religion? seriously, what do you believe in?
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29 Sep 2010, 12:04
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Journals
heya,
i dont actually know why but for some reason i keep asking myself this one specific question, obviously i should work/do something but this is bothering me.
I could always proudly state, that I'm atheist but after becoming aware of the fact,
that beeing an atheist means you dont believe in anything, i came to the conlusion that
i can not be classified into any specific religion.
i mean i know i believe that there is or at least might be some higher power
i believe in fun stuff like voodoo/esoteric/telekineses u know
also i can't befriend the close-minded thought, that our planet is the only one in this universe, most hardcore-christians do?!
Well, i could create my own religion and live by it or just apply for the church of the flying spagetti monster if you know it..
i know its much too read but maybe somebody shares the interest (:
so it would be nice to read what u think :o
i dont actually know why but for some reason i keep asking myself this one specific question, obviously i should work/do something but this is bothering me.
I could always proudly state, that I'm atheist but after becoming aware of the fact,
that beeing an atheist means you dont believe in anything, i came to the conlusion that
i can not be classified into any specific religion.
i mean i know i believe that there is or at least might be some higher power
i believe in fun stuff like voodoo/esoteric/telekineses u know
also i can't befriend the close-minded thought, that our planet is the only one in this universe, most hardcore-christians do?!
Well, i could create my own religion and live by it or just apply for the church of the flying spagetti monster if you know it..
i know its much too read but maybe somebody shares the interest (:
so it would be nice to read what u think :o
cool and smoking weed blabla
neither i drink alcohol..
wait IM STRAIGHT EDGE XXXX
argh..
just kidding ._.
after that i only did it 1-2 times
hope you enjoy my lifetime story :)
but i heard it's going to snow on friday ~.~
I'm christian btw.
And I've gotta read, no time for lengthy discussions now :/
so are you a true believer or simply a born christian?
And claiming to know all of Gods plan is a pretty big thing to claim :X
I wouldn't declare any relgion as a lie, I mean who can proof what is true and what is not.
Fact is, religion gives most people something to trust in, put their hopes and efforts in, i can't jugde if somebody is doing the best he can to proof himself "worthy" just to happily enjoy a ride to paradise and afterlife or if the person expects anything in return or just does what it does because of no reason.
Also i know a few people, which have been scarred by life or bound to the wheelchair anything, all they can believe in is god and he is helping them so much, at least they say that.
Religions ain't a bad thing, but what these relgions sometime do..witch-hunting and stuff, don't have to mention scientology and so on..well
But
To me, the fact that it gives hope and joy doesn't make me want to believe in it. I don't want to believe things that aren't true, even if it would make me the happiest man on earth! So why the fuck am I a christian? My faith is not based on feelings or events, since I am perfectly aware of what placebo and suggestion is. So why am I christian?
It's an intellectual choice, sometimes i feel against it, sometimes i feel for it. Thing is, it all comes down to very simple axioms: If God is God (allmighty, created everything etc) and he sent his son to save us, then it all makes sense. If that ain't true, it's all rubbish. Since that can't be proved nor falsified, faith is all there's left.
Ah, and the cruelties committed in the name of religion. You know, there's a very important distinction between religious people and religion in itself. Religious people can be (and often are) idiots, but our human incompleteness should not be equated with the religion itself.
Oh, and you touch something else that's very important: We are not the judges. There are no human that decides what happens in eternity, what's true and what's not. We have a lot to learn when it comes to acting that way.
And sorry if it looks like I'm trying to smartass you over to christianity (which is partially true :P), but as christians we have a dilemma: Society wants us to keep our religion to ourselves, but we'd sure like to have all these cool people with us into the afterlife. What's least egoistic?
beeing catholic is for some reason "forced" or recommended in that part of yugoslavia, where my grandparents live and there actually everyone is a strong believer, i dunno, can't befriend that. also my mother, god was her only hope some time ago but what i deal with my problems myself and the only salvation for me is either solving em or waiting for life to solve em for me and if they cant be dealth with at the time, im gonna wait. but i dont need an avatar from any place to help me out of that misery.
ya i know that religions and activists need to be separated just didnt think it was worth beeing mentioned since you know all that stuff anyway :)
it didnt look like it at least not for me or supposedly im just immune to any kind of persuation/beeing convinced, i make my experiences on my own so that means nobody could ever talk me into joing a special group or doing something i dont want to do, just too strong-minded .. NLP could maybe work on me who knows but thats a different story.
what i wanted to say i dont blame you for anything im surprised there are smart(not ass ^^) guys like you here on crossfire
Good for you that you feel confident in what you believe in. That's a luxury surprisingly few people have. I love talking with people who know where they stand, so much less hidden uncertainty and persuation between the lines then :)
My father always says that religion and politics shouldn't mix, history has shown us that (crusades, dictatorships). We need the diversity to stay sane :)
Take care now, was good talking to you, good luck on your further reflections and life in general!!
