subscribe to one of the pre-made packages.

 

[Aratos]

I believe in god, but my beliefs tend to be different to the "mainstream" beliefs.

Sorry if this has been pointed out already (i only read the first few pages) but there is actually no such thing as an athiest. Athiest literally means "doesn't believe anything". If you say you are an Athiest then you believe you don't believe anything, which is believing something, so you aren't an athiest.

 

[OCybrManO]

First, Atheism isn't belief in nothing.

Theism is belief in a god or gods.
Polytheism is belief in more than one god.
Monotheism is belief in one god.
Atheism is belief in no god(s).

Second, you don't "believe" you are an Atheist... you "know" you are an Atheist.

A belief is an unproven, yet accepted, idea.
Knowledge is an idea that has been proven.

If we can't know ourselves... do we really know anything?

 

[crabcakes66]

most religion is nothing more than something made up by powerful people to stay in power........

"do what your told and follow these rules or you will go to hell"

make sense to anyone else?

edit: control of the masses through fear