Religion: What it means to you

I obsess over religion. First, I'm a Lutheran, Missouri Synod, for those of you who know what that means. I take religion very seriously and, quite honestly, look down on those who don't take the matter seriously. As such, I respect staunch atheists who've studied theologies and rejected them more than, say, casual, church-a-week Christians. I find that the ignorance of what religion means is dooming far more people than the situation calls for, and that society's misunderstand of theology is pathetic and embarrassing. I've truly studied religion since I was 14, and have consumed a little under 200 large books on Christian history and thinking since. I tend to not be kind to beligerent debaters who have no right to be so, which I shouldn't do.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

.............................

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm an athiest, and to me religion is just something else for me to joke about and inadvertently insult people with.

How ya doing, buddy?

I was born into Wicca and Druidcraft. To me, it's self-improvement, and not only of the spiritual side - though that does improve your life quite a bit alone. To understand one's potential, and the energies we all possess. To try and rationalize that there are other planes of existence in synch with our own.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Religion to me means a set of extraordinary beliefs (which I call theories) that cannot be proven to anyone via substantial evidence, yet used to answer all the mysteries of life's essence and purpose.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

As a Christian I take the book I read and treat it like a martial arts discipline.
I've debated atheists, muslims and others. I have tackled the issues of life and continue to wrestle with my problems and the problems of my friends & family with the zeal of a man at war.

My relationship with my God is a way of life that is handed down from generations who gave me the gifts of their experience to carry on the fight for virtuous living that reveals the hope for eternal life.

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Had Jesus been executed 50 years ago, we'd all be wearing electric chairs around our necks. If you describe God to me as love or energy or the wonders of the cosmos, I would say, yes I believe in God because I believe in love and energy and the wonders of the cosmos. If you describe a personal God to me, a divine intelligent creator who fashioned the planets and life and listens and responds to prayers, then no. That is the sort of God I do not believe exists and the sort of God which my life has no room for.

Everybody knows what it is to be an atheist. There are millions of Gods all of us reject. Some of us just make an exception.

How ya doing, buddy?

JackyBoy, I don't want to start a debate here, but I'd enjoy hearing a 1-post summation of your thoughts on this book review: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html .

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I am a peculiar person. I believe in God, or at least a divine presence, but there doesn't seem to be any one religion that meshes with belief set. In a way, that's a relief, since I believe there's a distinct difference between religion and faith. I am comfortable with people choosing their own beliefs, but the moment organized religion enters the picture, I find myself wanting no part. My observations and experiences have shown that religions tend to be very divisive and alienating of others. I'm just not that way.

I was raised Roman Catholic, and for a long time, it worked, mostly because I knew nothing else and was too young to seek alternatives. However, as I grew into adulthood, I had a lot of questions and had begun to notice discrepancies in the Catholic Church's teachings. Yet whenever I asked an elder for clarifications, I was fed the same rhetoric: "You must have faith.", or "It is unwise to question the Lord's ways." Basically, the message I was given was that free thought was bad and that being a mindless sheep was good. I couldn't accept that. When it was revealed that our priest had been molesting the secretary's son and taking drugs, I decided that Catholicism - and Christianity in general - would not satisfy me.

I researched numerous faiths but found the same basic behaviors in most of them. There was a sense of self-superiority amongst many religions, that their version of God was the only "true" God and that all others were either blasphemers or misguided fools destined for eternal damnation. The function of a church, it seemed, was not only to provide a sense of spiritual community, but also to perpetuate its own existence, and the best way to foster both was to paint all other religions in a darker light. This seemed to be against the very nature of God, whom I'd been told was all-loving, all-forgiving, and all-accepting. How could one faith be right and another wrong when both believed they are praying to the same creator?

I tried to figure out the real nature of God - if one existed - for myself, screw what anyone else had to say. It took a while, but in retrospect, it was the same journey that could take others a lifetime. I decided that it was generally agreed that God was everywhere, and had created all things, so effectively, the entire Earth is God's temple. Why, then, would anyone have a need to attend a specific house of worship, or to route all communications with God through a priestly middleman?
Further, if I spent my entire life doing what I sincerely felt to be to the benefit of others and myself, was kind, generous and respectful, yet never attended Church, how could I possibly be more wicked than a man who attends service each Sunday, then goes home, gets drunk, beats his wife and steals from his workplace? This made absolutely no sense, and it cemented my belief that organized religion would serve me none.

