How did you reach your views on Religion?
 

Here's a question that hasn't been asked(at least lately):

How did you reach your views on religion?

What were you taught? What did you discover for yourself?

Oh, and, guys, no massive flaming. Debate and discussion is healthy, but you can atleast do it politely, if you need to debate at all.


So:

I'm an athiest. I grew up in a Roman Catholic family(grandparents) and and Athiestic single mum. She taught me a lot about the world, but never taught me about religion, she left it up to me.

I travelled most of Asia, Hong Kong, Beijing, Japan, and others.

I read every kind of scientific book or webpage I could find, and decided that God, if he exists, is a pretty shoddy bloke in my book and he sounds like someone with a personality problem. No thanks.

----

So how did you reach your religious viewpoint? Oh, and if you haven't yet, tell us how you're goin'!

I'm an Atheist too.

I get offended when I see these stupid ads like, "A lot of what Jesus taught was true".
They have no right to air shit like that, because what if you don't believe a lot of what Jesus taught was true? How are you meant to feel in that situation, where they're trying to convert people to religion like that? And what's most unsettling about it all, is that they're actually serious.

I obviously don't know if true or not, because I wasn't alive over 2007 years ago; and I don't mean to offend anyone, but "Religion" in general, sickens me. It's a virus.

I saw this interesting documentary called, "The Root of All Evil", and it truly opened my eyes. I agree with all of what Richard Dawkins was saying.

But probably the most ridiculous part of the bible, is where it states that Homosexuals are sinners. What, they 'choose' to be gay do they? It's all their fault because they're living a life they can't help.

As Richard would say, "The Old Testament God must be the most unpleasant character in all of fiction".

For God's sake, NOT ANOTHER RELIGION THREAD! Stop making them! We all know Havoc's going to come in waving his 2 inche weiner around spouting "GOD DONT EXIST U GUYZ R IDYORTS IF U FINK SO!", and Patrick's going to blindly whine about Islamics and how they're "TEH CULTZ" like some sort of inbred hic from the south of the US. These threads only cause flame wars and shitstorms, and besides that we already had a thread for this.

Yeah, but this "Ghost" person thinks Creating duplicate threads of long dead originals "is okay".
And I'm the one who receives the fucking witch-hunt because I actually want to bring back the old threads!

I totaly agree.

I reached my views on religion via logic, reason and a desire for spectacles involving lots of cannibalism and candles.

More seriously, I looked, I considered, I read, I researched, and I chose. Simple as that. The fact I had been present when my Catholic college graduate sister had been baptised was also an influence, and at the time I was dealing with some psychological issues.

Since then, I've been a consistent theistic Catholic, though my views on other religions have changed over time. My anti-Islam views came around a year and a half ago when while researching the Muhammad cartoons (a controversy which made me sick even then) I had found a site called MuslimWakeUp, comprised of liberal Muslims wishing to reform Islam. I then was led on a trail to different sorts of websites, and when I weighed it up, the total arguments and to be perfectly honest, bandwagon that yet involved thinking for yourself factor made me start to look further and find Islam wasn't the religion of peace I desperately wanted to believe it was.

My views on Buddhism fluctuate, as do those on Hinduism. Sometimes I'm a unificationist pluralist, sometimes I'm a hardline "Jesus is the only way" person, but this varies with mood and life experience.

Weell Said, Looney Bin. Rupture Farms can't insulte the catholic religion and others religions olny because he is atheist. I'm a catholic. I believe in God. What do you think about your and world creation, Rupture Farms?

Eh, I said for people to be polite.

So be polite.

And if you wuz paying attention, you'd see that I said "how did YOU reach YOUR views" not "Bitch and Moan about others." Like you're doing.

And thanks Patty for that well-written post.

World creation?
Well, like literally everyone else on the planet, I have no idea.
The Big Bang?

Yeah, that's exactly what I think. Hee, you're funny.

But don't drag stuff off topic. Ikahodo?

Yes the Big Bang... Generated by God will.

It is? I always just thought it was some natural thing..
I think it just...happened. That might be stupid, but I think the same about certain religions..

(I swear that this post, or any other ones I make in this thread will make it into people's signatures..)

I sat and pondered until I reached my own beliefs. None of this sheep crap.

