OT: What's your religeon?

[DarkHorse]

Wait, I have another theory. God actually looks like a dolphin, and the Dolphin race is getting really annoyed that we keep evolving faster than they do. That, and the stupid fishing net thing.

Maybe I'm just a secular hedonist. I'm a religion of one!

[Traskelion]

>"I'm a religion of one!"

Yeah......and I bet you'll never figure out why.....
(Unless you actually DO believe these, in which case I'm sorry)

[dogscoff]

On the other hand, it is somewhat surprising on how many people make such strong statements on a book they have never read. ...
It doesn't make sense to dismiss it without first examining the evidence.

I've never read the bible either, but we were forced to read or listen to bits at school, and to watch really poorly-animated bible stories, and to take part in nativity plays and all that, so large chunks of the stories (if not the actual text) are at least familiar to me and to most people I know. The stories and such that I was told appear to be a more-or-less random entanglement of mythology and ancient history.

The idea that every word in the Bible is the actual word of God is absurd to me- you have to admit that Man has a habit of putting words into God's mouth, and to me the bible is nothing more than the end result of two or three thousand years of that: Most of the Old Testament was carried by nothing more than word-of-mouth for centuries before it was ever put into writing, and various political spins were woven into it by different people along the way. Then you have the New Testament, which was written by loads of very different people over several centuries and has also been re-written/ re-translated with "spin" throughout that time by those who have used it to advance their own viewpoints/ justify their own actions. <snip listing of various barbarisms carried out in the name of Christ over the Last two Millenia> More to the point though, the bible- in particular the New Testament- has been interwoven with mythologies from other religions (to ease conVersion from other those religions throughout the ages) so that you have to wonder how much of it there is left that could actually have anything to do with the true story/ teachings of Christ. Quite a lot, probably, but how do you know which bits are which? It just throws into doubt the reliability of the whole thing.

And of course that's all assuming you can get past the "yes, there is a God" belief that is fundamental to the entire process, which to be honest makes the whole thing a non-starter for me.

Finally there's the fact that the bible doesn't seem to carry any single, clear message: Some people use it to promote universal peace and acceptance, others to justify bigotry and murder, even in this day and age. Those are the extremes of the spectrum, be it seems that every possible permutation in-between is accomodated somewhere. They can't all be right. What's the point in basing your faith on a book that can mean anything you want it to mean? I might as well not bother with the book and do whatever I want anyway. (Which is pretty much what I have done.)

[Ragnarok]

dogscoff said:
Finally there's the fact that the bible doesn't seem to carry any single, clear message: Some people use it to promote universal peace and acceptance, others to justify bigotry and murder, even in this day and age. Those are the extremes of the spectrum, be it seems that every possible permutation in-between is accomodated somewhere. They can't all be right. What's the point in basing your faith on a book that can mean anything you want it to mean? I might as well not bother with the book and do whatever I want anyway. (Which is pretty much what I have done.)

Actually that is an interesting point. If you were to study the Bible you would see that it does carry a single message or theme throughout it. That theme is the vindication of God's sovereignty by means of the Messianic Kingdom Government. The Bible clearly covers a wide range of other topics but they all tie in with and go back to that main theme.

[AgentZero]

Unapologetically aethiest. Couple points I'd like to make though.
1) Aethism does not count as a religion. Aethism is the lack of belief in God, not a belief in the lack of God.
2) Refering to God as 'He' is not sexist. It's proper English. Ask any English teacher (or English major) and they will tell you that in the English language, the default gender for beings of indeterminate sex is male.

[Alneyan]

Well, there is somewhat of a debate about such pronouns, though the masculine form is still dominant (if not the only one) in grammar books; interestingly, nobody is concerned about this in the French language, even though the situation is exactly the same.

A summary of alternatives among many (from someone involved in linguistics, for lack of a better term) is available here .

[AMF]

Allow me to add to this that it is commonly asserted by those with some sort of belief in god that atheists are unable to have a set of morals. This is, of course, not true. Morals exists just fine outside of the beleif in some divine presence. I just always feel the need to point this out whne this topic comes up since non-atheists love to paint atheists as amoral, evil, etc...

AgentZero said:
Unapologetically aethiest. Couple points I'd like to make though.
1) Aethism does not count as a religion. Aethism is the lack of belief in God, not a belief in the lack of God.
2) Refering to God as 'He' is not sexist. It's proper English. Ask any English teacher (or English major) and they will tell you that in the English language, the default gender for beings of indeterminate sex is male.

[Niltrias]

This is probably the most amusing OT post I've seen on this forum. Though I'm a bit late, here goes...

I was raised mormon. Or raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I later converted to Orthodoxy (russian, to be specific, not that it matters.) I used to be a monk but gave it over.

My brother is the Army's wiccan chaplain for germany.

Niltrias

[Spoo]

alarikf said:
Allow me to add to this that it is commonly asserted by those with some sort of belief in god that atheists are unable to have a set of morals. This is, of course, not true. Morals exists just fine outside of the beleif in some divine presence. I just always feel the need to point this out whne this topic comes up since non-atheists love to paint atheists as amoral, evil, etc...

Strangely enough, I've heard this accusation made against theists many times, yet in all of my dealings with theists, I've NEVER heard any of them claim atheists are unable to have morals. NEVER.

Now, I can easily imagine that there are people in this world who think they are God's right hand and who would say such a thing. I, however, have never had the (dis)pleasure of conversing with them. I assure you, they are the minority.

To claim that theists "commonly assert" that atheists are incapable of morals is simply untrue.