These days, I try not to see issues in terms of "good" and "bad". Everyone has their reasons for acting, and though I may disagree, I may also not know the full story. I rather find a lot more value in the concepts of "benefit" and "harm". These are more directly tangible in most situations and it's more difficult to hide behind flimsy rationale when you know your actions will harm others.

I still believe in God. In many ways, my concept of God is still similar to the traditional Western concept, except that it's been expanded enough to allow room for Eastern similarities as well. What's different is that I do not believe in Hell. It doesn't exist. God, for all God's power, has absolutely no need to punish those who've harmed others, because those who harm others harm themselves also. The punishment is enacted within the act itself and there can be no greater consequence than knowing what you've done to hurt others.
Everyone goes to Heaven, although I see this journey as more of a state of expanded consciousness, a return to the aether that defines energy and existence at its purest form. No matter how cruel or wicked you may be, you go back to God upon death, for that's all there is.

I believe that the meaning of life is simply to live it. God exists with omnipotence, but God is everything - the Alpha and Omega. God knows God only as itself, and because the essence of God encompasses everything that has and could possibly exist, God has no direct way of knowing God-ness from without. This is why life exists: so that God can experience the wonder of existence through a subjective outlet. We live our lives in a purposefully limited capacity so that God may experience his (or her) creations - and by this, himself - through us. We are seperate, yet we come from God, so we fulfill the circle of self-awareness. Everything we do in life, every emotion, every act upon others, every idea, God experiences this as we do. This is why all people return to the heaven-state: because it's just as necessary for us to commit harmful acts as it is to be kind. Without light, the darkness cannot be understood.
Upon death, we return to God until we choose to undergo the process of living once again.
It's a pretty complex idea and I expect that many Christians will take issue with it because this process isn't explicitly stated in the Bible. But it's my belief and I'm entitled to it by virtue of free will.

There are other, more subtle beliefs that I have, but they get rather complicated and only invite arguments from overzealous types. Suffice to say, I practice no specific religion because - 1) a match doesn't seem to exist; 2) I see no need to have my beliefs affirmed by others; 3) churches place their own continued existence ahead of seeking and delivering the truth about ourselves and our existence.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by GhaleonQ

JackyBoy, I don't want to start a debate here, but I'd enjoy hearing a 1-post summation of your thoughts on this book review: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html .

I haven't read the book in question, but it seems that the author of this review is painting atheists with as broad strokes as he accuses Dawkins of using to paint religious types. It's impossible for anyone (except maybe an agnostic?) to write an unbiased review of a book like this.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm a christian. I've stated in #gfchat a few times. Rat has berated me for being a very bad religious man. But thats just it. to me, religion isn't about the rules. Religion is about the spirituality. About having a personal relationship with God or whoever you may believe in. I believe in God and I believe that Jesus died on the cross to save me from the sin of the world. According to my church, because I believe that, I am a christian. So therefore I can call myself a christian. It doesn't say anywhere in the bible that drinking and getting drunk automatically makes you not a christian anymore. Just means I'm not doing things that please God. So naturally I strive to please him. Cause for crying out loud, he created me and everything, so why not. So I'm not a religious person. I'm a spiritual person.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

To GhaleonQ. I was going to make a big old long response to your article, but it became too tedious. This is because in many, many instances he generalizes Dawkins' arguments to an amazingly delusional degree, attacking straw men that don't exist in the book. And when he doesn't generalize it, he misunderstands it.

So instead of me wasting my time making a full rebuttal to the article I'm going to ask you to pick out the key errors in Dawkins book that you think this article sheds light on and I will respond to those specific points. And if you didn't read Dawkins book, good luck guessing at which parts of your article you think you'll be able to defend. You'll need it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I guess I'll paste a response of mine from Ayos' Journal:

No questions from me really. My parents both converted (LDS aka Mormonism) before I was born and I was brought up in it. At first I remember accepting it (hey, you're a kid, your parents say something is true, you tend to accept it as fact), but as time went on I became more doubtful. I never told anybody, even my best friends about it. I went to church in embarassment.

By the time I was 15, I'd made up my mind, and I simply approached my parents and explained that I thought it (and any religion) was a bunch of laughable rubbish. Though, not in those words of course =p.

They're ok with it really. They don't seem to mind my casual drinking every now and then or the fact that I've had sex, so.

===============================================

Sometimes I almost feel superior by not beleiving a religion :/ Though that may be since I just recently finished reading this book. Sometimes it almost makes me angry that they brought me up in their religion.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm having a difficult time responding to that critique. Mostly I don't understand much of what the author is saying. He seems more content on criticizing Richard's character and not the content of his book. Unfortunately for Richard (and if you watch his videos and read his interviews on his website) he acknowledges he loses a lot of his readers because of his delivery. The same can be said of Sam Harris and a lesser extent Dan Dennett.

