Are you religious?

[coen113]

I like how this whole thread was about nothing really, 2 posts about religion, and for the rest linus and the mods having fun

OT:

I am an atheist. I dont see how others cant be but it is their choice, so i just respect their choice

[Lays]

I don't believe there's a "higher power" but I also don't disbelieve, I prefer to stay neutral, as long as people don't try to shove religion down my throat I'm ok with it.

[Gunzkewl]

 

haha

[Guest]

[Mooshi]

I like how civil and off-topic this thread is. 

 

I'll bite. I don't really care what religion someone is so long as they don't practice the extremist parts of them. You know, the whole stoning to death or "going after the infidels" ect. ect. , it's the 21st century - act like it. 

 

My simple belief is that we're a tiny spec in the grand universe, that is something kind of amazing when you consider how vast everything is and to be a part of it. Man shouldn't take these forces of nature and attach a name to it claiming it's some sort of a god. 

 

Oh, but so help me if we Civ V together..I WILL war on you if you send your missionaries to my border.

[TopWargamer]

Christianity, technically. I do believe everything about the religion (or well, the 'version' of Christianity that I'm a part of), but I don't actively practice it.

Please don't hate me.

<3

[deadbc77]

......But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

[Vitalius]

Christianity, technically. I do believe everything about the religion (or well, the 'version' of Christianity that I'm a part of), but I don't actively practice it.

Please don't hate me.

<3

......But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Brothaaaaaas!

... But seriously, you describe me TopWargamer. I believe it. Yet for whatever reason, every time I've actively tried to be a part of a Church or the usual "social" aspects of Christianity, it never works out. Like, helping people, I love and do when possible. 

However, I have no natural desire to socialize. I am so completely content alone. I don't even feel lonely. I desire the things that come with socializing (i.e. friends, and potential future family, and such), but at the same time, I don't desire the activity that leads to that in the least. And it's not really because I don't like it (though I very much don't), it's more like, ... I don't know. 

It's ... frustrating. But oh well.

As a kid, I always imagined how my life would end up. Would I be a millionaire and have all that I desire of this world, or be a bum living a lonely and broken life? 

I didn't care back then, and I still don't now. Because I know God will always be there. So I am content in loneliness because I'm never really alone. I am content in having nothing because the only thing I ever really care about is always here. Him. 

This comes with good and bad things.

Good things being no matter what I face, I am happy and it is hard to take that from me.

Bad things are that all my natural desire that would make me strive to improve or be greater is ... pacified I suppose. Because I'm always in a state of "Well, if I do/have it, that's cool. If not, ok." 

Ugh. Humans are too complex. Back to video games.

[McMurderMonkey]

Super Unorthodox Christian; i.e. God isn't so much a magical being, as much a mindset, shared thought and community.

[Volbet]

Brothaaaaaas!

... But seriously, you describe me TopWargamer. I believe it. Yet for whatever reason, every time I've actively tried to be a part of a Church or the usual "social" aspects of Christianity, it never works out. Like, helping people, I love and do when possible. 

However, I have no natural desire to socialize. I am so completely content alone. I don't even feel lonely. I desire the things that come with socializing (i.e. friends, and potential future family, and such), but at the same time, I don't desire the activity that leads to that in the least. And it's not really because I don't like it (though I very much don't), it's more like, ... I don't know. 

It's ... frustrating. But oh well.

As a kid, I always imagined how my life would end up. Would I be a millionaire and have all that I desire of this world, or be a bum living a lonely and broken life? 

I didn't care back then, and I still don't now. Because I know God will always be there. So I am content in loneliness because I'm never really alone. I am content in having nothing because the only thing I ever really care about is always here. Him. 

This comes with good and bad things.

Good things being no matter what I face, I am happy and it is hard to take that from me.

Bad things are that all my natural desire that would make me strive to improve or be greater is ... pacified I suppose. Because I'm always in a state of "Well, if I do/have it, that's cool. If not, ok." 

Ugh. Humans are too complex. Back to video games.

Have you by any chance read the works of Søren Kierkegaard? His philosophical ideas deal with exactly this. He says that the road towards understanding "the paradox of faith" and thereby uncovering the nature of God is a lonely trip, that can only be solved on your own. 

[pspfreak]

I am a person that needs to see something to believe it. The bible is not physical proof of a god bud instead a book written by humans.

[Advent]

You know what they say, there's never an atheist or unbeliever on the battlefield.

This is untrue. Very untrue.

[Recon-UK]

I believe what i see, i don't do fairy tales from books, i am on neither side of the discussion, so i chose the last option.

[Vitalius]

Have you by any chance read the works of Søren Kierkegaard? His philosophical ideas deal with exactly this. He says that the road towards understanding "the paradox of faith" and thereby uncovering the nature of God is a lonely trip, that can only be solved on your own. 

No I haven't, but that does sound awesome.

I don't know (as I've said). I just... kinda naturally am this way. I have been since I met Him. That's a sentence wrapped in lots of strange (potential) context that you guys don't have. Just take it at face value. 

I am a person that needs to see something to believe it. The bible is not physical proof of a god bud instead a book written by humans.

 

I could go the gravity route. Or the brain route. Or the magnetism route. But ... I'm sure that's enough to get my point across. 

I assume by "see", you mean "experience" though. 

I can sort of understand why you would say that (I'm a science guy, believe it or not). 

I have "evidence". But ... it's not something I can share with you. Like, it's the experiences I have had in my life. And I can't share that with someone, exactly as I lived them, without letting them live my life. Words aren't enough. Analogies are not enough.

Too bad sharing memories and such isn't a thing yet.

[Guest]

I was raised a Christian arab btw. (parents both Christian and from Iraq)

 

But I don't believe no, I used to when I was a kid but not anymore since 7 years or so.

