My Views on Religion & Faith. Share Your's?
I've been thinking about religion for a time now and I'd like to share some of my thoughts and ideas, feel free to comment/critique on them and share your own ideas. I realise this is a sensitive subject so lets try and keep the conversation calm and rational, and not offend anyone.
This is going to be a long, deep read and a trip into my head. So bear with me and please forgive me for my lacking grammatical knowledge of the English language. If I'm not making any sense just say so and keep in mind that these are only my thoughts.
I'm a new member and I don't know any of you and so I ask that you enter with an open mind.
Religion has always been a tricky subject for me. I was raised into an Evangelic Lutheran church and was baptised at a young age. This is the case for most people here and so I also attended an Evangelic Lutheran school and was also Confirmated at the age of 14. This mean Religion was always present in my life and that of my peers. But I always felt alienated by it, especially as many of the religious activities and rituals were forced and always seemed too obscure to me. This lead to me becoming an atheist and most of my peers did too.
I've always held on to somekind of faith though and in times of distress I've often prayed even though I didn't really believe. I always felt religion was being used to manipulate and control people, it seemed to tear people apart instead of bringing them closer together.
Despite this I managed to regain my belief in God, my views on God and Religion are far from conventional though, hence this thread :) .
Then what do I believe? Well first off, I believe in God. That doesn't mean I think some old man with a beard is sitting on a cloud smiling down and forgiving me, no. I think God is something one cannot fully comprehend, maybe it's a being of some kind or maybe not. One theory I got is that God is in fact a part of everything, even ourselves. That the giant complex thing that is our solar system is infact God, and that the way we affect eachother and the things around us(butterfly effect) is infact the way God makes his moves. What I'm trying to say is that God is a part of everything and plays chess 100 moves ahead. God can't force us to do the right thing though, he gave us free will and we can always choose between doing right or wrong, or like so many people today, nothing at all.
I also believe in the Devil, and he also fits into my theory. Like all of us God also has a dark side, the Devil is this dark part. What the devil does is manipulate the moves God makes. The way the Devil does this is simply by using our free will to it's advantage, the devil uses our fear, greed, jealousy, hatred and other potentially harmfull emotions in order to influence us into doing what he wants.
To me religion is and always has been a very personal thing. Wether one believes or not is their business and so is their relationship with their God. Some people blindly trust their Gods and worship them, I don't see God a superior authority that I must follow but instead as a positive force I can choose to.God is a positive force from which I can draw energy when I feel down, it keeps me from heading to those dark places this world so often pushes me towards.
But God is also a friend, someone I can count on to steer me in the right direction. Some people call it "following your heart". God is the good part of us and the Devil is the bad, most people focus on themselves but I look beyond that. When I talk to God I talk to the good part in all of us and when I fight the devil I fight against all the evil in the world. What people don't see today is that we are all connected, call it whatever you want.
I'm also not saying the established religions are wrong, I actually think most of them have at least some truth to them. The problem is that trough generation after generation has added and changed the message. An example is Christianity and The Bible.
I speculate(and that's all I do, i got nothing to back this up) that the bible was once much like the Qur'an, open to interpretation. But then the Church in their search for control and power censored and dumbed it down to what they saw was a appropriate view that the people could(and according to them, should) understand. So the final product was a book full of children's stories which were thought to be taken literally when infact I think this was never the case, the Bible was supposed to be read between the lines.
Fate is also something I believe strongly in, all of us have a path God wants us to follow. This doesn't mean I think our entire lives are predetermined and were just here for a ride. We have a choice to follow the path or not. The devil will also try to manipulate us and lure us into serving his agendas. I think that if you're unhappy with your life you haven't followed your path, again this doesn't mean that you have to be happy and dance around on clouds all day. We all get depressed at times but if you're happy about where you're from and where you re headed then you're headed in the right direction. If not, just change it. Easier said than done, I know, but it's never too late.
