Why are you your religion/an atheist?

[Ruiner]

Oh yeah, but if we went around picking religions based on facial hair we'd all be worshipping ZZ Top.

That's actually not a bad idea, come to think of it.

[zoobernut]

All Hail ZZ Top's Beard!

Calling to order the community of worshipers of amazing facial hair.

[Ivve]

Finally, something for me to crusade against. Assemble your worshipers; I want to wage a holy war.

[Effluo]

http://www.3click.tv/mp4//Family%20G...ata/302526.jpg

[Skjie]

One day I sat down a read a book and decided I liked where it was going. I rarely pay attention to it, but it's worked out so far.

[Moosey]

I was raised Catholic and forced to go to sunday school until about 10th grade. During that time I went to church the most out of my immediate family by a long shot(my younger brother in a close second.) For a while after that I just kind of rolled with it, but I wasn't really into it at all.

After a couple of years, I went to church with my dad a few times(who went to catholic school until high school but is now closer to protestant, and almost completely disagrees with the catholic church) and found out that "church" didn't have to be boring as fuck and chanting and ceremonial shit. They played lively music there and had video presentations, and it was in a modern building, not a 100+ year old church, and pretty well equipped in the technology department. It was more of a discussion than a lecture, and more spiritual than religious.

I did that for a while, not really consistently, but when I went I enjoyed it. This was the latter half of my HS years.

As I got a bit older, and my mind started to clear from the farts in the head of my teenage years, I began to think about a lot of shit, and it almost always came back to faith. I didn't consider myself catholic anymore, just Christian, but I wasn't sure which sect my beliefs were aligned with.

Presently, I consider myself an Agnostic Theist, and I just came to this decision relatively recently. I call myself that, but I still cling to several of the beliefs of Christianity. I believe Jesus was supernatural, and that many of the supernatural events in the bible are true(great flood, plagues, etc..).

I believe there is a higher power, a God, I'm just not sure in what capacity. Until we die or they make some crazy shit happen, there isn't any way of knowing for sure what started all this, and why. I think it would be a waste if it turned out we were just an accident in evolution, and there is no higher power.

WHY NOT INTELLIGENT DINOSAURS and HUMANS?!
http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2007/08/1...sic-park-4.jpg

[Galkaeater]

To paraphrase a Marilyn Manson shirt I saw once, because God/Allah/whateverhisnamemaybe is the #1 reason for war and murder around the globe for the past 3000 years.

Thats incorrect
the correct answer is land/resourses/greed
0 points to you

[Hitoshura]

Always had the same theory, there is definitely a true arbiter/entity out there that created us. I doubt we will ever know who or what it is, even in death.

[Howard Roark]

a mix of 1 and 3, although some lingering beliefs that were drilled into my head during childhood are slow to depart

in short I can't help but believing in a higher being, but what form that takes or the degree of its omnipresence possibly including us, humans (everything is one) leaves much room for understanding

ultimately I think our rational minds can only understand so much about unrational concepts, so this is where I'm left off. To say I have beliefs is half-hearted as they are in a set state of being un-set lol

if this makes me some form of agnostic so be it, but I've never really strived for a title



also, I suppose how I arrived at my beliefs is reactionary, in that much of what I rejected as religious and dogmatic (versus spiritual and based on personal experience) has influenced what felt 'better' in my mind, as 'correct' seems unatainable as yet, and I only knew what felt 'wrong'

[Faris]

actually reading the options carefully,

a mix of 1, 2, and 6.

my experiences truly; there are more things other than what i've stated in the other thread, but i cannot discuss it, its way too personal.

I come from a not a religous family, but a religously aware family. We got doctors, sheikhs, engineers, soldiers, cops, professors and we all believe in God and meet daily 5 times in the mosque, it becomes a culture.
and only 1 year ago, i started seeing the logic, after reading and researching extensively in Islam. I really wish i can just specialize my expertise in theology; its my passion.

but stupidass loans and my wife are holding me back, (and maybe im a bit of a pussy to take that big step in my life)

[Gunitsoldier]

but stupidass loans and my wife are holding me back, (and maybe im a bit of a pussy to take that big step in my life)

Inbe4racist

anyone else find this sentence incredibly funny?

[Olo401]

Thats incorrect
the correct answer is land/resourses/greed
0 points to you

Hey dumbass, go look up the definition of 'paraphrase'.

[Brill Weave]

Inbe4racist

anyone else find this sentence incredibly funny?

Nah you forget that in the Middle East women don't even have souls.

[Alleya]

#6.

My family used to drag my brother and I to church every sunday. I believed it for all of 6 months when I was 10 or so, old enough to actually understand wtf was being said, when my parents finally allowed me to go to the adult service since I hated the kids service so much. I started rebelling against going to church when I was 13ish, right around the time a sermon was given about how all other religions are totally wrong. I couldn't articulate why this rankled me, but my parents didn't hold out very long before letting me make my own choice, and I stopped going.