My favourite philosophy is "things just happen, what the hell." Not that it is always helpful, true or healthy.


I would describe myself as an ignostic atheist. That puts me firmly on the atheist side of agnosticism, but agnostic nonetheless. Which is a stance I'm sure any self-respecting atheist should be, because in all honesty it is impossible to demonstrate that God does or does not exist (not falsifiable). Which I do find rather convenient, but that is that nature of such things that are so ill-defined apart from the "supernatural" tag. I don't believe in God or equivalent, but that doesn't mean I can say that there are none. This makes the existence of God or equivalent a complete non-issue for me.

The "ignostic" part is another form of agnosticism. No one will define the concept of God in any acceptable, meaningful or understandable way to me, in all honesty I don't have a clue what people are talking about. It's just me trying to keep scientifically objective, something which of course does not mix with the big religious issues. The statement "God exists", as a definition of state, makes as much coherent sense to me as "all mimsy were the borogroves".

I was never indoctrinated to any faith (or lack thereof). I mean, there was always prayer at school, and occasional trips to church in primary school (often to learn about celebrations or general history) and with the scouts, but they did little more than make me think about the specific issues addressed, rather than the one beseeched for aid in the matter.

My mother is a definite atheist, though she rarely discusses those views, when she does I am somewhat alarmed by the apparent extremism. I don't think the rest of my family has ever once mentioned religion in any form at all (besides my brother "taking offence at the idea of using the Bible as a textbook" mostly due to his take on it being boring)

I only came to my views by thinking about the world myself. It was only properly refined when I understood the principles of falsification, and realised that the whole issue wasn't worth my time. A kind of irony, considering the length of this post.

Came to my conclusion using logic and life experience. I spent over 12 years on heavily christian schools, heard every biblical ever told and read the bible at least 3 times. However I've always been smarty pants, I never saw those stories as anything but mere stories. Being of no more value then Little Red Riding Hood or the Three Little Pigs. Christianity itself is full of holes as it is and can be shot down by a blind guy with a musket any day. Believing in an all powerfull person in the sky that rules everything, wether this is god, Allah, Buddah or a dragon is a different matter but just as silly. To me, saying that you believe a fairies or talking dogs is just the same as saying you believe in an invisible figure in the sky looking over everyone. It comes down to "it's written in a book so it must be true" and that's just retarded.

My defining moment?

Year 8 in High School - when I was around 13 or 14 years old. I had held reservations about the validity of Catholicism previously (and Christianity in general), but never in such ferocity as current. The defining moment was looking around at a full Church Mass. I vividly remember spacing out - time had stopped - and I was looking at 600+ people who were worshiping a false idol.

To say I was disgusted would be an understatement. As much as I respect individual freedom, I could not understand how such propaganda and lies could be spread so virally. I was really upset by the incident - even extremely distressed.

Alcar...

The natural things are all created by God, including the Big Bang

Please don't present those things as if they are fact... it makes me hate you.

I'm "bitching and moaning" because these threads just lead to to "science VS faith" bullshit, and nieve people like yourself who keep posting these threads don't help.

Also havoc, I think it abit hypocritical of you to compare believing in a faith to believing in fairy tales, considering you think you were once a tiger in a past life. :|

Why can't people just accept people believe or not believe in a religion (not counting the cults) and that be that? I myself was baptised Church of England, and I believe in both science and the possibility of a higher being.

Looney-bin. Your negative comments are ones that lead to thread derailedments.

They are not facts. They are faiths. The simple fact that it's called a faith shows that there is no scientific fact in it. If anyone wants a religious debate quote this post NOW!

Why are you bringing this up? This thread is for polite explanations of how people reached their beliefs. Not Science Vs Faith. That is you projecting.

See, if you had just elaborated on the last sentence of that post, you'd be following along and every thing would be dandy.

Stay on-topic.

When the HELL did I ever say that?! :fuzconf:

@All; Go ahead, insult the Catholic faith and piss on the Pope all you want. I won't stop you. You'll probably bear the consequences in purgatory but eh, that's your responsibility.

@looney-bin; Havoc does not believe he is a reincarnation of a tiger. He does, however, suffer from a mental disorder (which is not intended to be an insult towards him, merely a medical description of him) which makes him sexually attracted to animals, especially tigers.