Quote:

If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could.

Phenomenology is an interesting philosophy but it doesn't prove the existence of God. Neither does the geopolitics of South Asia.(?) Chapter 3 in TGD is devoted to the philosophy of religion and I think he makes some strong points. Richard also talks about phenomena under the heading: The Argument From Personal Experience so I don't understand the point of this comment. (Well I do understand, it's a pot shot at Richard. Terry mentioned something about straw men in his article).

Quote:

Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith… children are brought up to believe unquestioningly... For mainstream Christianity, reason, argument and honest doubt have always played an integral role in belief. (Where… is Dawkins’s own critique of science…)?

Is this really the case? Do religious families all gather at the dinner table and have an open, reasoned argument about faith and the existence of God? I don’t doubt, doubt has always played an integral role in belief and however people reconcile their faith it, I am almost certain, is not through reason and inquiry. The film, Jesus Camp seems to suggest this.

Science is by definition, when it is working properly, the study and inquiry of… I don’t see a critique of God in the Bible and why should there be? Why should Richard write 400 pages about his views of religion and then provide another 400 pages about why he might be wrong. That’s silly. That book has already been written, it’s called, The Dawkins Delusion.

Quote:

This, not some super-manufacturing, is what is traditionally meant by the claim that God is Creator. He is what sustains all things in being by his love;

This is a problem of language. If we exist because of God's love then I suppose we have to concede God's existence because we know what it is to love. And this is a circular argument in a similar way as this is:

A: Why do you believe God created the universe?
T: Because the Bible says he did.
A: Why do you believe the Bible?
T: Because it's the word of God.
A: Why do you believe it's the word of God?
T: Because the Bible says it is.

Creationism: The religious doctrine that the world was created by a divine being, or that it owes its present form to divine agency. This term is frequently used to refer to the fundamentalist idea that the world was created in exactly the way the Bible says it was…stuff and more stuff. The Philosopher’s Dictionary, 3rd Edition by Robert M. Martin.

No mention of love. If we're going to talk about God, then we need to make sure we're talking about the same sort of God otherwise we're just fumbling over semantics and definitions.

I have more I could say but this quote war form generally makes for a boring read. If anyone is really interested I could take a few more points in the same fashion and respond to it but I'll stop at this for now.


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EDIT! If I may, I had to respond to a comment I found from another article.

Quote:

Accordingly, Dawkins does not understand why social etiquette requires respect for those who believe in God.

I find this comment interesting mostly because it is simply not true. The fact is, Richard does respect people of faith. What he does not respect is how religion gets a free pass when it comes to criticism. Richard (and Sam Harris) are fed up that religion belongs to this untouchable niche. His view is that religion is (or should be) counted as a scientific hypothesis and like all hypotheses, it should undergo the scientific method. Remember, the Bible is making universal claims about the cosmos and those claims should be open to scrutiny no differently than a physicist’s claims would be. This idea however offends many people of faith and Richard is not afraid to eloquently say, more or less, “tough shit”! Respecting a person of faith is entirely separate then respecting a person’s faith. Nobody is obliged to respect a person’s belief that elves live in their basement. Also, Richard is not willing to accept that God is just too mysterious for us dumb humans to understand and so therefore we should not even bother to inquire about it. I suspect what upsets so many theologians is that they are being shaken out of their comfortable nest's of rational immunity they have enjoyed for so many years.

http://www.albertmohler.com/commenta...ate=2006-09-26

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by JackyBoy

...

A: Why do you believe God created the universe?
T: Because the Bible says he did.
A: Why do you believe the Bible?
T: Because it's the word of God.
A: Why do you believe it's the word of God?
T: Because the Bible says it is.

...

Thats a very circular argument. And sadly I know alot of people at my church who think that way. Its really quite sad. Generally, for myself, I don't blindly follow the bible. I've read it, and some things in there I do follow. Not so much because I figure them to be rules, but moreso because I believe them to be quite common sense, and morally correct. Not because I believe it was some deity who wrote them. Just from general knowledge, I've heard that it was God writing through people. But thats just it, God wrote it through people, and he apparently gave us freewill. So thus, He could suggest to the people writing it what He wanted them to write, but in the end, they still had control over what they wrote. So some things in the bible need to be taken with a grain of salt. But in the same sense you can't start taking stuff from the Bible out of context just to suit your own needs either.