After that it was a slow process. I didn't think about it for a while and I just busied myself with my education (I was home schooled after 6th grade, but my studies were almost totally self-directed). I don't remember exactly what caused me to start considering religion again, probably 9/11 and the subsequent islamophobia, but I started building a case against it in my head. A few arguments later, that I lost disastrously, I started to treat it like an area of study. Coincidentally, building the case against religion actually gave me a lot of the tools to fight pseudo-science as well. Funny how that works. Double whammie.

[Galkaeater]

Hey dumbass, go look up the definition of 'paraphrase'.

you need better sources than a shirt

[Brill Weave]

I've honestly found that it's usually not worth arguing religion with people after arguing a few times in the past. If I had to classify myself as a specific style it would most likely be a agnostic theist but I am very intrigued by Taoism. Some members of my family are bible thumping Christians who are arguably the most close minded individuals I've ever met(ie all other religions bad, Christian good!)

I look back to when my father died from lung, liver, and spinal cancer. He had a projected lifespan of six months and he managed to last two years. The last six months the wheels began falling off. He was always a big man but at the end he weighed about 190 pounds(down from 260.) He was retaining water to the point where he needed to go in and have a minor procedure to drain it. One day thing, in and out. My mother took him in on Monday. The operation went well and he was recovering. He never recovered from the anesthetic. He never was quite all there for the rest of the week. He stopped eating. Couldn't drink anything. He was in excruciating pain. The doctors decided to put him into an induced coma.

So we waited for two weeks for him to die. Literally, watching him waste away to nothing. Never getting a chance to have one last conversation with him.

So when my uncle said that God had a better plan for him and that he works in mysterious and wonderful ways, I snapped. I launched into how God was so wonderful that in his infinite wisdom he decided to put a man who never hurt a fly, into extraordinary pain. How God was so great that he decided to deny a dying man one last conversation with his family, or even a simple goodbye.

I still don't talk to him because according to my grandmother, I shook his faith so badly that he doesn't want to be reminded of it by having a conversation with me. To me there's three kind of religious people.

The fanatic who twists everything into a YAY GOD! moment and can't even enter into a conversation that would cause any doubts in his/her deity of choice.

The open minded ones who can enter into a conversation and while not agreeing with another person's opinion, they do respect it.

The weak willed ones who blindly follow along like a lemming over a cliff blindly reciting God/Allah/Buddha are great but don't understand the first thing about religion.

No, for me, religious arguments are something that I tend to steer away from.

[Tempyst]

you need better sources than a shirt

I rent all my opinions from Hot Topic

[Jazz Kazuko]

I’m a Taoist.

I grew up in a very religious family. It’s kind of weird, in a funny way. My grandmother is a fortuneteller. My great grandmother who lived till 105 was the village prophet. LOL I know. She died like 2 years ago. I met her a few times, crazy lady, but she’s awesome. She loves her moon pie. She cuts them into tiny little squares and munches on one everyday at 2:00 PM in the afternoon. She’s never late for her moon pie and if she doesn’t get some, she’ll be grumpy. It’s like dope for the elderly! I was surprised that she had all her teeth, since she liked sweets and all.

Anyways, each New Year, my great grandmother would go to the shrine with my grandmother and they would tell people their fortune. Oh, they wield the traditional four pillars of destiny. Hard to explain but it involves a lot of graphs, a measuring tool, and bunch of numerical calculations. Yes, 105 old lady doing math, crazy shit XD.

Anyways, first of all, all eastern religion believes in destiny. Not destiny given to you by god but destiny of what it’s going to be by the choices you make. After all, we don’t believe in god or gods. Basically, this is your soul. You can cut it short by making a choice to tilt the scale, or uneven the balance and the result might be the end of your soul. That’s actually kind of confusing though. I guess I’m not translating it correctly because your soul doesn’t really end. Your physical body might end, I suppose but your soul moves on in an endless cycle of some sort.

Balance is an important thing in my religion. Essentially, it’s the Ying and Yang, action and reaction, equivalent exchange (Yes, from Full Metal Alchemist, now you know where its from.) and etc, etc. Everything is about balance and to keep the perfect balance.

There is no pure good or pure evil and if you try to be one or the other, you will end up unbalanced or impure. Impurity is bad for one’s soul. We have folk tales that says if you are too impure, you will eventually die and your impurity will build up to what we called a grudge. Grudge is like an attachment. You are attached to the last cycle and you can’t let go until you are finished with something. Anyways, when that happens, the soul turns into a monster. Or a ghost, or misfortune, or whatever, there really isn’t a good word to describe it in English. Hmmm. Final Fantasy X is a good example. Of course, that’s pretty much superstition but we do believe it. We thank those who died and pray to alleviate their grudge. So instead of thanking god for the food we receive when we eat, we thank the food instead. Itadakimasu! This is one reason why we are vegetarians. When I say we, I mean the religion, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on. Some Buddhist monks eat meat too - like the ones in Tibet. They believe in a much dynamic way against impurity.

