I'm just curious as to how diverse the religions are of our community. I'm a Catholic. What about everyone else?
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I'm just curious as to how diverse the religions are of our community. I'm a Catholic. What about everyone else?
I am a Hellenistic pagan who adheres to the philosophical works and dialogues of the Athenian Greek philosopher Plato.
I am split in my religious preference, it all seems to me that religion was invented by a ruling class to keep the masses of people under control.
You can find a common trend in most religions where you are rewarded for being what one would typically call a good member of society whereas the opposite applies for the bad apples of the bunch.
I'm an atheist, though "lack of belief" doesn't really constitute its own religion. I've yet to find convincing evidence validating any kind of religion.
I agree with this. The idea of a God or anything of the like, just seems too implausible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikeni
I'll quote Lewis Black on this one...
"I would LOVE to have faith that (insert religious thing here) it happened... but, I have... thoughts. Which can really :modedit: up the whole faith thing....."
I take what i want out of diffrent religions and form my own opinion.
what do you call yourself then? a christibuddashintojew ?
I'm with you here... Though I clicked agnostic because sometimes, you gotta wonder...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikeni
To believe in anything you need some solid proof right? well yeah, I do anyways Im an Atheist, because the other religions just dont seem all through true. Of course I would like to believe, but it just seems so... hard to believe, it dosent add up or make sense therefore i cant do it.
I am agnostic but I wouldn't exactly call it a religion even though it is defined as one. I do not disbelieve nor do I believe in a God as such. However i do believe that there is much more out there than just physical matter...
Well it's just like the tooth fairy to be honest, simply given a few mysterious elements and the label of a "religion" and then somehow it's justified. Things don't come true just because you believe in them, and with that and the fact that there is no solid evidence supporting religion (of which a number of things have been disproven, for example the Roman god of the sun Sol Invictus, though we know now that the sun isn't a God) and therefore I feel no inclination to believe in some kind of religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunTzu123
Well, the concept of Sol Invictus was adopted by the Roman armies from the Neo-Persians or the Sassanians and their god Mithras. The worship of Sol Invictus reached its height during the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian [270-275 CE] during his reunification of the Roman Empire from the two secessionist kingdoms or the two usurper empires of Queen Zenobia of the Palmyrene Kingdom and the Gallic Empire under Tetricus I and his son Tetricus II.
The Sun-God would have been known to the Romans as Phoebus [The Radiant One] or Helios as alternate names of Apollo who was the god of civilization/culture, reason, the light and music who in Ancient Greek mythology replaced the titan Helios Hyperion in the Titanomachia.
thats exactly it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesterus
truth is something you can verify you cant verify the existence of vishnu or God. I take the teachings of several religions. I believe in Reincarnation the concept just makes sense to me. I am not asking any one else to believe in what i believe. I have faith that the code i live by is truth. I believe all path ways will eventually lead to paradise whatever that may be. Faith isnt something that can be verified or proved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikeni
I second that opinion. but I also have my own.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikeni
I believe that religion is something invented by man to comfort himself from the fear of the unknown. For example, let's take death. Most religions have life after death. Why? Is it that there truly IS an afterlife, or is it that humanity is scared of death? Is it that we want to continue living, even after we have died? Is it that we want to watch the world go by and look at what happens?
But is that really a good thing? Reincarnation is a cycle of life and death, but wouldn't it eventually get tiresome of continually being reborn? Or, if there is a Heaven, wouldn't it be frustrating to watch the world sink into chaos and knowing that you can do nothing?
There are many.... dilemmas facing religious beliefs, in my eyes.
This is my opinion on religion.
I do know a guy who's a Zoroastrian. He's cool.
Here, I don't want to post it again, but I have a point to make about religion on the "A Koran is Fine Too" thread: http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=140043
I am an atheist, but I have some passion for polytheical religions. (Those the Christians ruined... like the Hellenic Mythos and Northern Mythos.)
they are still alive under the neopaganism movementQuote:
Originally Posted by LaoOmologo
Hm... Thought: are we getting a biased sample here? i.e, Are we getting mostly atheists/agnostics because those are the kind of people most likely to go on these forums and join these discussions?
Or maybe younger people are more likely to be atheist/agnostic, and we have more younger people here?
What I believe Religion is, is a primitive form of a court. A Thing that could see every crime, a thing that could JUDGE the people. Let me take a Medieval example, Joan D'Arc. She was put on fire because they belived she was a witch, and because she was crazy (Or something related to that.). And they said that witchery was forbidden, by the Holy Lord, God himself. They came to her, and said: "God has seen thy foul deeds, and by his Holy Name, you are sentenced to death."Quote:
Originally Posted by BrotherhoodUK
I believe that, as we are in a science-based world, less people are akin to believe in scripture than in experiments and logic.
However, that is a huge generalisation, and it is probably wrong for so many people.
So... you're saying people invented religon to jutify what they decide?Quote:
Originally Posted by LaoOmologo
There are many forms of Polytheical religion, still.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunTzu123
Yes. Nowadays when we have cops and all of that, we don't need the God's judges.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bree Fletcher
religion is a path to live your life.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrotherhoodUK
I agree there too, and I also belive religion is to gather people.Quote:
Originally Posted by SunTzu123
I'm a very conservative Christian. Though, not Roman Catholic. Lutheran.