I'm lagging behind on my studies over here :(
Thank you for your insights and introduction to the christian religion
you too take care, good luck with those studies!
LOL INTERNETS
How can you be a christian if you know that's just something you believe because you've been brought up with it? Wouldn't it be better for yourself if you'd not define yourself as part of a religion, but (because you claim you're a christian by own research and reasoning) just as "religious in my own way"?
edit: And just because you believe one or two things a religion claims, this of course doesn't imply that that whole religion is true for you.
I believe there's an universal truth, not relative truths. Knowing I'm not the greatest philosopher on earth, I know there's no way I'll find that truth on my own. Christianity opens up a vast space of possible solutions, however I'm pretty confident that God pretty often shakes his head thinking "Aww, you've got it all wrong". I'm sure we got a lot of it wrong, i just hope we got the essence right!
Defining myself as part of a religion has advantages; fellowship for instance. Faith is a fantastic thing to share with other people! I have no need to be nonconformist, and as it happens there are a lot of people who believe the same thing that I do. Why not team up?
And, what I stated as my belief is the essence of the christianity. Read Romans 10:9.
Still the whole concept of a group of 'believers' (it's in the definition of belief) just doesn't feel right to me. Every attempt to come as close to the truth, whether you're a trained philosopher/scientist or not, is in my opinion better than joining a group just because they share some, but by long not all of your points of thought.
This of course isn't a valid argument, just my point of view.
The concept of a group of believers is in my opinion very important. A lot of the reflections I've made have been influenced by fellow believers. No man is an army, we can help each other point out flaws, and new, interesting thoughts. Not to mention, it is very relieving to have a place where you don't have to defend what you believe in, but instead you can start LIVING it.
However, I do understand your point - how do I know that the influence you get from other believing people is true, and not just group thinking? I've seen plenty of people who completely lost contact with "the rest of the world" (only christian friends, working in some kind of ministry, etc), and they do get pretty strange...
you say some people claim religion is based on lies, but I personally know some christians that will deny some facts of life proven by science, yet they claim those things are lies (dont ask me what exactly, cba to think of, just remember having discussions with them).
And then the part of people claiming they're lies..but nobody can prove they're not lies, so based on what do you believe certain christian beliefs?
for example, stuff like if you do good, good will do you or w/e it is in English? Do you believe in that?
What you stated as an example, if you do good good stuff will happen to you is not a christian thing per se. It's a piece of good general advice. Christianity does not guarantee happiness, success or any other thing. It does state some things (The fruits of the spirit) that come from God (patience, y'know, all them good sides of humanity), and thus they are good, as well as the golden rule (do to others as you'd like them to do to you).
However, it never guarantees that if you are nice, nice things will happen to you. For more on that, read the book of Job. Guy was God-fearing, but shit happened to him all the time.
But yes, I do believe that if I do good things, in general better things will happen to me than if I don't. But that has to do with human psychology, how the society works etc, and the only way in which that is a religious belief is the fact that God made us this way. Point is, in general, being nice just simply pays off!
Used to date a christian girl a few years back and she told me death is a gift of God for living a good life or some shit, and ever since that day I was like wtf are you people on :D
making it sound like dying of pain and agony when you have cancer is a good thing...but I guess thats why she didnt like me after I told her that to the face :D
But yeah, in a gf/bf-relation I think getting stuff like this straight is the way to go, I couldn't possibly live that close to someone with a fundamentally different worldview/set of values than me. It would just crash and be painful for us both :/
<nerd>Not that there's any serious risk of me ever getting anywhere near a girl though!</nerd>
and they used to kill ppl for that-.- just be a good man its not that hard, i dont really need any faith to go through life, just let it happend dunno, i never understood why the need of a faith nor why being affraid of death (ull be dead what else could happend nothing matters at that point.!?!?)
i can tolerate religions as long as they dont talk to me about i should be religions. I kinda grown up hating evrything which religion represents because my grandpas are jeohva witness or whatever and ive seen how full of shit they are even if i love em..
btw the other day i was in a funeral and i had to leave the ceremony because i could no longer handle all that bullshit, they were doing their stuff and then all of sudden the dude making the ceremony goes and says something like, unfortunately there is people that doesnt understand our faith and they are bad, its people liek rich people who are selfish and dotn understand us.
seriously i just thought what a bunch wretched assholes, they literally were insulting me because i prefer to base my stuff on what well educated people says. just leave non christians alone (i know u do im just talking in general) just be a good man dont fuck others up and thats it. i had to leave the ceremony mad.
and about aferlife, man there is no reason to be affraid of death when it happends it will just happend and then nothing can go wrong from there. you could be affraid of death if they tell u that uve got a cancer and ull die in some months.
anyway i didnt expect u to be religious and all, i think it doesnt fit u^^
Sorry to hear that :(
It's just that beliefs like this are extremely important to people, it's so important we tend to forget that others may have other points of view that they find equally important. And everyone thinks they're right (me included).