The afterlife is also something I (sort of) believe in. I don't however think were all going to some magical paradise heaven. What I believe in is that energy(soul) does not and cannot die, when our body dies this energy(soul) is simply transferred into something else. This is sort of similar to Buddhism who believe in reincarnation but they have added conditions that decide if you move up or down the food chain, something I don't believe in.
Karma is also something I believe strongly in, I do however not have any theory for it(yet ;) ).
Religion is not something I don't often discuss openly but as you can see i have given it some(a lot ::) ) of thought.
I'd love to hear you're views on the subject, especially if you consider yourself an atheist. Atheism is something I can relate to and I'm very interested in the reasons why you have chosen that path.
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Oh damn this thing grew large! hopefully I managed not to offend anyone and at least a few of you managed to read trough my ramblings(thank you if you did). If only the 15 year old me could see this: Me, writing an essay ,willingly, about religion of all subjects! :O
Final disclaimer: Im an aspiring writer(one day ;) ) and maybe there are some here as well. I might use these thoughts to describe a character of mine so I'd appreciate if you didn't use these ideas of mine directly into anything you intend to publish, without my permission anyway. Feel free to be inspired though! ;D
I enjoyed reading your views on religion, faith etc...
I Believe that at some point we all take a step back ponder our faith/ or lack of. Like you religion was mandatory in my home up till the age of 15. At that point, my parents decided i was old enough to have my own belief system. Of coarse like most kids i knew, i stopped going to any type of Christian/religious event.
It took me a few years to really figure things out for myself. Now what i believe is pretty simple.
I believe there is a higher power. I do not believe we can give it a label. I believe the soul is ever living and that we are here to learn and move on again and again.
I believe we all have a purpose, we ebb and flow in this world giving and taking bits and pieces from ourselves and everyone around us.
Lastly i believe that everyone needs to have faith in something. Each one of us is different...and so what we believe can be vast in it's differences. but having faith keeps a positive light to draw from. and as people we need something to keep our heads lifted when the little things try to drag us down.
so, i know that there are many other views... Faith is such a personal thing. this is just one of many. :)
My parents, mainly my mother, attempted to raise me into a religious life. To bring me up as a worshiping and faith driven Christen. The failure of my mother started early, and became something absolute. I'm not sure when I started doubting the stories I heard in Church, my only certainty was it was before I was nine years old - before my grandfather's passing.
I never really believed, something I accredit to my ability to accept the unknown and unexplainable without an explanation. Not in ignorance however, but in peace. I do not know the meaning of life. I do not know why we are here and I do not know why everything exists as it does. All I know is that it simply is. I do not look to religions and their stories of creation; of an all powerful entity with vast magical powers, to explain why everything exists as it does. I am content in the knowledge that it simply does exist and that these things I do not understand I do not understand because our species is not capable of understanding them. In time we, as a race, may be able to discover why everything exists - to understand why, but as of now we can't and I don't mind waiting until we can.
I turned from faith and religion so early in my life that believing in anything of that nature does not come easily to me. For this reason I believe that the only reason the notion of an afterlife exists is because we are (currently) alive and know no other existence therefore we can only imagine what lies beyond death in terms of life. It is a frame of context that we simply cannot overcome. As living creatures we know nothing other than life, therefore how could we fathom of nothingness? Of non-existence when all we know is existence?
For example try to imagine nothingness. The typical mental image that comes to mind is a black void, darkness. However this darkness, this black void is something. Thus we have not imagined nothingness. In the same likeness try to imagine not existing. Again we draw to mind complete darkness, but we still have thoughts we are no more capable of imagining nothingness than we are of imagining non-existence.
As some of you may know I spent some time going over the ideas of Buddhism, examining it and trying to believe in it. Although I have found myself incapable of believing in the parts lacking solidarity, I do still believe in mental discipline and the laws of compassion that should govern our lives. I will admit that I am quite a horrible representation of a compassionate and kind person because I spent the majority of my life being a temperamental cynical fellow. Though I can vouch for Buddhist teachings on one thing, my temperamental and easy-to-angry self that I was (before my study of Buddhist teachings) has all but disappeared completely.