Havoc is a staunch atheist and does not (correct me on this if I am wrong, Havoc) believe in any sort of life beyond that of the present one. So, he would not believe anyone had a past life.

@looney-bin; Nothing should be immune from criticism. Not even religion. If no one criticised religion, we would still have the Thugee, Japanese Emperor cult, Aleister Crowleyism and all sorts of cults.

Okay, well I don't beleive in God. Can you actually prove these so called "facts"?

"Proof" is strictly a mathematical concept.

Not really.

Yes really. Too long has it had rampant incorrect usage as the word "evidence". I only mention it because so often do I hear demands to prove something, frequently scientific, but also other claims, when such a request is impossible to meet.

You can prove something is wrong, however. Anything that cannot be proved wrong by its own definition or catch 22, ie God or most conspiracy theories, is not scientific.

You can support stances with evidence (ie evolution, Big Bang etc) but proof can only describe the relationship of cosine and tangent.

Okay, well I knew most of that. I was just trying to ask abe is now! if he had proof, when of course, there is none.

Unless the Almighty is expressible mathematically, which would... be interesting.

Occams' Razor.

God Created / The Universe.
God/ Just exists.

= The Universe Just Exists.

You could always look at it that way, or you could go for the other side.

Honestly I do not know where the thing I have for tigers comes from. Maybe it does come from a past life or maybe I'm just hardwired this way my nature, who knows. But I'm not the kind of guy who goes blindly believing in something unless there is at least some kind of proof, any kind of proof. Since this isn't the case with any religion, I'm anti religious untill someone can show me something that will give me reasonable doubt.

Interesting fact: Aleister Crowley was born very close to my parent's home. Awesome.

I grew up in a heavy Catholic influence, but don't believe in a lot of what the Church teaches.

for instance, I am pro choice, but only if it was a non consensual conception, if its some trailer park cum dumpster who is getting knocked up regularly, thats her fault, and she has no right to take a life because of that.

Gay Marriage: Absolutely no problem with this, I thank Robert Sawyer for essentially opening my eyes.

'God': There is a God, or higher power, but it is genderless, and evidently not infallible.
The social Pariahs are not (by defualt) getting into Valhalla (My favorite word for Heaven, Paradise, etc...) you have to be a good person, if you are, you get happiness and infinite supplies of my beautiful face.

I mean, would you Atheists like to believe in going somewhere nice when you die, but not have to spend your lives worshipping? Well, if you're a good person, you get it.

Bad people don't get hell, just the 'Mountain' concept of Purgatory.

This is a very nice concept of what god is Kastere. There is only one problem with it. It isn't backed up by any kind of scripture. This is the problem with most religions. You can't just pick and choose which parts of the religious texts you like and ignore the parts you don't. Granted, doing this makes you much easier to be around but you are doing yourself a diservice. You need to fully understand the policies of this god that you believe in. You say that you have no problem with gay marriage. That's great and as it should be. However, your god wants you to pick up a rock and beat their brains in. Have you ever eaten pork? According to your god just touching the skin of a dead pig gets you a death sentance. And nowhere in the bible does it say that you get to go to heaven if you are a good person.
I understand your desire to believe in a just and righteous god. I've been there. But there is just too much in your religious texts that lean to the contrary.

My greatest fear is that your god is real.

Doesn't the New Testament say that They can't be bothered to uphold the pork rule anymore?

Yes. But the fact that the rule ever existed is awful enough, don't you think?

Trichinosis was a big problem in Biblical times.

What about wearing clothing made from more than one fabric? Was chafing a huge problem as well?

Nobody likes chafing.

Not God God, oh wait.

I mean, not catholicism, This is a belief system I made up, its jhust the 'Be good, ya'll!' Religion.

Also, the god has a mullet, just for lulz.

Edit: Also, this religion isn't actually a religion, if you're muslim, Catholic, Jewish, Believe in the Noprse gods, etc...

Its fine, Cooter the Mullet god (and its only son zeek, and daughter Chlamidia, for equality) are cool with it, just don't be a huge monkey dick and treat people relatively well.

If ytou lie, meh, but don't do it on a scale that really hurts people, if you steal, make up for it, do something nice, don't commit masichism in penance or anything.

Cooter loves all people, White, Black, Yella' anything.

He's up there with TFSM and The Invisible Pink Pony.