State your religion

[stardrowned]

Ahhh there has to be somesort of problems when these kind of threads are opened.

 

[brownden]

Dark Silence, I wasn't trying to do any converting. From my experience, life is just more fulfilling when you have a foundation and reasons for what you believe past the fact that you just simply choose not to accept it. Having a genuine belief and being able to back it up just makes life that much more enjoyable. Don't always assume the worst.

And yeah, religion threads in any kind of forum are always kinda sketchy.

Elect MacGuyver 2008

 

[Siren]

As an agnostic, I certainly consider one option likelier: for me, the existence of a God-like figure - characteristics unknown - is likelier than its non-existence. So I'm not an atheist, right? Because they're convinced there is no such thing. Then again, how could I call myself a believer? I don't really have any kind of faith in this God-like figure existing: I just find it likelier, as I said.

To me, saying I'm an agnostic is not a cop-out: it's admitting I have no faith whatsoever, even though reason tells me a God might exist.

Ah, this way it makes more sense. Thanks for the explanation.

I guess agnostics come in different flavours, just like any other religion or system of beliefs. Of course you couldn't be called a believer the way you mean it above, but it could be said that you believe that god might exist. It's not a belief in the solid christian or muslim kind of way, but it could be argued that it's still a belief.

Anyway, i'm possibly not making much sense now, so i'll go back to reading my mermaid book. Did i -by any chance- mention that i believe in mermaids?

 

[afz902k]

Hmm, I can see there are no muslims on this forum, or maybe they just don't want to vote on this here poll, though I think that's unlikely since they are often very proud of their religion, so I must assume there aren't a lot of muslims into Extreme metal, I base my assumption on these texts I read at some islamic site:

"From among my followers there will be some people who will drink wine, giving it other names while they listen to musical instruments and the singing of female singers; Allah the Almighty will make the earth swallow them and will turn them into monkeys and pigs." (Reported by Ibn Hibban in his Sahih)

Also in that site I found this:

Islam stands against transgressors and their allies, and those who show indifference to their transgression. So, the same goes for those songs that imply giving praises to such attitude

Also, the way the song is performed weighs so much. The theme of the song may be good, but the performance of the singer – through intending excitement and arousing others’ lusts and desires along with trying to seduce them – may move it to the area of prohibition, suspicion or even detest... ...So, one has to show caution to music when there is softness of speech accompanied with rhyme, melody, and special effects.

Singing should not be accompanied with something that is prohibited such as alcohol, nakedness, mixing of men with women that is common in pubs and nightclubs, etc.

Islam has declared excessiveness as prohibited in everything.

If there is some kind of singing that arouses his own lust or desire, and takes him away from the real life, he should avoid it then and block that very gate from which the winds of trial and seduction may come and erase his religion, morals and heart.

Source - http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503544202

My thanks to Allah (Peace be unto him for all eternity) for letting me not be a muslim.

 

[hyena]

yeah. i'm glad i'm not a muslim, too.

and you should all be glad for my christian virtues, which induce me to make anonymous polls all the time. i am now forced to bypass the lure of cross-tabulation, which would otherwise have gotten the better of me, since we now have the demographic poll and the religion poll.

 

[Kovenant84]

Catholic, non-churchgoing.

I find it very intriguing that almost all (read: there may be one, but I don't know of them) of the people I went to Catholic school with (from the most devout to the least) no longer attend church ceremonies unless forced to, or <gasp!> guilted to, by family members.

Perhaps I no longer go because I simply don't have faith in the spectacular acts of a single person anymore. Though that's odd, because part of the reason why I read fantasy novels is because that's the type of thing I like to hear about. Maybe I just associate the two too much. In any case, I don't even know if I can consider myself Catholic anymore, but I find it easiest to say that, as it's what I know best (and I like to think I'm pretty well versed in it all).

I think for the most part, I'm just not a fan of organized religion. I have no problem when people believe in those faiths, but my experiences with people who profess those beliefs and have no idea of the background context to those concepts has left me a little shy of the organizations.

