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FAITH, RELIGION, AND YOU
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Yellow Magic
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CloseInteresting read so far! ...apart from Nightowl's posts, anyway.
As for me, I'm a Muslim. Culturally speaking, at least, i.e. my parents brought me up as a Muslim and the registered religion onboth one of my passports is Islam. I started questioning the religion a couple of years after I left a heavily Islamic school in Saudi Arabia (I was probably 11 or 12) and realised the existence of God is a very very dodgy idea (I have no beef with the religion itself, and quite frankly, think it's the best one out there). I haven't told my parents about my lack of faith, though, because there's nothing to gain from such a confession except making them feel miserable. I'm never going to renounce my religion either because that would be a freaking deathwish, and, honestly, better safe than sorry - it's a generally accepted rule that 99.99% of Muslims will end up in Heaven at some point so I might as well stick around. Overall, it's "Don't ask, don't tell" (heh) with regards to my beliefs, and as a result I tend to avoid any sort of religious discussion these days, for better or for worse.
I don't feel as strongly as Kentona does against religion, but I do often wonder if most people on Earth geniunely believe in the stuff. I'm not one to judge, though, because I like to entertain ideas about the cyclic nature of space-time (life is equivalent to Groundhog Day durr) which make as little (if not less) sense than most modern religions.
As for me, I'm a Muslim. Culturally speaking, at least, i.e. my parents brought me up as a Muslim and the registered religion on
I don't feel as strongly as Kentona does against religion, but I do often wonder if most people on Earth geniunely believe in the stuff. I'm not one to judge, though, because I like to entertain ideas about the cyclic nature of space-time (life is equivalent to Groundhog Day durr) which make as little (if not less) sense than most modern religions.
I'll just add that I deeply hate preaching atheits because I think they're at least as dumb as close-minded religious people (yet they think they're much smarter). So if this ever becomes a hate discussion (which is fortunately unlikely), I'll draw my sword.
I am glad that you acknowledge that religious people are dumb and close-minded :D
Yes, I am a militant atheist. And no, I don't care to argue about it.
Yes, I am a militant atheist. And no, I don't care to argue about it.
Zeuzio
3787
Like many people here, I was raised as a Christian. However, like Link-2112, I didn't care for it much. I believed it, sure, but church was a pain and I was pretty apathetic about it all. I was confirmed, but that didn't really change much for me. All I could think about was, if I didn't believe, I couldn't go to heaven and even worse, I'd be GOING TO HELL!!!
Strangely, shortly after I hit my peak of enthusiasm about my religion in the 10th grade(which still wasn't much), I finally started to question the ideas of heaven and hell, and God in general. Why should Christians, even terrible Christians, get to live in paradise forever while every other religion gets a reserved spot in eternal torture? Why would an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving God be inhibited from allowing all people into heaven? It's absurd. Not to mention all the atrocities committed in the Bible by God, and by people throughout history because of the Bible.
Now, two years later, I pretty much consider myself an athiest. I'm pretty quiet about it, though, and I haven't even told my parents about it yet. I'm not spiteful against religion, really. I do agree with kentona though in that the world would probably do better without it in this day and age.
EDIT:
That means that I was still a Christian when I first joined RMN... weird.
Strangely, shortly after I hit my peak of enthusiasm about my religion in the 10th grade(which still wasn't much), I finally started to question the ideas of heaven and hell, and God in general. Why should Christians, even terrible Christians, get to live in paradise forever while every other religion gets a reserved spot in eternal torture? Why would an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving God be inhibited from allowing all people into heaven? It's absurd. Not to mention all the atrocities committed in the Bible by God, and by people throughout history because of the Bible.
Now, two years later, I pretty much consider myself an athiest. I'm pretty quiet about it, though, and I haven't even told my parents about it yet. I'm not spiteful against religion, really. I do agree with kentona though in that the world would probably do better without it in this day and age.
EDIT:
That means that I was still a Christian when I first joined RMN... weird.
Dyhalto
7536
It's all about the Big Electron for me. No divine blessings or punishments. We just are. As much as my jewish mom wants me to follow her faith, it ain't happening and I think she's accepted it.
I used to be one of the militant atheist types who went around telling people their God is fake, their church is evil, etc. After awhile, I realized that active atheism is a religion unto itself. Plus, once you're able to make the distinction between a set of beliefs versus the man-made institutions that try to middleman your spirituality, you can see where the flaws in organised religion really lie.
In fact, I can actually see some advantages to being part of a religious community, even if you yourself aren't a devout follower :x
I used to be one of the militant atheist types who went around telling people their God is fake, their church is evil, etc. After awhile, I realized that active atheism is a religion unto itself. Plus, once you're able to make the distinction between a set of beliefs versus the man-made institutions that try to middleman your spirituality, you can see where the flaws in organised religion really lie.