So after finding no reason to believe in any religion of any sort, not even Buddhism, I guess I am left to say I do follow one thing: the science of the mind (or simply Buddhism without the religion).
After saying all this I remember something worth noting from The Traveler along the lines of: "God in the box"
@warwithmyself - i have no answers but i can tell you what happened to me - i was raised in the catholic church learning on one hand god was all loving and in the very next breathe that god was vengeful and punishing. what's a girl to do?? i searched all religions for a while - finding no answer there - i became agnostic and held that poise for a long time but still had a hole where something should be. when i got clean and sober i learned about something called spirituality and came to believe in my own god who is not the god of our father's or any other organized religion but a god i can make sense in i did not raise my son in any "religion" but hope i have instilled the golden rule & respect for all living beings. i have found that giving of myself is grace & compassion & empathy are gifts given to me by my god so that i may share them with my fellow beings BUT i do get angry and can't watch the news without getting so upset that it makes me sick if i were perfect "they" would lock me up or kill me jesus didn't do to good in the longevity department. i don't know if my experience will help but i thought i would offer it. i have been thinking about going back to the church lately for the fellowship it offers but not the religion thanks
Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people believing in what they want to, and I'm not going attack people for doing so, but I was semi - religious until a couple of weeks ago when I actually sat down and thought; in modern history, has there actually been any empirical, recorded evidence of a omniscient/omnipresent etc. being actually doing something or proving its existence?
And I know most religious believers would probably say 'You have to have faith' that he/she/whatever exists but with no proof other than texts passed down through various cultures about their particular God(s), but how easily could they have been edited by either people who wanted to champion them, or corrupt people in a position of power?
It's a widely held belief that the Romans 'invented' some of the fundamental ideas of most modern religions (i.e. God is always watching you, so behave etc.) and used them as a tool of social control (which worked, up to a point) and which could still be argued as going on today.
Also, (I know this has probably been discussed to death), but religion has played a part in pretty much every large scale military conflict in most of history...and despite the fact that (as far as I'm aware) most religions don't blatantly justify killing others, that so many people have used it as an excuse and a driving force in furthering their own personal goals/gains.
Think of all the millions of people that could have avoided dying fighting for or against something they believe in...kind of boggles the mind that if actually we weren't indoctrinated with things we can't be sure of being true, that we could have actually had a much less violent history and have actually advanced our society much more and now be living quite peacefully? (don't get me wrong though, I accept that as humans we are a pretty argumentative, and we would have probably found other reasons to kill each other)
I also find that in most religions there are glaring fallacies that people take as truth, for example in Christianity: about how Adam and Eve were the first people and that the plants/animals in the garden of Eden were the first living things...when our science can easily disprove it by carbon dating of fossils...and the fact that we have found the fossils of dinosaurs. Also, the age of the earth being a few thousand years old (again with the carbon dating).
And in the Muslim faith, the belief that if you die in martyrdom that you will be rewarded with 79 (not sure on the number) of virgins...firstly, if you die and go to heaven, in most religions you are there as a spirit...and as spirits have no physical body, what is the purpose of having X number of virgins? Also, as soon as you enter into the act of sexual intercourse with a virgin...they no longer are one...so do you get new ones so you will always have your supply of 79?
...there are many other of these types of things...too many to list! They were just the ones I could think of on the spot.
I could go on about things like resurrection etc. and St.Paul's letter about it, the Eastern teachings on it and then criticisms by philosophers like Freud etc...but that would be quite long winded and probably quite boring!
However, religion does play a good role in people's lives too :)
It brings solace to many in times of need or loss, and can play a constructive role in reforming people's lives when they have 'gone off the rails' so speak. There are also health benefits etc. tied in to some religions eg. meditating in Buddhism for example (there are lots of other good things religion does, but my hands a tired from typing!)
My own personal view at the moment is one of slight confusion and annoyance. I genuinely do want to believe that there is something greater than us out there (lets face, if there's no God or Gods, there is probably some aliens lurking out there in our vast universe) but it is human nature to want to believe in something bigger than ourselves...we can't help that.