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Originally Posted by JackyBoy

I suspect what upsets so many theologians is that they are being shaken out of their comfortable nest's of rational immunity they have enjoyed for so many years.

Agreed. Theology is finally being recognized as what it's comparable to; the study of faeries, the study of astrology, etc. All are fields which make claims on the observable world yet cannot be proven through the observable world. This is why their claims on reality will forever remain imaginary, and thus unimportant.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

To some of you: I find it absurd that you proceed to mock religion, Christianity in particular, for its adamant trust in the words of one specific book, and the blind certainty that everything in that book is absolutely true because it says so.
Yet simultaneously, you use the theories and opinions from another, specific book as the sole basis for disproving those who subscribe to the first book.

Is this not just a bit, hypocritical?

"Your book cannot be true! Oh, it may say that everything is truth, but that is merely a convenient lie! It's nothing but platitudes and falsehoods meant to lull you into a false sense of security!"

"Oh yeah? How do you know this?"

"Why, I read it in a book, of course."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I think most people feel it's a fair move because one book probably doesn't invoke things which are outside of our universe.

Not saying that how they're expressing their opinions doesn't make them sound like a douchebag, but it doesn't remove the validness of their belief over any other.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

Agreed. Theology is finally being recognized as what it's comparable to; the study of faeries, the study of astrology, etc. All are fields which make claims on the observable world yet cannot be proven through the observable world. This is why their claims on reality will forever remain imaginary, and thus unimportant.

I disagree. From my martial arts perspective, theological study can be proven if you take the time to live out the concepts. Take for example the lives of great religious champions. My favorite ones are Mother Teresa & Martin Luther King Jr. A careful study of their lives and written documents would reveal evidence that the power of the unseen was very apparent to them despite the "reality" of their circumstances.

I also hear some say that religion is a crutch. I also disagree with that statement as well. As human beings we have a natural tendency to form disciplines in every aspect of life. Sports, war, business ect. Religion is no different. Religion is a plan that seeks to aid the believer in finding solutions to moral & spiritual problems. I find it a statement based on lack of experience when a person says religion is a crutch because they don't even have a tried & tested plan to approach a solution to problems, only the assumption that all will turn out well.
Imagine saying to a football team that their playbook is their crutch or telling a government that their laws are their crutch.

One way I found out that I have a personal relationship with God is by giving money to the church & charity. Not just a little either I mean 10% of my income. I'm not rich & my budget says I am in the red every month but for nearly 5 years of living this way I found out that the money does make it to the needed places on time. I haven't gone hungry and all of my other needs are met as well. Faith for me is putting my life on the line and letting my God take me through.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

Yet simultaneously, you use the theories and opinions from another, specific book as the sole basis for disproving those who subscribe to the first book.

Not sure what you're arguing in general. If a person of one religion is using this to blast another religion, I full agree with you that it's hypocritical. If, however, we're comparing something like The God Delusion to the Bible, it's a completely different story. One book uses observable evidence versus one book that uses unobservable evidence, which do we trust? We always trust the book that uses observable evidence. Unless, of course, we're discussing that grand exception that is religion. The issue doesn't concern whether we use books or not, it concerns what kind of foundation in observable reality the books have when they're both attempting to make claims upon observable reality.

Originally Posted by LordsSword

My favorite ones are Mother Teresa & Martin Luther King Jr. A careful study of their lives and written documents would reveal evidence that the power of the unseen was very apparent to them despite the "reality" of their circumstances.

As should be obvious, people doing great things in the name of any given cause doesn't make the truths of that cause any more real or true. There were Nazis that always tried to help Jews escape from death camps; does this then prove that the foundation of Nazism is good and moral? People do great things in the name of religion, yes, but this isn't caused by their faith in their religion. This is caused by their lack of faith. To be more specific, scripture is the only defacto material reference that religion has to it's past, and the more humanitarian one becomes, the more pick-and-choose one becomes with what the Bible "really" means and what its "real" message is. Religion becomes more and more secularized. The South was on the winning side of the scripture battle concerning whether Slave ownership was OK with God. Of course it was OK! Both the OT and NT talk about it like a fact of life. So why the hell was the north on the correct moral ground, and the south not? Because of secular progressive morality. Or basically, giving up blind faith in scripture and following a humanitarian instinct.

Originally Posted by LordsSword

Religion is a plan that seeks to aid the believer in finding solutions to moral & spiritual problems.

