Religions

[Guest]

Greetings.

Newbie Shiro-chan here.

I have been intrigued by religions since childhood. Unfortunately, I have never been able to gather as much knowledge about them as I wished.

I find religions incredibly interesting (I am particularly fascinated by Taoism- one of the reasons for picking this avatar), but I am not a follower of any particular religion.

So, are you a follower of any religion? If so, what made you pick it over the other ones? Also, do you think religion affects our current society? If so, is it good or bad?

[Fiddle]

I'll try to minimize this post, and thus its controversiality.

 

I currently pratice Roman Catholicism. As with most people, I didn't quite "choose" this religion, but have been a part of it all my life. Consequently, so as to counteract the narrow-mindedness that accompanies such circumstances, I want to be open to any other religion. The most appealing aspect that I would find in another religion is that which is meant to be central to all of them: morality. I might become associated with the Bahai Faith in the future, of my own volition.

 

I respectfully refuse to answer those last two questions, for the benefit of Internetkind. -_-

[Yukiru]

I try to be as knowledgeable of deities as possible, since that helps reading some chu2, but that's that. I'm interested in legends, but not religions.

 

Because of astronomy I've picked the legends of constellations, I even studied some tarot. 

[CruelN1N1]

I'm chistian, but i'm no really a one, idk what to think about religions

[Zenophilious]

inb4 flame war

 

Anyway, I'm not particularly religious.  I'm more of an agnostic than anything else.  Used to go to church every Sunday with my family, but some jackasses in the church leadership decided to take out a loan with the property as collateral so they could build a youth center.  After all, God will provide, right?  Church went bye-bye, along with my faith.  I don't have a problem with religion, I just don't want to be a part of it anymore.

[crunchytaco]

Discussing religion always gets me heated lol. 

I try to avoid topics more so about politics than religion but when I start with either, it's hard to stop. 

 

I've seen a lot of friendships break apart over it.

 

Never discuss politics and religion in polite company

[Monmon]

I`m a Roman Catholic on the cover only.

I dont practice any religions at all, though i believe in higher power. I`m more interested to the history of religions,Deities and gods rather than practice the religions.

However i really do respect for other who have faith in their religions and they should be proud of it.

Religions will always affects our society it one of those things that everybody have different opinion to others, and i wont say its good or bad.

Its fine to share ur opinions about ur faith with others, in fact it will be fun as we can teach and learn. The bad? well... all religions will have some Fanatics, IMO that is bad.

Again all of this r IMHO.

[FruitsPunchSamurai]

I Do not mean to offend anyone, but I just don't care about religion. If they want to follow their beliefs or whatever then that's fine but don't shove your beliefs in my face. I just can't find myself being devoted to a religion and its beliefs or practices that will never give you anything in return.

Then there is the insane that take their religion way too far (look at the middle east.) But that's something different so this is where I will end my comment.

[Stray Cat]

I'm technically Byzantine Catholic, know by some as the soft-core Catholics.  I'm not a strict adherent but I do believe in God.  My thought on organized religion is that it can be good in teaching morals but also problematic so I tend to think it's best to keep your relationship with God more private. It should never be appropriate justification for crime or acts of violence.   I do not appreciate people telling me what is right or wrong or what to believe so I'll do my thing, you do yours and everybody is happy.

 

I'm also greatly interested in mythology, religion, astrology, tarot, etc. of all cultures and have read many books on the subject. 

[zoom909]

Christianity.  Primarily of the Roman Catholic persuasion, because it is one of the forms with the oldest lineage.  (I guess we will probably not find any Fundamentalist Christians on a forum like this :-) )

 

I could fill a whole page with "Why Christianity?"  Instead of talking about that, though, I'd like to consider what makes people gravitate toward a religion or not.

A lot of it has to do with finding the meaning of life.

Is it possible to find the meaning of life in this world in which we live?  If you can decide for yourself what to make of your life, and accomplish the things that you yourself want to accomplish, is that the meaning of life?  Or, is the meaning of life only truly found by transcending this world, and discovering the existence of a higher power?  Which do you think?

 

By the way, there is a movie (and a book) called "The Life of Pi".  Came out a couple years ago.  If you want to understand what it's like to have faith, you should see this movie.  (Quite a bit of action in it, too.)  Several of the world's major religions are mentioned in it.  It tries to show you the common factor underlying these different faiths, and why and how people come to truly believe in something.

[Yukiru]

The thing about religion is that it stopped the development of science for a thousand years, people getting too passionate can be a bad thing. Not to mention it was a dirty move by a certain guy whose name I can't remember, even though an entire empire/age has his name- a clever move, but nevertheless dirty.

 

Another thing is that gods contradict themselves, as they are equal to humans.

 

And another thing, Haruhi is the true god and creator of the universe. have faith mortals, since I'm saying no more than the truth.

[Cyrillej1]

Nope, I don't particularly follow any religion seriously even though I grew up with one. I take what I like from different teachings and ignore the rest. I do not think one religion is better than another, they are all the same to me. I believe being a 'good person' is not related to whether you believe in a religion or not.

 

That's all I'll say, since I know religion can be a hot topic.

[FoggyOrchid]

A fine question, but for me personally I'm agnostic atheist if you don't know here's a quick run down ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism )

with that said i have nothing against religion, it's just not for me

[DawnWolf]

My immediate family, whilst mainly being Christian (damned if I know what kind), has always been open minded to many issues, opinions, and views. So Aside from when I was too young to really choose for myself (around five ish), I've always had the choice if I wanted to partake in religion or not. Having no love for what I felt to be tedious religious work, I became an agnostic early on in life, gravitating more towards atheism as I've grown older. I don't really care what religion a person has; don't shove things down my throat and I'll return the favor. 