In fact, I can actually see some advantages to being part of a religious community, even if you yourself aren't a devout follower :x
I'm a pretty pious deist. I believe in spirits and the supernatural, but in a sort of vague, "multiple planes" way. Still, I pray daily to a being that for lack of a better term I call "god" - not the Christian God, just a sort of supreme being that initiated the big bang and whatnot.
If I had to really narrow down what I believe in, it's that fortune/luck is both generated by good deeds and is just that - fortune. At the same time. I believe in karma, I guess.
So: I'm a faithful, karmic Stephen (...my name is Stephen). When people ask me what I "am" (as if it is the complete director of my being, lolno) I usually say that I'm a Stephen.
If I had to really narrow down what I believe in, it's that fortune/luck is both generated by good deeds and is just that - fortune. At the same time. I believe in karma, I guess.
So: I'm a faithful, karmic Stephen (...my name is Stephen). When people ask me what I "am" (as if it is the complete director of my being, lolno) I usually say that I'm a Stephen.
I believe in recycling.
Like our corpses will return to the earth our souls will return to the... whatever material our souls are made of, purified and then re-injected into fetuses.
There's a Religion field in passports?
I never checked.
Like our corpses will return to the earth our souls will return to the... whatever material our souls are made of, purified and then re-injected into fetuses.
author=muslim dude
registered religion on both of my passports is Islam
There's a Religion field in passports?
I never checked.
Oh, hang on...don't think religion is in my British passport, my bad! Might just be a Pakistani thing. *awkward turtle*
I was raised a catholic.
Now, 25 years into my life, and after many times of philosophical questioning, and after graduating from electronics engineering... I still am a catholic.
I believe in God. I know that the bible has some things that aren't true, but it is to be expected, since it was written by humans, and we humans are not perfect. It is silly to expect everything in there to be factual and scientifically accurate. But its message I find to be true: love.
As natook said, I think that the most important part about catholicism is love.
So... guess I never had any reason to stop believing, even after learning so many fascinating facts about technology and science.
I don't expect people to believe the same thing as me, but being that even geniuses like Einstein could not absolutely deny the existence of some kind of god (impersonal though it may be), I fail to understand why people still try to convince me *so vehemently, like it was the only way it should be* to stop believing.
EDIT: just want to clarify that I don't mean to offend anyone. I suppose that should be obvious, but in sensitive topics like these it's better to be safe than sorry.
Now, 25 years into my life, and after many times of philosophical questioning, and after graduating from electronics engineering... I still am a catholic.
I believe in God. I know that the bible has some things that aren't true, but it is to be expected, since it was written by humans, and we humans are not perfect. It is silly to expect everything in there to be factual and scientifically accurate. But its message I find to be true: love.
As natook said, I think that the most important part about catholicism is love.
So... guess I never had any reason to stop believing, even after learning so many fascinating facts about technology and science.
I don't expect people to believe the same thing as me, but being that even geniuses like Einstein could not absolutely deny the existence of some kind of god (impersonal though it may be), I fail to understand why people still try to convince me *so vehemently, like it was the only way it should be* to stop believing.
EDIT: just want to clarify that I don't mean to offend anyone. I suppose that should be obvious, but in sensitive topics like these it's better to be safe than sorry.
Einstein didn't believe in a god, btw. Just setting the facts straight here. (Also, because other people believe in something doesn't make it okay/true :\ )
also, if anyone has an hour to kill and wants to learn about how the universe arose from nothing, watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
The magic of reality is far more amazing than anything humans have invented. But I guess fairy tales comfort people? I don't know...
Lastly, I have to ask this... when there is a choice made, why is not "Which religion is right for me?" and instead seems "Do I want to follow my parents religion or not?". I mean, people put more thought into purchasing a car than they do choosing a god.
I mean, you see a map like this:
and it seems perfectly reasonable. Religions tend to deliniate around geographical boundaries. No one really questions this.
But then you contrast it with this:
Here we have a (made up) map of which regions of the world believe how the dinosaurs went extinct. And that's clearly dumb. No, what people do (if they think on this question at all) is learn some facts and make a choice, and maybe later rescind that choice if new evidence comes along.
It just shows (to me at least) that the artificial boundaries of geographical distributions of religions is a result of the human condition, not some divine construct. There is something underlying in human nature that give rise to religious beliefs. It's hard to put stock into anything humans have invented for religion when it is such a cultural/human thing (vs some absolute divine truth).