I do believe in souls to a degree (bit iffy on them at the moment though), because surely when we cease being, something must continue...even if it's just an energy passing from us back into the environment? (that brings up the question of plants and animals having souls etc. too).
But in short, until we can prove or disprove our, or anyone else's beliefs (I know that its such a cliche argument), that we should adopt a philosophy like the Taoists (maybe wrong...can't remember which exact religion) of everyone having a belief in their own God, but ultimately everyone ends up in the same place under one divine being (I think!)...think of how much better the world would be if we all just accepted we all believe different things and co-existed peacefully and got on with our lives!
Please feel free to criticise as much as you want...this was just a post off the top of my head :)
Schoey,
you raise some important questions and I'll take a shot at offering you a counterperspective.
You mention ". . . empirical, recorded evidence" so let me ask you a question. I think it is safe to assume you have a family, possibly a husband / wife (sorry I don't know your gender) children, or even perhaps a pet. I can further assume that you love these people / this person? How would you go about proving that love to me "empirically"? What I suggesting is that you are attempting to use the wrong tool for the job. There is more to life than facts and figures and what can be measured. If that is the standard or test you apply to everything in life what empirical evidence do you have that is the tool you should use? As a further illustration a father can direct his inheritance to be divided equally between his children and the mother can love all her children equally. Half a baby and half a baby do not equal one baby!
As far as religion & wars go you are totally correct but let me make a few points. First of all, why does that bother you? To the naturalist, it is merely the strong preying on the weak, the "survival of the fittest." What difference does the reason make? As as second point, many more people have died as a result of wars and conflicts that had nothing to do with religion - Stalin killed how many millions of his own people? An important distinction to make is that when the "religious" conflicts were happening they were acting in contradiction to the teachings of Christ. When Stalin was murdering his own people he was acting in accordance with his own worldview. Finally (not to flog a dead horse here) me wearing your coat doesn't make me you.
As far as Adam & Eve go please realize that this is a contentious area of study for people within the Christian / Jewish / Muslim community. Even within evangelical Christianity we don't all believe the same thing in regards to the creation account (or even the age of the earth). In broad strokes, what you refer to is the perceived science vs religion conflict. I suggest that is a poor description as if it were true there would be no religious scientists. This is not the case. What it really can be called is naturalism vs religion. That is a whole other kettle of fish and perhaps the topic of another post!
Briefly, everyone has a worldview (whether they know it or not) and the only question is your worldview a good one or a bad one?
A worldview answers four major questions in life:
1 Origin - where did we come from?
2 Condition - why is the world the way that it is?
3 Morality - how can I tell good from bad?
4 Destiny - what happens to me when I die?
Any way listen to me go! Yap yap yap!
I encourage you too keep looking, and to keep asking questions and to dig deeper. If even a shred of you thinks there may be something to this it is of infinite importance. If you think it's a whole pile of schmutz and want nothing to do with it that is your choice. I urge you to look at your questions honestly and try to get beneath the surface - not to be unpleasant about it but you are not the first one to ask these questions, and they are good ones. My point would be there are also good answers.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee..â€
I quite enjoy this particular thread! I have currently been thrust into a Judeao/Christian Tradition level 100 Theology course in college (a requirement of my school) and find that some questions we raise here a spectacularly wonderful at creating massive debates and discussions in my hour and 45 minute class.
To date I have started debates that wound up discussing both Quantum and Temporal Mechanics to explain the nature of "God" :)
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I agree this is very interesting, more so because people are being frank about their beliefs / doubts. I was a committed and absolutely convinced Christian (I KNEW, rather than believed) until I watched a news report years ago. Some surgeons were operating on a little girl without anaesthetic during the siege of Sarajevo. She was conscious and grunting with pain like an animal. My faith was punctured like a balloon, and I have never recovered it. There is something about the "problem of pain" as C.S.Lewis put it, which doesn't work for me. If a child in agony is paying for its or its ancestors' sins, that doesn't sound right to me. If the child is suffering because the devil is in this world, that doesn't seem fair to me - if I were God can do anything he can banish the devil. If the agony is there because without it we have no free will or because we need to suffer to become good and angelic, well, I don't buy that either. Animals suffer terrible pain, and no-one expects them to be better behaved or nearer to God because of it. C.S.Lewis' book (above) does try to deal with this problem, but not satisfactorily, to my mind. What do other people think?
