What is your religion?

October 15th, 2004, 03:37 PM

Zed, that is truly one of the funniest things I've ever read, made all the funnier for being so true. Thanks for the laugh.

October 15th, 2004, 03:44 PM

Zed the way how you view on religion is in essence, the same way how religious people can look at a secular society. Sounds kind of philosophic, but let's evaluate: secular society has convinced people that they can control their own lives, and that you have to be rational when you observe things. In essence one can claim that secular society has putten the focus on the way you look, they way you consume, the way you abuse. Look good, is the message I hear among my fellow youngsters; earn money, is the philosophy of life; and - whispering - be selfish. I like secular society, besides these bad things. I like the fact I can believe what I want. I like it that I can drink alcohol, that I can go to a club and dance and not worry about consequences of a bad afterlife. It's a double feeling though.

Mutual respect is what we need here Zed. Sure, there are aspects in religion which make my elbrows frown; I also dislike it that there are people who are trapped in a religion; but some people are also trapped in a secular society. We don't have to be ignorant, or indifferent, about it. But the way you approach it is wrong Zed. Your personal views: fine. Asking Hollabak on his views on other religions: useless. Do you believe all religious people are heathens?

October 15th, 2004, 04:21 PM

I type this with the utmost respect for everyones opinions.

If somebody tells me I'm going to Hell because I don't believe in God that is a sign of disrespect - as far as I'm concerned(by the way I never said whether or not I was a believer). As for asking Hollabak what he/she thinks of the Christian religion compared to others I think it's a valid question. We know Hollabaks opinion of Atheists,they're all going to hell. Why not find out how he/she feels about other religions. I'm not trying to denegrate anyone's religion. Just curious about how religion works. I noticed you started the post wondering what religion everyone was. Why? What difference does it make if were not supposed to talk about it?

October 15th, 2004, 04:21 PM

yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. I called someone long distance and I wasn't supposed to. I told her that it was someone else and weeks later she called the number and talked to the person and asked why he was letting me call him and all kinds of crap. I was really scared that she would never let me talk to this person again. (and my phone bill was about 1000 dollars including the 3 other phones.) Now this person that I called is my boyfriend and she's ok with that...those are the lies that I'm talking about.

October 15th, 2004, 04:25 PM

Aw hockeybabe, don't sweat it. You apologized and she still loves ya, or you wouldn't still be there. It's not like you were dialing some dirty 900 number or just calling people you didn't know out of the blue.

Us mums are pretty forgiving you know.

October 15th, 2004, 04:37 PM

These are good points. It most certainly is a valid question, albeit on a subject that makes people surprisingly twitchy. In a thread dedicated to religion, I personally have to say that anything goes on the subject.

October 15th, 2004, 04:39 PM

Certainly. However it makes me wonder two things: 1) Is this the common line of thinking among religious people? 2) Is it also a sign of disrespect when someone says "Religion easily has the greatest bulls**t story ever told"?

Now Hollaback apologizes for his (her?) statements. Why I opposed your question is that - but I don't know, so I could be totally wrong, and you will surely get my apologies if it's like that- in the context of your post, the question for Hollaback does not stem from a genuine interest, as it seems you have made your conclusion already about religion ("organized religion [...] the bane of most of the worlds problems").

You won't hear me saying we are not supposed to talk about it. I just think that you have to keep more things into consideration. As I said: "we don't have to be ignorant, or indifferent, about it".

October 15th, 2004, 04:40 PM

Also keep in mind that religion is quite diverse.

October 15th, 2004, 05:19 PM

First of all the statement about religion being bulls**t was from the comedian George Carlin. I did mention that there was an issue of language in it.
I may have conclusions as to organized religions benifit to mankind but I made no conclusion as to Hollaback's beliefs towards other religions. It seems you have made conclusions about me however. I know believers that say live and let live. I know other believers (Christian) who think thier belief system is the correct one and others are spinning thier wheels. It was and still is a valid question. I can also assure you that I'm not ignorant of the effect that the religions of the world have had on all of us.

October 15th, 2004, 05:24 PM

That's why I asked the question.

October 15th, 2004, 05:29 PM

I have next to no religious beliefs and I associate with people who have similar views most of the time. It's never on purpose, though.

I don't really mind who believes in what, but it really bugs me when people are so adamant about telling people how right their religion is and how much they believe they've benefitted from believing in whatever. Keep it to yourself and I'm happy. Preach to me and tell me how wrong my life is and I'll flip and throw some facts in your face that won't make you very happy.

