Somewhat Controversial Explain your faith

[Capt. Zeroth]

I always enjoy some religious discussion. The reason I bring this thread up is because a good friend of mine recently gave up on his religion. He was once an Atheist, then became a Christian. From what he's told me, it really changed his life. He told me a few years later (recently) that he "wasn't feeling the presence of God anymore." This is a big deal for him, being as in a few days he was going to a religious college to study some form of religious based education. He's now going to a more local college for a year to transfer when things get sorted out. So he currently resides as Agnostic.

So the point of this thread is to explore different views and thoughts on why you believe in your particular religion.

If possible, be prepared to backup your thoughts. For example, if there is historical evidence, please link to it.

Feel free to question other people's beliefs in a friendly way. Let there be no attacking.

----

A little bit of background: I grew up in a household that was very relaxed in terms of religion. My mother is Jewish, and my father is Protestant. I celebrate Jewish holidays more for reasons of tradition and for the Jews as a people, not a religion. I celebrate Christmas as more of a "time of year" or social holiday, as it is vastly celebrated now. I am Agnostic, leaning toward De-Facto Atheism.

I highly doubt the existence of any (or multiple) supernatural beings that control (or have created) the universe. So much so that I should probably be considered a strong Atheist. However, I acknowledge there is just as much a lack of evidence that a god doesn't exist as there is proving a god could exist. Meaning, it can't be proven either way.

However, based on my observations and experiences, I believe that it makes more sense that a god doesn't exist.

 

[yoyolll]

I believe in God and I believe anyone who doesn't harm others and shows outgoing selflessness will have peace in the afterlife.

That being said, I also believe anyone impressing religious ideas upon others in any way is going against God's peaceful teachings.

I believe the Bible is completely wrong about God. He is portrayed as a tyrannous king that can make mistakes, not an all-knowing flawless superior entity. He is taught to be feared, not loved as He should be.

I believe organized religion is used to control massive amounts of people with great power. It has distorted the original view of God and dragged the world through endless war.

That's why I believe everyone's religion should be conducted in privacy and not in open society. Religion shouldn't be a cult. Go home and pray. I don't care. Just don't come to my school and make Jesus clubs everywhere. Or sell Jesus cookies. Or license plates.

JESUS IS NOT A LOGO, HE IS A RELIGIOUS FIGURE

WORSHIP HIM AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION, LEAVE ME OUT OF IT

I LIKE JESUS BUT I DON'T WANT HIS PERPETUALLY SAD FACE ON MY COOKIES, IT IS QUITE UNAPPETIZING

I am also sick of getting Catholic pamphlets saying "Convert today and find Jesus! Serve the Lord! Give money to the church!" You know what I do with those pamphlets? I use them to light my chimney during the winter.

 

[Capt. Zeroth]

I updated my views in the first post.
Here's something to spark conversation.

I believe in God and I believe anyone who doesn't harm others and shows outgoing selflessness will have peace in the afterlife.

Are your views based off of any existing ones?

I believe organized religion is used to control massive amounts of people with great power. It has distorted the original view of God and dragged the world through endless war.

This is a large reason in why I don't trust religion's authenticity. It was likely invented. In the beginning, it was the most obvious explanation for weather and other unexplained phenomenon. However, science can easily disprove everything now. Later in civilization, I believe some genius decided to harness the power of religion to control masses. And of course this was most obvious during the Dark Ages.

I just feel all empirical evidence points toward non-existence of a god.

 

[special_k]

I am a catholic myself, but i do agree that the image of God has been distorted a bit through organized religion....don;t get me wrong, i go to church on Sundays and am pretty catholic for a teenager, but at times i think that the church goes a bit too far. In my eyes, god is more about love than power...and at times i feel that organized religion tries to get us to believe that god is only about power.

 

[UltimaLink007]

I believe in God and I believe anyone who doesn't harm others and shows outgoing selflessness will have peace in the afterlife.

That being said, I also believe anyone impressing religious ideas upon others in any way is going against God's peaceful teachings.

I believe the Bible is completely wrong about God. He is portrayed as a tyrannous king that can make mistakes, not an all-knowing flawless superior entity. He is taught to be feared, not loved as He should be.

I believe organized religion is used to control massive amounts of people with great power. It has distorted the original view of God and dragged the world through endless war.

That's why I believe everyone's religion should be conducted in privacy and not in open society. Religion shouldn't be a cult. Go home and pray. I don't care. Just don't come to my school and make Jesus clubs everywhere. Or sell Jesus cookies. Or license plates.

JESUS IS NOT A LOGO, HE IS A RELIGIOUS FIGURE

WORSHIP HIM AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION, LEAVE ME OUT OF IT

I LIKE JESUS BUT I DON'T WANT HIS PERPETUALLY SAD FACE ON MY COOKIES, IT IS QUITE UNAPPETIZING

I am also sick of getting Catholic pamphlets saying "Convert today and find Jesus! Serve the Lord! Give money to the church!" You know what I do with those pamphlets? I use them to light my chimney during the winter.