Actually, the Bible never tells us to go out and save people. It tells us to go tell people about tha big J, but no human can actually make another human believe. That just ain't our job, and it's when we try to do that anyways we become annoying..
I'm sorry to hear about your grandparents and meeting that attitude towards nonbelievers. It sucks, I know, because I meet that quite a lot ("Omfg you're religious? Are you stupid or what? Don't you believe in science?"). However, I guess it's tougher when it happens in a family relation like this :/
And I HATE it when people say other people are bad because they don't believe the same thing!
No human I know would ever to something they thought to be "wrong" on purpose. You will always do what you believe is right. Problem is, noone ever agrees on what's right.
And yeah, I'm trying to fight the religious stereotype!
my familiars ate with us cuz we are family afterall but they just do it for pure image and u can see it (my grandpas not but yes my uncle etc)
i always said that this ppl wont kill you but they would let u die.
i dont see u as a retard because u are religious, i always thought u were smart since i registred here, thats why i said the u dont fit stuff:P
but im not saying all religious people is stupid, theres evrythng just like non believers...
its just that i kind hate religions due to what happend to me and my parents (my parents couldnt go to university either they werent allowed, even tho my dad managed to becoem famous here since he is a freesoftware guru in spain, my mum also did kinda well, but its really furstating for my dad, university teachers are fanboying my dad but yet my dad could never go to a university because the world had to end and there was no point in studying, thats what they told to my dad)
This shit, like so much other shit, usually comes down to people not understanding each other, often going both ways.. You can't understand why your dad couldn't go to uni because of some shit you think is bullshit, and your grandparents couldn't understand why your dad wanted all that knowledge when they sincerely believed that there's no point in it anyways. Hard to solve, since everyone will keep giving arguments from their own point of view, which doesn't make any sense to the other part of the fight.
And about me meeting "omfg you religious? stupid?", I didn't mean you. Just that I'm studying computer science, lots of pretentious smartass-atheists there! :P
http://www.venganza.org/
RAMEN!
(not to be mixed up with
PS1 - PS2 - Wii Nds and so on :)
ok, now i know what im going to eat for dinner today!
i dont believe in god or any other religion though
i guess that makes me an agnostic
cars, ET, particles something like that :)
maybe im mixxin up
but care ! :D
fuck, where is the like button..oh wait
from all what i could belive/imagine (gods,religios, etc) this is the least thing i could belive.
it means u were born for a specific reason.. it means your whole live will be based on this specific thing.. so you actually cant decide about your own life.
@edit: + check xperias comment (below) and give me an answer to his question :P
doesnt matter what you do, doesnt matter what happens to you you will always get a balance in return that means if you are having a shit year and bad time there is going to be a balancing act like you are having luck or finding what youve been lookin for doesnt matter whatever makes you happy.i have experienced it like that many times before.
karma und so
when the time comes, it comes.
also if i would catch any disease which could kill me in the end i would want or at least try to decide my faith by myself :)
but I don't think things happen for a reason cause there is a big plan behind it (or karma).
-> has nothing to do with it: Now I am a strong believer of (don't exactly know what that theory is named) nobody being in control of himself, since if you do something it's just a reaction to the events that happened before in your life and have formed you as you are. Everyone's reaction is just a summary of their life.
Man this really all sounds like major crap (although I see the logics), I'll just stop writing :P
THAT is so fucking true!
Actually i want to disagree with what you said, that i dont have control of my life but..
when i wake up the day i do and life this one day and treat it like a special day full of new experiences, im not living a simple plan where i have marked goals i want to achieve anymore because its just not necessary, basically what i want to say is that everything comes to you by itself and even if i have to push a few things a little (and trust me, when i do that, i do it right so i usually get everything i want) but mostly its just wake up...do whatever i want..
nothing is actually controlling my life, i simply deal with whatever happens right at the time.
thank you for making me understand myself a bit better
EVERY person :)
doesnt matter what we show on the outside no matter how we feel we need to express ourselves truth is we learn from every decision we make, this decision always leads to an experience, which cant always be defined as "good" or "bad" but what we do about it and how we deal with it makes us what we are.
also:
lets say we start at "0"
A & B are decisions we make
0
/ \
A B
/\ /\
ABAB
/\/\/\/\
i dont think that needs much explanation
nevermind:D
E: btw, nice paraphrasing south park :D
are you referring to the special episode a few months ago?
no that has nothing to do with that but funny that you mention it^^
until then!! watchmygf.com!!