I mean, to quote Michael Shermer:
"We can’t help believing. Our brains evolved to connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen. These meaningful patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which adds an emotional boost of further confidence in the beliefs and thereby accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive feedback loop of belief confirmation. Dr. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths and to insure that we are always right."
And this confirmation bias also works the other way, diminishing and downplaying contradictory evidence to our beliefs. I mean, we are not "The Rational Animal", we are the rationalizing animal. Our "conscious" mind hates not knowing why we believe something and will rationalize a seemingly logical conclusion. And we won't even really be aware it did that. We just know that we came to a rational conclusion.
Knowing this about ourselves and how our minds work, coupled with what we know about reality, how can an honest person continue to believe in religious myths? Knowing that we are susceptible to this kind of belief-feedback loop, of false conviction, and kneejerk rationalizations, you gotta question your beliefs.
EDIT:
(and, to finalize my point, if you do question your beliefs and come out of the process with even stronger convictions, you are unfortunately still stuck in the belief-feedback loop. Try again, but this time be more earnest and honest with yourself, or maybe read up on some very interesting scientific literature.)
also, if anyone has an hour to kill and wants to learn about how the universe arose from nothing, watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
The magic of reality is far more amazing than anything humans have invented. But I guess fairy tales comfort people? I don't know...
Lastly, I have to ask this... when there is a choice made, why is not "Which religion is right for me?" and instead seems "Do I want to follow my parents religion or not?". I mean, people put more thought into purchasing a car than they do choosing a god.
I mean, you see a map like this:
But then you contrast it with this:
It just shows (to me at least) that the artificial boundaries of geographical distributions of religions is a result of the human condition, not some divine construct. There is something underlying in human nature that give rise to religious beliefs. It's hard to put stock into anything humans have invented for religion when it is such a cultural/human thing (vs some absolute divine truth).
I mean, to quote Michael Shermer:
We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, personal, emotional, and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture, and society at large; after forming our beliefs we then defend, justify, and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments, and rational explanations. Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow.
"We can’t help believing. Our brains evolved to connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen. These meaningful patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which adds an emotional boost of further confidence in the beliefs and thereby accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive feedback loop of belief confirmation. Dr. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths and to insure that we are always right."
And this confirmation bias also works the other way, diminishing and downplaying contradictory evidence to our beliefs. I mean, we are not "The Rational Animal", we are the rationalizing animal. Our "conscious" mind hates not knowing why we believe something and will rationalize a seemingly logical conclusion. And we won't even really be aware it did that. We just know that we came to a rational conclusion.
Knowing this about ourselves and how our minds work, coupled with what we know about reality, how can an honest person continue to believe in religious myths? Knowing that we are susceptible to this kind of belief-feedback loop, of false conviction, and kneejerk rationalizations, you gotta question your beliefs.
EDIT:
(and, to finalize my point, if you do question your beliefs and come out of the process with even stronger convictions, you are unfortunately still stuck in the belief-feedback loop. Try again, but this time be more earnest and honest with yourself, or maybe read up on some very interesting scientific literature.)
It is, because atheist not only disbelieve religious systems as a whole, they claim not to be true the existence of god, of spirits, of ghosts, of the supernatural, of whatever. This is a belief system in itself, since science never has and never will claim the existence or non-existence of anything. There's no proving for non-existence. You may have never seen a human being with five heads, but that doesn't mean she doesn't exist, and a scientist will never tell you "there are no such thing as a 5-headed person". But an atheist will.
People who believe in god and "stuff" do so not just because their parents told them that's the thing they should do, but because their experiences in life have probably strengthen that belief. They may not have scientific hard-core evidence of anything, but that's a very plausible truth in their life. Saying "there's no such thing as God" comes from the same sort of life-experience-based beliefs.
My point is basically that atheism is a religion like any other. You could even draw a map of prevalence of atheists, and you'll see that it is very geographically influenced too.
People who believe in god and "stuff" do so not just because their parents told them that's the thing they should do, but because their experiences in life have probably strengthen that belief. They may not have scientific hard-core evidence of anything, but that's a very plausible truth in their life. Saying "there's no such thing as God" comes from the same sort of life-experience-based beliefs.
My point is basically that atheism is a religion like any other. You could even draw a map of prevalence of atheists, and you'll see that it is very geographically influenced too.
author=kentona
Yes, I am a militant atheist. And no, I don't care to argue about it.
Agreed.
author=calunio
My point is basically that atheism is a religion like any other. You could even draw a map of prevalence of atheists, and you'll see that it is very geographically influenced too.