This. Not sure about an afterlife, but otherwise this is true.

 

[Kostanti]

My parents were raised on the Greek Orthodox faith, however after they left Greece and settled down in America (where I now reside) their faith seemed to have stayed in Greece! Upon referring to my mother's opinion about her faith, she felt as if religion was too much of a burden, and going to church every sunday after constant weekly schooling (including Saturday) was too mentally draining. She had paid attention in church, but she wasn't ever particularly interested in the priest's words. Even though one aspect of religion is supposed to assure your soul safety, it never really appealed to my mother at the present state of her life.

I grew up without any influence of religion, largely because my parents didn't instill any of their past religion into me, so I took a largely agnostic approach upon understanding religion. I thought of religion as simply a means of controlling the mind and leading the insecure or blind to do your dirty work. After I had started reading the bible, both the old testament and the new, and put the pieces of the biblical story into a historical viewpoint, I now hold a completely different approach to religion and to all matters that go beyond the tangible. I have begun to make no distinction between historical facts and myths, and I question the validity of what is real. I understand that by just having the idea come into existence, by producing something out of the pure creativity of the mind, reality is created.

My previous statement implies that I believe religion is a creation of the mind, and that is how I understand life to be as well. Our minds can make infinities out of the seemingly finite. The only trouble I run into is that I'm not so sure humans are creatures that can actually "create" anything. I feel we are just imitators of the world around us, and we only can re-produce given our initial reference point. That is why God is without form, and why Zeus is in the figure of a man. Because we cant see or know anything that's beyond our noses.

So, after all of my rambling, I will conclude this comment by saying that my faith resides not within God, but within the confusion of life!

 

[Capt. Zeroth]

Thats pretty interesting. I like to toy with the idea of a Multiverse sometimes. Basically, if you can conceive it, there is a probability that an alternate universe exists.

With that idea in mind, the universe that I'm in right now is likely godless. Or maybe I'm wrong. But if I'm wrong, then there are a million other universes where I'm right. I think.

 

[yoyolll]

tl;dr: basically the same exact thing everyone else said.

 

[Lt_Justin]

I belive well I belive that If god exists then yes he lives forever and can if he so choses intervien in our world and I belive that good people go to heaven and Evil people go either to hell or are reincarnated in the cesspools of the world and die of AIDS or something

but Religion has been used as the justification of too many wars (mainly against jews) and what people cant seem to figure out is when you fight the Jews YOU LOSE

Warfare should never be a religous crusade the only time war is justifiable is when it is to save your way of life from being negitively impacted but an outside force

These reason are what has driven me to become a Jedi no not the star wars kind lol but one who belives that we all impact every living thing around us and that there is some all power full force or being that controls the overall fate of the world

 

[yoyolll]

So let me get this straight. You believe that people who die of AIDS are actually reincarnates who were bad people in the past life, Jews have been a superior military force in history, and you are a self proclaimed Jedi who believes in fate (which is controlled by the Force)?

Not only is that hugely offensive (to me, only because you bring shame to the good name of the Jedi), but your grammar and spelling are an abomination of language.

In other words, thank you for voicing your opinion. It has been destroyed by yours truly.

 

[Ides Of March]

I believe in God and I believe anyone who doesn't harm others and shows outgoing selflessness will have peace in the afterlife.

That being said, I also believe anyone impressing religious ideas upon others in any way is going against God's peaceful teachings.

I believe the Bible is completely wrong about God. He is portrayed as a tyrannous king that can make mistakes, not an all-knowing flawless superior entity. He is taught to be feared, not loved as He should be.

I believe organized religion is used to control massive amounts of people with great power. It has distorted the original view of God and dragged the world through endless war.

That's why I believe everyone's religion should be conducted in privacy and not in open society. Religion shouldn't be a cult. Go home and pray. I don't care. Just don't come to my school and make Jesus clubs everywhere. Or sell Jesus cookies. Or license plates.

JESUS IS NOT A LOGO, HE IS A RELIGIOUS FIGURE

WORSHIP HIM AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION, LEAVE ME OUT OF IT

I LIKE JESUS BUT I DON'T WANT HIS PERPETUALLY SAD FACE ON MY COOKIES, IT IS QUITE UNAPPETIZING

I am also sick of getting Catholic pamphlets saying "Convert today and find Jesus! Serve the Lord! Give money to the church!" You know what I do with those pamphlets? I use them to light my chimney during the winter.

...

The weirdest thing just happened to me. I read your post and I agreed with every single thing you wrote. WHEN HAS THAT EVER HAPPENED BEFORE? But really... I especially agree with what you said about organized religion and impressing beliefs upon someone. I'm not really sure what to add. You wrote pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Woah.