October 15th, 2004, 07:33 PM

don't worry. I'm over it now anyway

October 15th, 2004, 08:36 PM

Well... I can talk for myself about that. I'm from north America, yet my descendance is practicly 100% french from Pitou. My ancester immigrated to Québec City in 1651. I have one Montagnais (Indian tribe in northern Québec) ancester that goes back 200 years... Explains the brown hair and brown eyes on my mothers side. But thats it.

October 15th, 2004, 08:38 PM

You are like 75% of the population in Québec. Félicitation Its not rare here, but I've noticed many people are still religious in Canada and the US...

October 16th, 2004, 09:05 AM

As I promised, my apologies for making these pre-mature conclusions. Anyway, it seems I have wandered off a bit - or at least, not totally explained what I wanted to say in my first initial post, in reaction to your post in which you quoted George Calin.

I still find the question useless, or at least not appropriate. Hollabak has been raised in a certain ideology (I assume). In fact, we all have been raised in a certain ideology (I assume). Whether that belief is "wrong" or "right", we can not tell. We can however reject a certain ideology from our own perspective. I personally reject the ideology of the Nazis. But what if I would live in a world where all people share this ideology? Would I still reject it? Or would I not "know better". Would it be useful for a bystander to discuss my ideology with me on a personal level? No. I don't think I would understand. Christianity - among other ways of believing - is an accepted ideology in our society(-ies). It's stupid to say, but a lot of Christians "just don't know better" - the same as a lot of Muslims "just don't know better", or a lot of atheists "just don't know better". This is not a sign of disrespect of me. It is in fact a good explanation for a whole bunch of things going on in the world. Discussing an ideology is possible - should be possible, and, luckily, has happened, in many, many occasions. But in such a discussion, I personally find it useless to ask people personal questions. What's the purpose? Do you want to attack them if their personal view doesn't please you? Now, Hollabak already made that mistake in his/her first post. The best discussions are the ones which can take the discussion to a higher level, without people feeling seriously offended because of their personal believes. And I believe that a personal question like you asked can offend Hollabak, or at least send the discussion in the wrong direction.

Oh and I don't believe you are ignorant Zed, to settle that issue.

And just say it when you believe I'm just babbling

October 16th, 2004, 12:23 PM

Religions are historical products of changing human cultures. They are born, evolve, and die; the ancient Greek, Roman, and Norse gods, for instance, are extinct by any reasonable measure, nor have we heard much from Baal and Marduk or Isis and Osiris lately. Belief in any particular god, or concept of god, seems to be quite relative to human cultures. There’s also a bewildering variety of religions available to choose from, and no conceivable basis for choosing the "right" one.

Technically there's no way to prove any particular god does or does not exist. Most religious people I've discussed these ideas with remark at some point that belief is a matter of faith and therefore immune to any kind of scientific investigation. I don't buy that. Even the most fuzzy-minded believer would have to agree that god must interact with the universe to some degree; if she doesn't, she might as well not exist. If she's not literally running everything on a second by second basis, as some fundamentalists claim, then she certainly originated and designed it, at least in the sense of choosing the right physical laws. That means god must be at least to some degree a part of the physical universe, and therefore a legitimate subject for scientific investigation.

A universe with a god in it ought to be detectably different from one without. If we consider the claim that god exists to be a statement about the nature of reality, then the supposed attributes of such a god become testable hypotheses. There are lots of statements we can make about the physical world that provide simple, logical reasons not to believe that the postulated anthropomorphic god exists. The first paragraph of this post is one of them, based on the field of anthropology. Here are some more:

We can make a simple statistical observation: There’s a very clear inverse relationship between how much we know about something and the role we’re willing to assign to god in it. Much of the history of the last 400 years can be seen as religion retreating from making empirical claims about the world in the face of the scientific revolution. In other words, the more we know, the less we attribute to supernatural causes. Any logical person faced with such a consistent trend wouldn’t hesitate to extrapolate and decide god most likely doesn’t exist.

The field of geology tells us the earth is clearly and definitely much older than the few thousand years permitted by the teachings of any religion I’ve ever been able to investigate.

From astronomy, I see that every religiously derived cosmology I’ve ever encountered is demonstrably wrong. And not just a little bit, but egregiously, stunningly wrong.

Jeez, I do get on a roll sometimes, don't I. Must be because it's Saturday and there's nothing else I have to do...

Dex

October 20th, 2004, 05:29 AM

Christian parents, but believe in the Baha'i Faith.

October 20th, 2004, 07:03 AM

Baha'i? Interesting. It has it's headquarters in Haifa right? What I recall is that the Baha'i temple in Panama City is really beautiful. Right?