Religion

I believe in the holy vagina.

My God is betta' than yours...

I went to Christian school for 8 years, which completely ruined that religion for me. The People at me school were very radical and elitist. I'm not too religious, but I do follow Scientology.

I don't think it matters what religion a person is. It is just important to believe in something. Even if it isnt a conventional religion, just a personal set of principals and values that you have qualifies.
Anyway, Many religions are basically the same or a least have similar principals (kindness, love, peace, etc.)

I'm Catholic and I'm not ashamed to admit it, either.

My family is protestant but none of us does really practise religion anymore.
I've always found it hard to believe in God and the Bible stories, even as a child.

I don't believe in God as such, but I do believe that there is a major "power" that guides us...whatever it is, I can't tell...

I know about the Zoroastrian beliefs (NOT because of Freddie but because my best friend is Parsi and Zoroastiran is the original Parsi religion before they went on to Islam).
This religion seems the most friendly and most natural religion to me... they don't believe in God either. They believe in mainly 3 things: think good, do good and speak good.
It's a very peaceful religon.

I respect all kinds of religions and beliefs. Only thing I don't respect are extremists who fight and kill people for the sake of their religion.

I celebrate Christmas and Easter, but other than that, I'm not religious. I don't believe in God either, but I always respect other people's beliefs, and though I love religious discussions, I try to avoid religious debate. And I still have morals and ethics, it's just that I learn them through myself and others, rather than learning them through God and the Church.

Woo! I'm a Jew! (hey, that kinda rhymes)

I'm not very relgious though. I'm more into the cultural aspect of Judaism than the religious aspect. I wish I had been Bat Mitzvah-ed though. I WAS going to be, but we decided we didn't like the hebrew school I was going to. The only reason I wanted to go there in the first place was because two of my best friends went there. BIG mistake. I should have just stayed at the synogogoe that I had been going to since preschool.

Jewish holidays are awesome. Especially when you get to miss school. The basic outline for all Jewish holidays is we were persecuted, we survived, we ate. That's about it.

Right now in my Religion class we are studying The Hebrew Scriptures, we don't move on to the Christian Scriptures til next term, I think.. But Jewish holidays seem cool. 8-)

One thing that has indeed made religion look more foolish is the fact that some people follow it as a trend.

Back in the 60s lots of young people got into Buddhism, and trascendental meditation through yoga just because people like Mia Farrow and The Beatles were following it.

Today we can see the same thing going on with those who follow Kabbalah. Just look at Madonna, she claims to be a fully devoted woman to her new religion and just fired her manager for adultery. Now, Madonna firing his manager for adultery is like Snoop Dogg firing someone from his possee for smoking pot.
So supossedely Kabbalah is a religion that follows morals and ethics while some of their new members happen to be Hollywood's most famous whores Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears.

Sure thing, when Kabbalah dissapears as a trend, these celebrities will totally forget or deny that they were involved into it.

I was brought up Catholic, and I would say that my religous upbringing was based purely on fear.
It is a fear that was drilled into me as a child, and a fear that I still carry with me to this day.

I do believe in God, but I do not believe in all the trappings and bullshit that go with religion.

If Jesus was to repay us with a visit today, I believe he would be disgusted at what we have done in his name.

"Atheist who really doesn't give a shit what anyone else believes is going to happen after we're all dead and worm food as long as you are kind and reasonable in this life" here.

I am somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic. I believe that being a good person is important, but that religion is not a necessary part of being a good person. If a benevolent God does exist, it seems strange he would sentence to Hell a good, but non-believing, person. When someone behaves well because of the threat of Hell, I do not think that person is necessarily a good person.

<font color="lime">KillerQueen840 wrote:

Right now in my Religion class we are studying The Hebrew Scriptures, we don't move on to the Christian Scriptures til next term, I think.. But Jewish holidays seem cool. 8-)

Hmm, I wonder if they'll teach you what "midrash" is. Well, here's a preview... in short, midrash is the act of NT writers using references from OT scripture. It has nothing to do with "fulfulling prophecies" in the first century. That's all crap that came later on through doctrines, creeds, etc. Prophecy was all about speaking critically to the spirit of a certain time in history. Any trained minister or priest knows this. 'Tis a shame that most of them won't tell you that, but it's the truth. They all learned it. Whether or not they can admit that to you is another story.

A huge portion of the NT is derived directly from the OT. Most of the NT writers were devoutly Jewish, and they completely cherished their scriptures... thus, they incorporated their sacred texts into their own work. Pretty simple concept, I think. One example: almost the entire gospel of Mark, if one reads carefully (and with unblinded and unbiased eyes, mind you), is a mix of midrashic writings and a direct chronology of the events of the Jewish liturgical year. Any faithful Jewish person will note the striking references. And so, it's highly unlikely that much or even most of it is historical, as opposed to being carefully crafted literature. Also in Mark, which is the earliest (canonical) gospel to be written, there is no physical resurrection. The King James version is just plain outdated and mostly conservative drivel, and there are several manuscripts to prove it. 16:8 is where it ends. Anyone get the drift of what is being suggested here?