 

Does religion impact society? Yes. 

Does it do so negatively or positively? Depends on the when and where. A few hundred years ago I'd say religion benefited society. Today? Not so much. At least in America religion has served as a means of denying people their basic rights on the grounds of "My book says this is immoral so you can't do that". This ranges from discrimination against homosexuals to discrimination against middle easterns/Arabic-Americans simply because they may not have the same religion as you. I dunno, this is a touchy subject but I find religion to cause a lot more problems than I see it solve lately.

 

Theres a reason religion and politics tend to be taboo subjects in peaceful communities; too easy to cause strife and offend.

[SilverLi]

I belong to the Protestantism church since childbirth but I consider myself an atheist. I love history and that's why I decided to skip religion. If you read and research about history religions are freaking horrible. It doesn't do any good and someone can always use it to manipulate people for their own needs. Humans are always easily influenced without proper knowledge.

 

I'm not disliking any religion. I respect others opinion and choices. But I don't think it has any function in modern society.

[Darklord Rooke]

I belong to the Protestantism church since childbirth but I consider myself an atheist. I love history and that's why I decided to skip religion. If you read and research about history religions are freaking horrible. 

 

As a student of history you'd also be familiar with the atrocities committed in the name of atheism, I assume?

[Aniki]

Victims of the Christian Faith

Charlemagne beheaded 4500 Saxons who were unwilling to convert to Christianity.

The Crusades caused from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 casualties. Both Christian and Muslim.

The Holy Inquisition most likely executed a good amount of heretics between 3,000 and 5,000.

For the glory of Protestantism, a good 8,000,000 people were killed.

A lot more people were killed too. This is a mere portion of the people killed in the name of the lord.

 

Victims of the Atheist Ideology

Now this is a number hard to find. You would have to separate the death toll of the Soviet enforcement of atheism from the total 61,911,000 killed in the Soviet Union, the 18,000,000 to 45,000,000 deaths caused in China, and other deaths in other areas.

[Darklord Rooke]

I'll do the maths. Hold on.

 

Each religion is its own belief system. So is atheism. None of them can be proved and pitting one belief system (atheism) against a multitude of different ones (every religion created) is just a tad unfair. A fairer system would be measuring each belief system against each other. 

 

I'm very confident quite a few religions beat atheism in the "caused fewer deaths" department

[Guest]

I know many religious people. Christian, muslims, Jews.

 

I'm don't believe in god, and I'm fine with people believing in it, and they were fine with me not believing too.

 

But do not try to understand.

Every single one of my attempts to understand failed miserably. Because I don't have faith. I wasn't taught to have faith so there's no reason I'd have it.

 

And that last question is stupid.. No religion isn't bad, it was the origin of morality and society. (and lots of other stuff, I'm not a specialist)

It just happened that some people - at some point in history and still today - are extreme about it, and these people cause problems.

But that's like 10% of them.

 

+ This thread can only go wrong, end please.

[meru]

I'm not religious.

 

I used to attend church as a child (Christian, Church of England), but when I got older I realized I didn't believe any of it, and my parents didn't really either, they were just going because it's what they thought they should do.

 

People can believe whatever they want, but religion (at least the kind which requires faith in a higher being, God, etc) isn't for me. I know it helps some people immensely and really enriches their lives, but I've also seen people for whom it's caused them immense pain and psychological torment. In a way though I do envy those who believe, it must be nice to feel like your life has a definite purpose and meaning.

[Darklord Rooke]

I'm don't believe in god, and I'm fine with people believing in it, and they were fine with me not believing too.

 

But do not try to understand.

Every single one of my attempts to understand failed miserably. Because I don't have faith. I wasn't taught to have faith so there's no reason I'd have it.

 

If you were a believer of science, then depending on the version of the 'Big Bang' you subscribed to and your definition of the term 'God', wouldn't being open-minded about the possibility of a higher being be a natural process (I'm referring to Superstring's theory of 10 dimensions here.)

 

*Chortles evilly*

[Narcosis]

Religion and politics are all the same. Tools of trade to control the constrained masses, brainwash them and force them to do things, otherwise no sane, intelligent, self-respecting person would ever do. In general, most of present religions are a plague and should be completely wiped off the face of our planet; maybe then, when people will finally manage to free their minds from chains imposed by the pious ancestors, we'll be able to move forward and reach a higher level of enlightenment.

You can have faith in anything you want, but you'd better stay away from religion, for your own good.

[Guest]

If you were a believer of science, then depending on the version of the 'Big Bang' you subscribed to and your definition of the term 'God', wouldn't being open-minded about the possibility of a higher being be a natural process (I'm referring to Superstring's theory of 10 dimensions here.)

 

*Chortles evilly*

 

Science and religion don't colide and there are enough results about the Big Bang theory so we can -more or less- say that it happened a certain way.

And that Supersting's theory is an hypothesis.

 

Of course everybody wonders about the origin of things, and this is where God is convienient. Because he has no origin - supposedly.

Either you try and find that origin, or you say it's god. I think searching is more interesting ^^.

[SilverLi]

As a student of history you'd also be familiar with the atrocities committed in the name of atheism, I assume?

Yes indeed. Maybe wrong to call myself an atheist perhaps. I don't believe in religion but I don't got nothing against believers.

[Darklord Rooke]

Science and religion don't colide and there are enough results about the Big Bang theory that we can -more or less- say that it happened a certain way.

And that Supersting's theory is an hypothesis.

 

Actually not true, anything happening before the Big Bang is merely speculation. The requirements needed to even begin to prove such concepts are a long way away, and that IS the important bit when talking about origins.

 

And Superstring Theory IS a hypothesis, as are ALL of the Big Bang's theories currently.