And as of right now, I will be getting married in a Catholic ceremony. For the most part, though, it's for my grandmother. She's one of the reasons I clung to my faith as long as I did, and why I do still pray from time to time (though I'm not sure I'm praying to something personal, or what have you).

In any case, it would take more time and space than I have here to spell it all out.

~kov.

 

[Kenneth R.]

It seems I fell under "reformed/church-going". I tear it up in the Sunday service band. Not what you'd expect when thinking the two words Christian and Music...

 

[afz902k]

Well, there is christian black metal too

*blast beat* *infectious guitar*
*screaching* Graaaaaaaaaaaaagghhh praise Gawwwdd
Jesus is lawbb, loove thy brootheerrrrrrrr aaaaghhhh *blast beat*

 

[t.a.j.]

Now, to also state my religious stance.
I personally do not believe in any god, nor any world above or beyond ours.
I think that most god-ideas people carry around can be shown to be either internally inconsistent or inconsistent with the world.
There are a few exceptions to this, though. Nice examples are neutral pantheistic views, where god is just equaled with nature/the world/all of existence and not given further attributes, the god of love, who's only predicate is that he loves you, yes, you. Then there is the completely external god (the god of deism, if you want to look it up), who created the world for whatever unknown purposes of his, but does not at all intervene with it since. This notion can of course be extended to include some kind of afterlife as punishment or reward. But then it seems some moral questions about this god would have to be asked too.
There are some more entries in this list, but they all have in common either a limitation to specific, non-problematic traits or are totally external to our mode of existence.

To conclude: god is not a very clearly defined concept and as such I cannot take a clear stand on it in general. I do disregard a huge number of specific god concepts on grounds of logic and reason (e.g. the problem of evil beats any triple-omni god) and others on moral grounds (e.g. saving only the professed faithful seems overly petty for a divine being). Thus most people would gladly label me atheist and as far my general concept of atheism as a negative philosophy (a long list of "god [x] is not"s instead "no god is") is allowed, I'm willing to accept that label.

 

[QRV]

My stance is a bit complicated.

I was raised a Roman Catholic in a very catholic family, with priests, bishops, nuns and even some guy in process of beatification. I guess I first stood out of all that because of a mere rebellious attitude, but as I grew up my personal views of the world proved completely incompatible with any Christian views. More than anything it was the dualist conception of the universe, the existence of a three-part deity, of a Hell and pretty much all the stagnant Aristotelian-Thomist theology which drew me apart of it.

Besides, I couldn't possible think of Jesus as a man-God, nor of Christianity as true to its original spirit.

However, I do have a very religious inclination, which has led me to the study of the mind, of anthropology and the history of religions and a bit of parapsychology. C.G. Jung has been one of my very principal influences, and while he stayed in a purely empirical stance, his work altogether leans towards a much more trascendental reality, which of course he admits as a subjective yet firm opinion.

The theory of the collective unconscious helped me a lot to understand myths and religious traditions, and as one keeps watching all of these religious images with so many common themes, one cannot help but agree there is a sense behind it all. But then, sense is something only intelligence and consciousness can give. A universe without conscious beings would be a very pointless universe. And the sense behind religious images, however, does not comes entirely from human consciousness, but of something that is beyond it, unimaginably deeper. Say, a higher consciousness than human must be behind it all. The images it sends into ourselves, both collectively and individually, makes us participate with its essence, which seems to extend into all things, living and non-living. Science has even made astonishing discoveries that are structurally linked with other realities, both from the inside and the outside of humanity. And Jung even managed to state scientifically that coincidences might not exist at all.

I too have been close to certain events you could classify as "miracles" and some other as paranormal. So these experiences have also been of great importance for my beliefs.

Besides, wherever you go, whatever you chose to be, atheist, agnostic or whatever, you're always sustained on a myth that follows a common structure with many others. Faith is always present in all of us. I don't think we can escape from a certain religious nature.

 

[rahvin]

I guess agnostics come in different flavours, just like any other religion or system of beliefs.

