Why are you your religion/an atheist?

[thomassmith]

Yea I don't have the energy to argue religion with people I don't know. I could care less at this point. If you want to argue about religion take it to PM. Or talk to the person on the phone.

Edit: e-mail also.

[Mizango]

What the fuck.

It says something when I'M fucking tired of the religious threads.

ROFL no kidding. I've been gone all day and holy cow!


I need a Darwinism option, I cant vote without a Darwinism option. I get it, you dont want me to vote because Im black. Is that it? Monkey voting for monkeys, is that what you're thinking!? WELL IS IT!?

This thread is racist!

[thomassmith]

Darwinism option would be a good idea that would have my vote !!

[Mizango]

If you vote Darwinism then Im changing my mind. I want to be as far away from you as humanly possible.

[thomassmith]

Well that's too bad it was a good option if you like me or not. The fact that you don't like me shouldn't make Darwinism a lesser option.

[Mizango]

Allow me to calculate my needed escape velocity, 7 miles per second seems a bit overkill. One moment please.

[Mizango]

Well that's too bad it was a good option if you like me or not. The fact that you don't like me shouldn't make Darwinism a lesser option.

Au contraire! I took Darwinism into my own hands and shall be systematically weeding you out.

Such is life.

[thomassmith]

I'm not going to get involved with you are not worth my time. I was trying to be nice but you when out of your way to attack me. This is why religion and internet are a bad idea.

[Mizango]

I never said Darwinism was fair.

[thomassmith]

Just because you think it is a good option doesn't make it so. You are not the end all be all. You think you are clever but really are not.

[Mizango]

Actually I am. You had your knee pads on and a mini Tesla ball in your mouth ready to submit to me a few posts ago.

u dun got salt'd.

It happens. Its what I do.

[Khamsin]

Replies don't get added to my post count, and it wasn't posted for drama.

It's why you believe what you believe. I never asked what it was exactly that you believe.

I posted it because the other thread asks what you are, and I was curious why.

In this thread, it doesn't matter if you're atheist or Christian or Muslim, because the poll only asks why you are what you are.

Just try to keep the thread on topic, and leave out what your specific belief is, and this thread will remain drama-free.

[Max™]

I never had faith forced on me, I was told that I should find what works for me.

Believe it or not, I've studied all sorts of religious subjects, I've attended many different churches, and discussed this topic with a huge number of people over my life.

I've had lots of people try to "save my soul", in some way or another, but I always came to the same conclusion. They can not save me if they can not save themselves, and "my soul" is not in any danger.

The only danger facing it, is the eventual breakdown of my body.

So I looked around, and while religion offers lots of promises, science seemed to offer actual methods by which one could prolong their awareness.

It didn't take me long to see that faith was not the path of the wise, so I got here by logic, and reason.

[Stiker]

ROFL no kidding. I've been gone all day and holy cow!


I need a Darwinism option, I cant vote without a Darwinism option. I get it, you dont want me to vote because Im black. Is that it? Monkey voting for monkeys, is that what you're thinking!? WELL IS IT!?

This thread is racist!

?

What the fuck.

It says something when I'M fucking tired of the religious threads.

It also says something when I 100% agree with Neo.

[Khamsin]

And Darwinism and such aren't options because that's what you believe, not why.

Why do you believe it? Were your parents evolutionists? Is it trendy to be an evolutionist? That's the question being asked.

[thomassmith]

True that if you want to worship Darwin. Do it. I'm not going to stop you.

[quannum]

what is a middle-ground agnostic?

[Khamsin]

what is a middle-ground agnostic?

One who doesn't know whether to be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. The possibility of god is so unknown and undecided, you don't fit into either category.

[Zhais]

I will say, what with all these religion threads, the book "History of God" by Karen Armstrong is a damned good read behind the history of monotheistic religions. It goes into explanation of the thought process behind philosophers and proponents of faith in trying to decide what is out there and why.

Give it a read if you have time.

[Stiker]

All kidding aside though, I'll say my piece then let this thread take its course.