I agree this is very interesting, more so because people are being frank about their beliefs / doubts. I was a committed and absolutely convinced Christian (I KNEW, rather than believed) until I watched a news report years ago. Some surgeons were operating on a little girl without anaesthetic during the siege of Sarajevo. She was conscious and grunting with pain like an animal. My faith was punctured like a balloon, and I have never recovered it. There is something about the "problem of pain" as C.S.Lewis put it, which doesn't work for me. If a child in agony is paying for its or its ancestors' sins, that doesn't sound right to me. If the child is suffering because the devil is in this world, that doesn't seem fair to me - if I were God can do anything he can banish the devil. If the agony is there because without it we have no free will or because we need to suffer to become good and angelic, well, I don't buy that either. Animals suffer terrible pain, and no-one expects them to be better behaved or nearer to God because of it. C.S.Lewis' book (above) does try to deal with this problem, but not satisfactorily, to my mind. What do other people think?
I was raised in a fairly strict Roman Catholic until I came to reject the idea of religion and God completely. The conclusion that I've come to is that if something is completely and entirely faith-based, there can be no logic in it. In school, we looked at the riddle of Epicurus. The basic breakdown (from Wiki) goes like this:
1. God exists.
2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.
3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.
4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.
5. An omnipotent being, who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
6. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
7. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.
8. Evil exists (logical contradiction).
Take it as you will. I hope that is of some relevance. "Religion is flawed because man is flawed."
I must disagree with point 2 above:
2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.
Now, basing this entirely on the christian god, all evidence available to us (i.e. the bible) shows us that god is far from perfectly good. A quick read of the old testament will show that the christian god is a cruel, inhumane megalomaniac. Were the christian god alive today, and mortal, we would view him as at least a sociopath, most likely a psychopath. If the christian god does exist then he is a vile little god and we, as a species, have out grown him.
It is entirely possible every belief system can be false; but they cannot all be true. It is sometimes said that all religions are fundamentally the same and superficially different. The exact opposite is true - they are superficially the same and fundamentally different.
It doesn't matter what you believe, what matters is whether or not what you believe is true.
Christ said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."
A lot of people have trouble with that statement as they take it as being exclusive . . . which the truth is. Truth by definition cannot include everything. If it includes everything there is no such thing as falsehood. If there is no such thing as falsehood there is no such thing as truth. It's unfortunate that in our time when people hear something like this they often picture Jesus as standing in the way with his hand outstretched to hold people back when the exact opposite is what he was saying. He doesn't say He's A way, He is THE way. Buddha made this famous statement at the end of his life: "I'm still searching for the truth." Muhammad said, "I am a prophet of the truth." The Vedas says, "Truth is elusive, it's like a butterfly, you've got to search for it." Then Jesus Christ comes along and says, "I am the truth."
As a Christian, I understand that truth is also a person.
A lot of people think that if you believe you are right and someone else is wrong you are being intolerant. This is a misunderstanding. Historically, tolerance has been defined as putting up with beliefs one takes to be erroneous or false. Today, many people think tolerance means accepting all views as true and not saying any one view is false. When we define tolerance this way we start accepting views that contradict one another. Tolerance, properly understood, means that we respect people enough to permit them to hold their beliefs even if we disagree with them. Tolerance says that all people should be accepted as possessing dignity and thus being worthy of respect. This does not mean we have to accept their views as true or that the views are worthy of belief. True tolerance distinguishes between people and beliefs – genuine tolerance is the acceptance and respectful treatment of other people.