Nevertheless, I can’t really call our religion is in fact a religion. To me, it’s more like a teaching. Social standards are crucial. Elderly in the family is the top dog. For example, when we eat, the eldest person gets the food first. After they take first bite, then the rest of us can eat our share. Same when I visit my mom and dad. We always have family dinner and it is mandatory for me to attend. And each meal, I can’t start eating without them eating first. If I do, my mom would be like “What’s your fucking problem?”

… yeah.

Reincarnation, I believe it. However, we don’t believe in a tier system, not like Hinduism. Reincarnation is random. There is no way to control it, unless you achieve enlightenment like Buddha. By the way, don’t misunderstand the context of Buddha.

Buddha is not a god. The translation of the word god is too vague. Buddha is a person who we believe has reached enlightenment. Buddha has reached enlightenment and has consciousness beyond the life stream. It means he is immortal, sort of. When he dies, he has free will in the life stream and can choose to reincarnate to, well, whatever. Monks who has reached enlightenment can recall their previous life. Whatever it may be. There are other immortals out there, Buddha isn’t the only one, but he was the first to teach us about the cycle or realized about the cycle.

Personally, I find Buddha’s teachings interesting. It makes sense. Nothing personal to western religion but I have been to a few Sunday schools and I don’t know, it’s confusing, like how Jesus died to erase the suffering of the people and guaranteed them a passage to ‘heaven’ if they accepted him.

As for Buddha, his teachings were that suffering – being an experience – is obtained through attachments. Attachments are basically craving for our current life. If we rid of our attachments, via the eightfold path, we can achieve enlightenment. True enlightenment is obtained when one can realize the truth behind existence. Basically, there is no existence. Our individualism, being the phenomenon, exists only because of the existence of other phenomena in a complex web of cause of effect covering time past, present, and future. Hard to understand, but its basically the tree falling in the forest concept. You except only because of everyone else around you, and if there is nobody around you, then you do not exist.

Nothing has real independent identity, and all things are thus conditioned and transient. We are in due course belongs to an axis point of a whole known as life or life stream. And our physical state is just a cycle of evolution, a phenomenon, an occurrence, and ultimately it is meaningless as a whole. I know, kind of depressing. But reality is reality.

We don’t really know the purpose of the reincarnation cycle, but we believe we will find out some day as we gain more knowledge of the universe. Believe it or not, we do believe in dinosaurs and Darwinist and evolution and such. They were a part of the life stream and a part of the old cycle. So, yes, I believe long ago I was a dinosaur. LOL

Besides, monkey people are cool! Journey to the west, anyone?

Buddhist who is on a path for enlightenment has to give up all living attachments. Family, friends, material things, and their name, yeah, they are given a separate name when they become a monk. And if you talk to them about their old identity, they would refer their old self as a third person.

We don’t go to temple (church) weekly. We go on special occasions. The temple is open to us if we want to go on a normal occasions though. Too bad there are no temples here in the US. I haven’t seen one yet.

When we go to the temple, we bring donation. Donation isn’t money. They don’t accept money as donation. They only accept food as donation. We usually bring fruits or canned goods. And no, you can’t bring a chicken or some shit like that. LOL

They do make money though. But like I said, not as donation. Most temples provide different services. Biggest one is cleansing, or balancing your soul. They also provide prayers and once I went to a temple that had a restaurant there. They made food they got from donation and ones they farmed. The food was nothing special, if you were wondering. And yes, they were all vegetarian.

We keep our own shrine in our home. It’s in a closet at my parent’s place. I have one too in my apartment in my drawer. LOL I don’t care about it. Only bring the crap out when my parents are visiting. I also have to wear a bead bracelet. I don’t, only when I have to. I feel lame and gay wearing them in public …

But the bracelet represents the life cycle. I’m sure you guys have seen monks meditate with them. How they turn each bead then move on to the next one in a cycle. Each beads represents one life cycle, and the entire chain represents the … well … entire life stream.

[Yuri-G]

I'm an agnostic theist because I'd like to believe in god and have felt things at times that could not be explained by rational human biology, but at the same time, nothing has been concrete enough to prove that there is a god, or to nail down exactly what he/she/it is. I believe there's more to life than just matter and energy, but I don't know what it is and I don't believe I could comprehend that concept in my current state of being, so I'm an agnostic theist. what I believe in is not necessarily one being, although it could be - it could also be as simple as a wave on a higher dimensional plane (a la Xenogears), a collective consciousness, or who the fuck knows what. I certainly don't. but I don't buy that the universe simply exists because it exists.

I also believe that what people perceive as god is an evolutionary trait inherent to human beings that we've developed in order to strengthen our species, and this is where the "god" of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, YHWH/the tetragammaton/Yahweh/Jehovah, actually comes from. but I don't believe that he is an actual being, I think it is something that exists within the minds of human beings that we developed as a species through evolution in order to strengthen the human race. I think that concept has a lot to do with why we are the dominant species on the planet.

so basically, I believe "god" is all in our heads, but that there's something outside of the traditional concept of god that has a lot to do with how this universe was created and how it all comes together.

[Faris]

Inbe4racist

anyone else find this sentence incredibly funny?

i dont get it, do tell