[Snickerzz]

As long as people don't shove their opinions down my throat IDGAF.... I know a couple of hardcore Christians (?) and they get a tad annoying with "praise God" "being gay is a sin" etc. but yeah...

meh, people are entitled to their ideas ergo we should respect the opinion of others.

 

 

 

This post may end up in an internet blood bath

im atheist and i have christian friends that im totally fine with because they dont shove there beliefs down my throat, but ive lost friends from them doing that too

[Snickerzz]

You know what they say, there's never an atheist or unbeliever on the battlefield.

i play BF4 and im atheist

[Advent]

I could go the gravity route. Or the brain route. Or the magnetism route. But ... I'm sure that's enough to get my point across. 

 

Except we can detect and actually "see" gravitational waves. The same goes for our brain and how it works as well as magnetism. All are quantifiable, observable, detectable, testable and falsifiable phenomena.

God(s)/Region are not. Religion is an example of what is known as a Russel's Teapot argument.

 

 

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

[Vitalius]

Except we can detect and actually "see" gravitational waves. The same goes for our brain and how it works as well as magnetism. All are quantifiable, observable and detectable.

God is not.

Well, that's why I said "I assume by 'see', you mean 'experience' though."

Because I knew he probably didn't literally mean "see". As in, with his eyes. 

Interestingly, I would argue that statement actually doesn't counter what I said. You can't experience or measure the actual force "maker" gravity. Only the things it causes. Much like you can only see what the wind moves, and not the actual wind itself (assuming we are talking about normal air and it's inherent composition that humans can't visibly see). 

Gravity is actually not understood very well. We have no true physical representation of it. Just a physical representation of the effects of it's existence. 

Unless you count the Higs Boson (i.e. the particle that gives everything mass). But... that's not concrete yet in my eyes. Still too many unknowns. If you have a problem with me being a skeptic .... Dat irony. 

Really, we won't "be there" with Gravity like we are with most other things (i.e. true physical representations) until General and Special relativity are married in a model that's actually factual. Married being colorful speech for "combined in such a way as to both work at the same time without breaking things".

It's complicated.

[Advent]

Well, that's why I said "I assume by 'see', you mean 'experience' though."

Because I knew he probably didn't literally mean "see". As in, with his eyes. 

Interestingly, I would argue that statement actually doesn't counter what I said. You can't experience or measure the actual force "maker" gravity. Only the things it causes. Much like you can only see what the wind moves, and not the actual wind itself (assuming we are talking about normal air and it's inherent composition that humans can't visibly see). 

Gravity is actually not understood very well. We have no true physical representation of it. Just a physical representation of the effects of it's existence. 

Unless you count the Higs Boson (i.e. the particle that gives everything mass). But... that's not concrete yet in my eyes. Still too many unknowns.

Really, we won't "be there" with Gravity like we are with most other things (i.e. true physical representations) until General and Special relativity are married in a model that's actually factual. Married being colorful speech for "combined in such a way as to both work at the same time without breaking things".

It's complicated.

Yes but those phenomena are also falsifiable. Religion is not. It is a zero sum argument. For religion to be falsifiable would mean that it is not based on the unerring word of "God(s) X". For a God to be flawed would not make them a God.

Epicurus summed it up pretty well:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?"

[Vitalius]

Yes but those phenomena are also falsifiable. Religion is not. It is a zero sum argument. For religion to be falsifiable would would mean that it is not based on the unerring word of "God(s) X". For a God to be flawed would not make them a God.

And where are you going with that?

[Advent]

And where are you going with that?

That if God is real none of the religions are true as they are based on falsehoods. For if their holy works were found to be erring then the very pillars of their religion would come crumbling down as they are no longer based upon a perfect, all knowing, unerring God's word.

[Vitalius]

Yes but those phenomena are also falsifiable. Religion is not. It is a zero sum argument. For religion to be falsifiable would would mean that it is not based on the unerring word of "God(s) X". For a God to be flawed would not make them a God.

Epicurus summed it up pretty well:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?"

So a man is allowed to Judge God and it be true? I find that very curious. If man is imperfect, than how can we judge God who is supposed to be perfect?

But to entertain that idea, I would argue that if evil is caused by man and man brings it upon himself in this, that God taking away the evil without something to make it right would actually be wrong. Because man deserves such evil, for he brought it on himself. 

He is able and willing. But it ultimately falls to the man. God can do all things, but in all things he is righteous. Which isn't the same as benevolent though they go hand in hand.

 

That if God is real none of the religions are true as they are based on falsehoods. For if their holy works were found to be erring then the very pillars of their religion would come crumbling down as they are no longer based upon a perfect, all knowing, unerring God's word.

So you've created a circular argument to prove religion false? ... I see the irony myself. But do you?

[Advent]

So a man is allowed to Judge God and it be true? I find that very curious. If man is imperfect, than how can we judge God who is supposed to be perfect?

But to entertain that idea, I would argue that if evil is caused by man and man brings it upon himself in this, that God taking away the evil without something to make it right would actually be wrong. Because man deserves such evil, for he brought it on himself. 

He is able and willing. But it ultimately falls to the man. God can do all things, but in all things he is righteous. Which isn't the same as benevolent though they go hand in hand.

 

So you've created a circular argument to prove religion false? ... I see the irony myself. But do you?

By Evil Epicurus meant an anti-God (see Satan). Not the acts of man.

[Advent]

 

So you've created a circular argument to prove religion false? ... I see the irony myself. But do you?

It isn't a circular argument. For religion to be considered fact it must be falsifiable.

To make it falsifiable would disprove the notion of a perfect God.

To disprove the notion of a perfect God stands to disprove the very existence of a God.

As someone who is religious I would find it very hard to believe in an imperfect God.