Wrong. You just laid down a whoooole bunch of blanket generalizations, exactly as someone would say "Christians just quote the verses of the Bible relevant to their immediate point, Christians are hateful..." etc etc etc etc. It's on a person-by-person basis, there is no Church of Atheism to spread such teachings to the atheist masses. If that's been your experience with Atheists, that's what we call "anecdotal evidence."
Yes, science isn't about hard facts, it's about pattern seeking. Hypotheses and prediction and verification and observation. So yeah, putting forth a hypothesis of a 5-headed person existing is meaningless, without verification or observation or a method to predict how it could occur.
Consider how we know any of our beliefs are believable, which patterns are true and which false, which agents are real, and how science works as the ultimate pattern detection device.
So yeah, science is where humanity should put its faith. I am not going to shy away from that belief.
Luckily we evolved to learn from other people's communicated experiences (including life experiences), so I am hoping that people learn from mine, and other more qualified/smarter/more clever people than me.
(I just hope that people putting forth the hypothesis of a god see how meaningless it is)
EDIT:
Also, the argument of "oh, atheism is just a belief system" kind of reminds of me of the "Science can't prove god doesn't exist" thing. We just seem to jump to the assumption that it therefore becomes some sort of 50/50 chance of it being true or not. But really, the existence of a god is so ridiculously remote that its not worth considering true (based on, of course, evidence, observation and predictions based on the god hypothesis). So, coming back to "atheism is just a belief system" smacks just the same way: that we are supposed to assume that therefore all belief systems are equal and equally valid. But, and here's the kicker, all belief systems are not created equal (and yes, they are all created). Fortunately for humanity, the scientific method has been extremely beneficial.
Not to say that the scientific method and atheism are the same thing, but one does seem to lead to the other, and the pursuers of them are strongly correlated.
Consider how we know any of our beliefs are believable, which patterns are true and which false, which agents are real, and how science works as the ultimate pattern detection device.
So yeah, science is where humanity should put its faith. I am not going to shy away from that belief.
Luckily we evolved to learn from other people's communicated experiences (including life experiences), so I am hoping that people learn from mine, and other more qualified/smarter/more clever people than me.
(I just hope that people putting forth the hypothesis of a god see how meaningless it is)
EDIT:
Also, the argument of "oh, atheism is just a belief system" kind of reminds of me of the "Science can't prove god doesn't exist" thing. We just seem to jump to the assumption that it therefore becomes some sort of 50/50 chance of it being true or not. But really, the existence of a god is so ridiculously remote that its not worth considering true (based on, of course, evidence, observation and predictions based on the god hypothesis). So, coming back to "atheism is just a belief system" smacks just the same way: that we are supposed to assume that therefore all belief systems are equal and equally valid. But, and here's the kicker, all belief systems are not created equal (and yes, they are all created). Fortunately for humanity, the scientific method has been extremely beneficial.
Not to say that the scientific method and atheism are the same thing, but one does seem to lead to the other, and the pursuers of them are strongly correlated.
Versalia you're right, I overgeneralized. Like I said from the beginning, I was talking about preaching atheists in general.
Kentona honestly, this is a discussion I participated many times before, and no one ever changes his mind (here's a pattern for you), so I'm abandoning it right now. I'm just surprised that you're deliberately bashing on religious people, right after a bunch of community members expressed their beliefs with no attacks or critics of any kind in other religions, in a topic that was supposed to be pretty harmless, which is something you, as a moderator, would very likely disapprove if you weren't doing it yourself. That's what I think is wrong with (preaching) atheist. They're offensive, self-righteous and narrow-minded.
Kentona honestly, this is a discussion I participated many times before, and no one ever changes his mind (here's a pattern for you), so I'm abandoning it right now. I'm just surprised that you're deliberately bashing on religious people, right after a bunch of community members expressed their beliefs with no attacks or critics of any kind in other religions, in a topic that was supposed to be pretty harmless, which is something you, as a moderator, would very likely disapprove if you weren't doing it yourself. That's what I think is wrong with (preaching) atheist. They're offensive, self-righteous and narrow-minded.
Simply expressing admiration for one's own religion is enough to offend many people, Calunio. It's all relative.
Zeuzio
3787
I don't think kentona was bashing religious people. He was just sharing his point of view, which is what this thread's about, right?
Oh, the irony. At least we don't condemn you guys to hell for disagreeing with us. :P
author=calunio
That's what I think is wrong with (preaching) atheist. They're offensive, self-righteous and narrow-minded.
Oh, the irony. At least we don't condemn you guys to hell for disagreeing with us. :P
a joke, of course
Religion doesn't have an impact on my life, my family never discusses of it, or even has any suggestions leading to it, and that is one thing that is non-existant in my life. If I were to choose a religion, I would love to be a Buddhist for many reasons.