While I'm not a fan of organized religion, I remember reading a rather interesting and well-done medical study that concluded that the human brain is hard-wired to believe in a higher power. I've had a lot of interesting discussions that stem from that. Are humans designed to believe in a god or gods? If so, by whom/what? Have we done this to ourselves with thousands of years of spirituality? Why did we become spiritual creatures in the first place? Was it the hardships and uncertainties of life and if so, are animals also spiritual?
Fascinating topic, I think.
here, I think I've said this once or twice, but this is why I think humans are "hard-wired to believe in a higher power." Darwinism!Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxyBunny
Here we have man just barely becoming sentient. He now realizes that he will eventually die, no matter what he does to try to prevent it. He might as well not bother living. How is this problem solved? Interestingly enough, a little bit of insanity on someone's part becomes a survival trait: This person believes that there is a kind of immortality after death. Now, there is a reason to live, pass on genes, and do whatever it takes to ensure the survival of the species in a wholesome Darwinian manner. This predilection toward religion actually becomes encoded in our genes.
Anyway, by this logic, animals would not be likely to revere any kind of deity, though I can't prove this.
We arent designed really to believe in a higher power, is just we feel there must be, so many things if they were just a little bit changed the human species wouldn't be here, the fact we live of all factor that could kill us is amazing, some must feel there must be something up there pulling the strings, and people interpret there own message. In tough times relingion hold us out of anarchy, kept us in line. Now we really strayed off i think, The reason why this topic is so fascinating (which I agree, it is interesting and such. is because no one really has facts about it, just our own interpretations.Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxyBunny
Hmm... although my family is muslim (not very religious though) which usually means I'm automatically a muslim, I'm not entirely sure I believe in a god, or at least the more stereotypical "god". I think I'm more along the lines of a realist, I know scientifically how the world was created and how humans evolved, and I know god doesn't live in the sky... otherwise NASA would have caught images of him/her by now :p
Religion in general I think is good for people in a way, but its not for me. One thing about religion though that really upsets me though is when people take holy books too literally.
Tell me what you think, Is it me or is the average youth losing faith and becoming more so Atheist then say Christians in the west world America, Canada, etc. Thats what i get out of it.... I know very few christian friends now, and they seem to doubt themselves.
You gotta hate it when peple try to apply something written thousands of years ago to the modern world... Anyway, I'm not so sure religion's useful anymore. It definitely was, once, but... Other institutions have filled all the roles it once did. i.e, mostl solid governments. (Not that I'm saying modern governments are perfect at it, but at least they're better than trying to take, say, the Bible as law.)Quote:
Originally Posted by gottibabe1
I totally agree, + rep.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bree Fletcher
I don't think it's that we're losing faith.. I think its more along the lines of newer generations are more curious, we ask more questions, we want proof and proving god exists is not something you can do. When you learn about evolution in school, you know these are facts that they were proven, and then you have the bible teaching you about Adam and Eve, and all it is, is a book that was written thousands of years ago, which isn't proven. I'm goimg to believe facts that were proven scientifically against something someone wrote.Quote:
Originally Posted by crappyservers
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are many more atheists now than there were even a few dozen years ago... (All that effort by organized religions and it's us that are gaining converts...)Quote:
Originally Posted by crappyservers
Anywho, I've already stated above why this is so, pretty much because religion is worn out.
Now here's a thought: People were once certain that some form of deity/ies existed. Now we're almost certain of many of our scientific theories.
Will science ever be "outmoded?" Can we really be certain of what we've "proved?" (Though I myself am a pretty firm believer in most of those scientific theories... Maybe I'll turn out to be wrong?)
Well, while I clicked christianity I also have to point out, that one of the major flaws I see in the world are the radical forms of beliefs, or the extremes, of belief or disbelief.
While I'm a christian, I also follow a few of the buddhist teachings of the 8 fold path, and as a religious studies major, I can't help but love learning about other religions.
Radicalism, though is the key to the downfall of every major society. It causes kings to force their will upon everyone because "They are always right" it causes brother to turn against brother because they are so convicted in their viewpoint. It causes nation to attack nation for hundreds of years, when their own religion teaches, "Turn the other cheek", or, "Love your enemies, and you will heap burning coals upon their head."
The key, really is something as old as Aristotle, "The Golden Mean". Just my two cents though.
~L
I am trying to form a opinion about different religions.
but even as it is, I would not blindly beleive in something without proof.
I have yet to see any religions Deity help us in anyway.
I understand what you are saying here, being agnostic myself. However I think it is what people experience through "divine intervention/acts" which makes them truly believe there is "something greater than themselves".Quote:
Originally Posted by Darrenb209
This actually brings up an interesting point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darrenb209
Its a very common thing for people to say, "I'll believe in a g/God/s when I can see him/her".
However, because we lack the ability to read minds, and we also posses free will, it is physically impossible to determine if some other being is influencing the will of people around us. Its kinda creepy actually if you think about it.
The unfortunate downside of looking for an all powerful being is that if the all powerful being doesn't want to be seen, chances are that since its all powerful you'll never see it.
Which brings things down to the weakest point in all different religions or "faiths". You have to have just that, faith that what you believe is true. Which is a horrible horrible point, because faith is pretty hard to argue with as it borders radicalism, which I strongly disagree with.
~L