I'm sure plenty here will dislike the above paragraphs. Don't shoot the messenger. History cannot be changed, and biblical scholarship comes a lot closer to historical truth than blind faith devoted to possible past events. For some of us, this is fascinating stuff. But remember, this is just the factual and historical side of things.

Religion shouldn't completely be about looking back and focusing on previous events, historically true or not. There are two kinds of truth: historical truth and spiritual truth. It doesn't matter if something happened or not - it's what you can get out of it and take with you into your daily life. This is the difference between "truth" and a "truth story", a concept that not enough people truly understand. Spiritual truth can be found within the context of a story, hence it being a "truth story", rather than historical truth. Religion should be about grabbing that spiritual truth, and moving forward with it, regardless of whether the event depicted in the story actually happened or not. If one's belief system only requires a few certain things to be historically true, that's not a strong belief system. It is fragile, weak, and stagnant.

So, in summary: to me, it doesn't matter what one believes. It's what they *do* with whatever they believe. If one's belief system is purely based on a bunch of events, historical or not, what good are they doing for others than themselves? In my opinion, if your religion or belief system encourages you to be a loving, compassionate, understanding person, and you don't use your beliefs to divide yourself from others, then you're doing good work in this world, and we need more people like you.

Well, we did learn quite a few different truths, religious truths, scientific truths, histoircal truths, etc. in the beginning of the year. I can see where you are going at...but a lot of that stuff in the NT did happen. There were many things in the OT that were exaggerated...like a lot of the events going on were really natural disasters but they simply exaggerated them...I mean..I guess it's no use to go into a debate or anything..it's not going to do anyone any good...

Raised catholic but I'm better now... There's nothing worse than being raised with the overwhelming feeling of guilt- and that's pretty common in Polish Catholicism, very strict and narrow-minded... IMO, of course...
Was baptised and everything, but never truly believed in Bible and especially in this church, in the institution. I guess the real church (can't find better word) is inside you and your feelings are the guidelines to find out WHO YOU ARE... It's like mixing new age with a lot of psychology- I don't want to rely on some guy with beard who may say you go to heaven or to hell or anywhere... I'd rather rely on myself and on my own feelings- I'm just trying do my best, trying the best I can to be myself. Can't go wrong with that one... it's like believing that my feelings is the true voice of my own God...
Looking at the nature and us, humans- there has to be SOMETHING! But it's lack of modesty to say "that's the real reason" or "that's right and that's wrong"... Who am I to judge others and who am I to say that one way of living is better than another...? Vanity...
I guess I believe we've got a great gift- few years in here which we can use in whatever way we want; we can waste the whole enrgy by sticking our noses into other ppl's lives (very Polish thing to do... :S ) or we can focus on our own lives trying to use them to the full... Wisely... Whatever that means...
All in all- in Poland I'v eseen the worst examples of brain-washing, ppl who cared more about saying 10 "Hail may's" than caring about relatives or living their own lives... But I also saw few whom religion helped to go through every day with a smile and hope. Each of us has it's own way of doing it, of reaching happiness. tht's what I mean by "having own God"- what works for me and amkes me a better man doesn't have to work for others... That's why the bad starts when one person says that his idea is much better than the other or- even worse- that it is the only one that is right. I guess- that's one of the reasons why I left Poland loooong time ago... Even though it's a truly beautiful country... Can't imagine raising my own kids there...

<font color="lime">KillerQueen840 wrote:

Well, we did learn quite a few different truths, religious truths, scientific truths, histoircal truths, etc. in the beginning of the year. I can see where you are going at...but a lot of that stuff in the NT did happen. There were many things in the OT that were exaggerated...like a lot of the events going on were really natural disasters but they simply exaggerated them...I mean..I guess it's no use to go into a debate or anything..it's not going to do anyone any good...

Debate is good! Debate doesn't have to mean arguing; it's an exchange of thoughts at a decent pace. On this topic in particular though, both parties have to be at the same starting point. As long as your words on historical truth aren't based on faith as traditionalists see it fit, then you'll have a good chat with a budding theologian such as myself.

That's often the problem when speaking about religion, as such debates quickly become a matter of faith vs. history, rather than working to integrate the two properly. The physical and metaphysical are two very different things, and if only one person understands this, the discussion will go nowhere.

So with that in mind, yes, certainly some of the events of the NT did happen in some capacity. I have no doubts. But to me, questions are more important than answers. I like it when there are several possibilities of something... the non-literalistic approach - keeping the horizons open.