There are moral atheists and agnostics. This completely destroys your argument that we need religion for moral issues. In fact, we don't base our morality off of religion because we don't base our morality off of scripture, as I pointed out above. Moderate forms of religion simply mold scripture into a bastardization that resembles secular moral standards; it is religion/dogma that always gives ground in the end, and it is religion that depends upon adaptation to survive. It's beyond me how religion is still credited to be the source of morality these days.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Another religion debate? This thread could take a while... far as I can see religion in it's purest form is a means to have faith in something if you don't have something already as far as I see it, but I also believe in the phrase "personally it's not god I hate it's his fans I can't stand".

The reason for that is because technically religious groups in their many forms are the original fanboys/girls, and as with anything else in this world there are religions which have undoubtedly been corrupted that stand not for the good of it's followers, but for the good for the people at the top. This leaves the poor followers fighting viciously and often blindly like pawns for those beliefs if they're questioned while the people at the top are laughing their asses off somewhere else away from the conflicts.

Technically I don't come under a religion category personally (although most of my relatives are Christian) but this is more to avoid the closed minded attitudes of 'rival' religions then anything else and/or the beliefs of another family I would become associated with if I got married.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I guess I'm a Christian. But do I believe in the nativity story and Adam and Eve? Heck no! This is why I say 'I guess', aka I celebrate Christmas, Easter and other such holidays. However I celebrate these holidays not for my love of god, but for my love of what these events mean to me. On Christmas everybody gets presents and eats good food and is charitable and what not, and I think thats frigging awesome. I don't go to church on Sundays, and if I ever do it reminds me of how little I believe in the stories.
I recently spent the last few months in Indonesia, a country with an 80% Muslim count, and the village I was in was 100%. Different world, but also remarkably the same. I partook in the month long fast and the feast at the end. Does that make me Islamic? No more that celebrating Christmas.
So I had a big problem find what to believe. I had big problems with devotion to a god, and I eventually stumbled upon Buddhism, a religion thats mainly about finding how to be content with yourself. I still live with my family at the moment so I can't declare I'm changing religions and suddenly a Buddhist. It's a gradual change as I find my center. For now I call myself a Christian Buddhist.
So what does religion mean to me? It is merely what I believe at the time in order to attain some kind of inner peace with myself and the unexplained things around me.

How ya doing, buddy?

As I stated, I did not mean to start a debate. I'm merely interested in reading people's perspectives. So, despite chomping at the bit to do so (theology's uselessness strikes me as the most agregious offense), I'll merely nod and thank those who posted for doing so.

Thank you, all. *raps FallDragon and LordsSword on the knuckles* Come, now.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by FallDragon

As should be obvious, people doing great things in the name of any given cause doesn't make the truths of that cause any more real or true. There were Nazis that always tried to help Jews escape from death camps; does this then prove that the foundation of Nazism is good and moral?

In this case those "Nazis" were not living out the dictates of the belief system that was still being fed to them at that time by their leaders. Please use a different example.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

The South was on the winning side of the scripture battle concerning whether Slave ownership was OK with God. Of course it was OK! Both the OT and NT talk about it like a fact of life. So why the hell was the north on the correct moral ground, and the south not? Because of secular progressive morality. Or basically, giving up blind faith in scripture and following a humanitarian instinct.

The south was winning the battle because of the money wrapped up in the decision making.
And God was not ok with slavery, hence the reason for this issue to divide believers at that time. True slavery was a fact of life in bible times but Jesus was about setting people free from bondage not making excuses for it.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

There are moral atheists and agnostics. This completely destroys your argument that we need religion for moral issues.

Not so. Religion was around first then the atheists came later and borrowed what fit their views.
Atheism is a reletavely new stand in civilizations. No evidence of ancient atheistic cultures has been found.

Originally Posted by FallDragon

It's beyond me how religion is still credited to be the source of morality these days.

It because people don't just wake up and feel moral. The stories of previous generations about how religion made things better keep things going for the ancient writings of different cultures.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Paper Crane

I guess I'm a Christian. But do I believe in the nativity story and Adam and Eve? Heck no! This is why I say 'I guess', aka I celebrate Christmas, Easter and other such holidays. However I celebrate these holidays not for my love of god, but for my love of what these events mean to me. On Christmas everybody gets presents and eats good food and is charitable and what not, and I think thats frigging awesome. I don't go to church on Sundays, and if I ever do it reminds me of how little I believe in the stories.

You do realize that Christianity cannot start without purpose, right? That Adam and Eve "story" is the reason why Christ came. Death through Adam, Life through Christ. You should stick with one religion in order to avoid confusion or conflict in beliefs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not Christian (although I did follow for two years), but I'm pointing that out just to let you know.

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