Yes, I forgot to mention that in my reply and only thought about it again later: generally speaking, I think you're right to accuse some agnostics to look for the "cool" factor in escaping both the atheist and the dreaded "believer" label. Atheism and agnosticism are both often stances against organized religion instead of thought-out opinions on God and transcendence.

As for my ideas being a belief, I can't say. I'm not reluctant to embrace the definition because I think it's silly to believe in something, honest. It's just that my position is not based on faith alone, it's not a feeling or an emotion, just a series of considerations in the realm of what I think is logic. The jury is still out on whether something else except cold rationality enters my reasons to find God's existence likelier.

Even if I called it a belief, I would be very unsure as to what exactly is the object of such belief: I don't really attribute to this God-like figure any definite qualities (benevolent / rational / passionate / male / singular / plural...), and I'd find it hard to admit to have faith in something I can't articulate at all.

 

[Siren]

I'm bummed there was no comment on my mermaid belief.

 

[QRV]

But mermaids always have sad tales.

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

It seems I fell under "reformed/church-going". I tear it up in the Sunday service band. Not what you'd expect when thinking the two words Christian and Music...

Well you do know Stryper don't you?

 

[t.a.j.]

I'm bummed there was no comment on my mermaid belief.

I like Mermaids. I'd like to meet one one day. I always wondered...

 

[hyena]

i was wondering today at the rabid secularists (and yes, i know not all atheists and agnostics are that way) implying that people participate in organized religion to be able to do so-and-so, with so-and-so being any dubious thing ranging from appeasing insecurities to exerting power over others.

now i was wondering - why the heck should someone join a religion to these ends, with all induced hassle such as weekly rites, the desirability of monetary donations, prohibitions and all the rest? after all, if you embrace a certain type of liberal secularist thought you are able to claim a right to do more or less what you want without any fee. well, not all you want, but i doubt that people become christians or buddhists so that they can actually do things that are prohibited by political correctness.

why should one choose religion to appease insecurity when there is, say, psychotherapy, or self-help, or just seducing the highest possible number of people on a dating site? why should one choose religion to acquire power when there are corporations, lobbies, political parties that offer the same with the same amount of hard work (i imagine becoming a cardinal is as tough as becoming CEO of a large corporation) and less hassles?

 

[hyena]

It's just that my position is not based on faith alone, it's not a feeling or an emotion, just a series of considerations in the realm of what I think is logic.

I am not sure - and I mean I honestly do not know, cannot fathom for the time being - what is the relationship between faith and feeling or emotion. At first blush, my impression is that faith is in a dialogue with both feeling and reason, but is substantially a third object. the closest image i can conjure is procedure calls in a computer program.

 

[QRV]

I understand faith as something linked to all aspects and functions of personality, but I think it's more based on intuition and feeling than on reason. Reason only plays a small but significant part which is to guide faith and keep it centered on its true object. Reason helps to counteract the torrent of emotions that might stray it from the true path. Say, in Christian religion it's easy to get lost and believe more in tradition, the Bible or the Church rather than on the center of the doctrine, which is God and his son's message. Reason can come to the rescue in those cases where the sole fact of believing seems to be more important than that in which one believes.

However, faith is a matter of personal revelation. One must experience it and feel it so it can be real. One cannot achieve faith by pure logical thinking or pure emotional outbursts. It isn't a matter of will either. One just receives faith and that's it.

 

[hyena]

@qrv: yes yes, you are right. i was just pointing out that i'm not convinced that faith is an emotion.

 

[t.a.j.]

why should one choose religion to appease insecurity when there is, say, psychotherapy, or self-help, or just seducing the highest possible number of people on a dating site? why should one choose religion to acquire power when there are corporations, lobbies, political parties that offer the same with the same amount of hard work (i imagine becoming a cardinal is as tough as becoming CEO of a large corporation) and less hassles?

People do all that too, do they not?
Choices in general depend much more on circumstance and subtle emotional states then on rational thought.