=)
god created women
devil added them boobs
best thing to do would be to mix the good morals of religion and use it as a limit to science, as to make scientific progress ~good
Ehrm, what I tried to say is that ethics are a matter of interpretation, and it differs tremendously throughout cultures. Would you limit science (based solely on facts) by ethics (based on interpretation), and if yes, what would that limit be. If you would actually limit it, what would stop tons of people from ignoring it, and with that actually gaining a massive advantage over those who "follow the rules".
I think it's a bad idea man, limiting science. I think it's better to just let science do their thing, even if bad stuff comes out of that.
gaaaaaah im just rambling, so tired xD
Don't completely agree on that, I think it's just a matter of math (how powerful it may need to be) and in time, as computers get faster and faster, we'll get the capacity to make calculations of this size.
And by the way, on that last point I agree. Of course it's always important that you weigh the consequences of a new scientific innovation thoroughly before you apply it to society, but don't we subconsciously do that with everything already? I think shit on earth would have been way worse if we didn't.
Give me one example that is truly a bad invention and has no positive sides.
the nature of the words 'good' and 'bad' means that wherever there is a good thing there is a bad thing too, because they are opposites
red is red cause its not green or blue - as valuable as what you've just written
you still haven't given me and example or even countargument about nuclear fusion. You also haven't given me a logical reason why science should be limited. You want to limit science cause it might come up with something bad and you claim that everything has a bad side so basicaly you want science to stop inventing anything. That's pretty much what you wrote till now :D
and the correct version is 'I'm too old for this shit' like Roger Murtaugh would say! At least guess where's that from? :D
it's technology that made us able to DEVELOP the atomic bomb
i could also pick our your eyes with a pencil
or i could simply draw a cute picture with it
thats kinda stupid to think of science in this way, science also cures ppl, science gave us crossfire to talk to other ppl about science and god. On the other hand, countless ppl were murdered/slaughtered/sacrified in the name of god. Just look at all those holy wars, crusades and so on...
christianity (and other religions aswell) is total bullshit
but maybe there is some higher power and we're for sure not the only ones in the universe.
Im always asking one question to christians, if god created everything, who created him? (and dont tell me he's eternity and the only one, living forever and ever etc etc etc)
in 99% the answer is total bullshit but christians are satisfied with those answers.
Science is based on theories (ideas) which get proven more and more. Those theories get developed by people asking themselves what was the reason for this and that...
and on the opposite christians already know the reason for everything... god
I think, everything, that christianity does and did in the past is totally shortminded and ignorant to everything else. Also christianity has had way too much influence on the development of the world in the past. The pope has always been as powerfull or even more powerful than the heads of christian states and thats something terrible wrong for the fact that religion is something based on nothing else than the bible. Almost nothing in the bible is based on facts and everything it teaches is what a true christian has to believe.
When having a look on the problem with Charles Darwin and his evolution theory and the intolerant reaction of the christianity, i could rage.
There have been plenty of religous villages especially in the US, that disbanned all the books teaching or at least mentioning something about the evolutiontheory just because pupils were supposed to learn what the bible says, whether they want or not.
And that brings me to the next thing which makes me mad... In our world today, nobody can choose what to believe in. Or at least many people start thinking about it when they re grown up but children have to assign to christianity alraedy in school no matter whether they like or not. There is religion as a subject in EVERY year of school.
Its already looking like a sect where every newborn instantly gets told to praise god and believe in christianity...
But on the other hand there are also very positive things about a religion and thats why i dont completely hate it...
Religion gives people a way to go... If something happens they can explain it in a way, they can live with. Not everybody is strong and tough enough to go his own way. Some people simply need to live with the bible to be happy and and live without worries.
And in my opinion thats the purpose of a religion, but nothing more than that...
why? you had one solid argument for believing in god and stuff and that was about having hopes in higher powers and that this one fact solves everything for those "weaker" persons but you forget, you dont have to be member of any church or any religion to believe.
2 paar schuhe
everybody can choose for himself, as plekter has (seen above), if he's got a bit of a strong mind at least and doesnt let himself/herself be manipulated too much by his/her parents.
usually nearly nobody gives a damn about (austrian) religious education, people go there just to not be bored or because their parents want em to marry in a church or more funny reasons you know that.
We all know that those catholic teachers and those religious organisations who try to get more and more people interested into catholism fail pretty hard in catching peoples attention.
even tough there is serbian-orthodox and islam been taught too
But If I had to choose a religion I'd choose the religion of my ancestors over some Near Eastern desert religion anytime.
but good question tbh