I was "raised" Methodist. I say "raised" because, despite being baptized, church attendance wasn't exactly something big in my household for a long period of time.

I went to Catholic schools most of my life. Around here, it is pretty much the best option as far as private schools go. From 5th grade, even all the way through college, I was in a Catholic school.

I learned a lot about Catholicism during those years and I also questioned the ever living hell out of it. Teachers would sometimes get quite frustrated with some of the things that made zero sense to me. For instance, Communion was a big one. I didn't get how people could believe the bread/wine was actually the body/blood of Christ instead of them being symbols. Not having open Communion was strange to me too, I never got why people that claimed to follow Jesus, a man that allowed everyone at his table, to exclude anyone. There are several more, but that is the biggest one.

Summer of my 8th grade year, I ended up going back to my original church's (Methodist one) youth group. During that time, I ended up getting exposed to both the Jr High and Sr High groups, as I was outgoing 8th grade and incoming freshmen. The last event of the summer was the Sr High youth group leading a worship service and at the end, I saw the outgoing high school graduates (and really most of the group for that matter) get quite emotional to my surprise and I figured that there might be something somewhat special about the group (note: I didn't really think at the time of any religious connection to this).

So I started regularly attending the youth group meetings and going back to church. Over time, I was surprised by how I was treated and taught. I was encouraged to ask questions, adults weren't afraid to say they didn't have the answers instead of making one up or just saying "uh Jesus said so" or something equally ridiculous. You see, I'd always more or less believed in God and Jesus, but I really never thought of it as faith of my own until this started.

Probably the time I went on my first mission trip was when I really felt like the Methodist faith was my own. Now, don't be drawn offsides by the term "mission trip", we didn't go around knocking on people's doors handing out "How to Get to Heaven" pamphlets. We simply went to areas around the states whose residents needed house repair and couldn't afford it. The only religious thing we would do was pray before the work days and that's about it. We'd really only engage in religious talk if we were so engaged by the residents, otherwise, we'd just chit-chat with them.

Anyways, during that time, I saw our group of high schoolers with very little (if any) experience working on houses complete projects that I thought were far too much for us. They weren't small jobs by any means either. For instance my group put a tin roof on a house as well as build a large deck to replace some worn down stairs. I know this is one of those things that people like to say "well that is just something nice" or "it's just because you worked hard", but I do believe that without a little assistance from God work like that shouldn't be done, much less done well by high school kids and just a couple adults at each work site.

Even despite all of that, I still had questions about my religion, and to this day I still do. One of the things I love about the Methodist stance is that we acknowledge there are always several things that we will not understand and not agree on as a church, but in the end, we should try to discover our own path and aid others in discovery of their paths because we are all united in the same faith and that is the important thing.

Even if someone is not of our faith, we don't shove our beliefs down their throat either. Debate is good and often such debates force us to deepen our own understanding or force us to ask hard questions about what to believe. And in the end, someone will either believe or not, trying to be a Bible beater and intolerant jerk won't get you any further.

Even with all this, I still question my faith and still know I have more to learn. One of the reasons I even bother reading these threads is because I do think I learn more than I would in church. I've been taught by both my parents and even my church to have an open mind and open heart, and I don't think plugging my ears to arguments from atheists or those of other religions is a good way of going about that.

As I've said before in some threads, I believe God blessed me with a damned good mind and I'd be wasting the gift if I didn't expose myself to opposing ideas. It is also one of the reasons I have the stance of you can appreciate, study, and accept the findings of science and still be religious. The way I see it, if I believe in a God that not only could bring about creation of the world, why can I not believe that science is revealing the ways He has done that? Yes, I understand it is a logical leap, but as I've said before, faith is inherently illogical, and I can't exactly be religious without it.

Throughout my life though I have had far too many things happen to me in several different areas for me to continuously brush of as mere coincidences over and over again. I'm not that damn lucky, and even though I've worked hard at school, college, and now my job, I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I have created all my luck either. I see that as something beyond me.

Anyways, that's my basic stance, I don't want to gunk up the thread with more walls of text from me. tl;dr It's personal experience and I do truly believe in my religion based on them.