Poll: Are you religious?

[sukotsuto]

I personally find it hilarious that people assume that God is "a guy above the clouds watching us", as well as the opposite assumption that "there is lack of sufficient physical evidence to prove that there is a god". I personally believe that if there is a God, He is amused at how we assume all sorts of crap about his existence (or lack thereof) and once we lose the gift of life, He has full dominion of whatever afterlife we couldn't comprehend in our living state. And again, if there is a God, he may perhaps be beyond human comprehension, just as how a dog can never comprehend the internet nor your worker ant being unable to comprehend anything we human beings even say or feel.

Even though I say I'm religious, I totally respect the opinions of atheist that actually have legitimate arguments (particularly the type of argument that wasn't done ad nauseum), unlike like 95% of other self-proclaimed atheists who never did their research in both sides of the argument. In the other side of the coin, this assumed statistic of 95% also applies to other religious people talking out of their ass thinking what they say is according to religion without actually doing their own research as well.

It's funny that I was never really that religious back then (I wasn't even in a practicing religious family - and I was annoyed at the religious side that exists in some of my relatives), but my faith just skyrocketed the more I try to know about the things around me, and all the anti-God arguments seem to actually magnify my belief of a possibility of a greater incomprehensible being that is many leagues beyond our mental capacity letting us live our life until it expires and eventually takes us over beyond the grave. With all the scientific advances we've had, he have little to no idea on what's actually beyond the universe yet, and whatever void that may await us, which just proves to me that whatever science we may have, it's still primitive to said ultimate being given that most of our advances in science and technology are still pretty much grounded within our own planet, with a few studies outside of our orbit here and there.

EDIT: In other news, I'm drunk as f*ck while I was typing all this lol.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Nah, that whole idiotic money scam and testament to the gullibility of humanity isn't for me.

Sort of. I'm Catholic, but I don't blindly accept everything. If there is a policy or teaching I think is stupid or makes no sense, I will call them on it.

I don't understand this position. If you believe that The Bible is the word of God then what right do you have to disagree with it. If it's the work of a perfect divine being then it isn't wrong on anything. If The Bible's true then you'll be damned to Hell for having the audacity to put yourself before God and rewriting his most holy book to suit your whims.

I'm not a religious man, but if I was I'd be a fundamentalist. If I was a Christian I'd be in the WBC, if I was a Buddhist I'd be a monk, because those are the only intellectually tenable positions for a religious person. I don't see how you can disobey your God while still thinking that you follow Him and are in his good graces.

If you were a fundamentalist you'd be a hypocrite anyway, because most religious texts are very contradictory of their own writings.

Well yeah, that's one of the many problems of religion. However, if I were a fundamentalist I could minimize if not eliminate that problem only following the prohibitive and proscriptive options when a contradiction arises. For example, The Bible says that it's not acceptable to divorce and that it is acceptable to divorce. If I were a fundamentalist christian I'd have to think that it's not acceptable to divorce, because if the correct interpretation of The Bible is that divorce is bad I would've be correctly following The Bible whereas if the correct interpretation is that divorce is acceptable then by not divorcing I would've still not violated The Bible because that interpretation would still mean that not divorcing is still acceptable. The real problems lie when a book makes proscriptive and prohibitive decrees that are directly contradictory (e.g. that killing is always bad and that killing should be done under certain circumstances.) Not being hugely well versed in religious texts I do not know of any such drastic contradictions, but there probably are a few.

Nevertheless, being a fundamentalist is still a more intellectually tenable position than being a moderate. Even if a fundamentalist can't follow his holy tome perfectly, the fundamentalist's attempt to do so is still more honest than the moderate's rewriting of his proclaimed perfect text.

 

[stutheninja]

i have faith, and i believe (RC btw) but the whole institution of the chruch... im not such a huge fan of that. and yeah, i think you gotta believe in something, even if you believe that there isnt any kind of cosmic design, still counts as faith in my book, just dont be a dick about it hahaha

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Am I religious in the sense that I disregard all science that threatens my faith as nonsense and "FROM TEH DEVIL!!!"?

No,nonononononononono NO!
As was previously stated by another user, I am merely spiritual.

You see, from my point of view it's absolute nonsense to say that "there is no evidence for a God so why should I believe? No one should believe as it's nonsense because there is no evidence".

With all your paragraphs of evidence against/lack of evidence for God you bring out you failed to take into account some very simple and obvious text from the bible that has been around for centuries, that and basic logic that your biased views have made you overlook.

If there was evidence for a God, if I had reason to safely believe that there is hope and life after death, then it would not be faith. Faith is believing in something that you have no reason to hope for so what exactly are you accomplishing from stating the obvious lack of evidence?

Now for the text:

"for without faith it is impossible to please God"
-Hebrews 11:6

From this it is clear that a lack of evidence is to be expected, as well as reason to doubt.

This is just my point of view and I don't care if you think it's nonsense. I don't believe because I think it's all fact, I believe because I want to hope that despite the evils and chaos that surrounds us, there is still hope and good to bring things to order. I want to hope that our lives aren't meaningless and unfair, I want to think that something that we can't comprehend has everything under control and that there was purpose all along in our struggles.
If I didn't, I'd go mad with depression.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Yes, and what of it?

 

[Jedoro]

In your context, yes, I'm religious, but you won't ever find me in a church anymore. Not even on holidays. If I had to choose, I'd say my beliefs line up most with Deism.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Nah, that whole idiotic money scam and testament to the gullibility of humanity isn't for me.

Sort of. I'm Catholic, but I don't blindly accept everything. If there is a policy or teaching I think is stupid or makes no sense, I will call them on it.

I don't understand this position. If you believe that The Bible is the word of God then what right do you have to disagree with it. If it's the work of a perfect divine being then it isn't wrong on anything. If The Bible's true then you'll be damned to Hell for having the audacity to put yourself before God and rewriting his most holy book to suit your whims.

I'm not a religious man, but if I was I'd be a fundamentalist. If I was a Christian I'd be in the WBC, if I was a Buddhist I'd be a monk, because those are the only intellectually tenable positions for a religious person. I don't see how you can disobey your God while still thinking that you follow Him and are in his good graces.

Well, the thing is the The Bible (what is that? Scare italics? Is that a thing?) is not only a religious book, it's also a political book that reflects the views of the people of the time. Therefore, some things in it can be taken with a pinch of salt. For example, Leviticus. Also, the Romans cut out a lot of chapters in order to fit their own beliefs

No, man, that's just grammar. Titles of creative works are written in italics (e.g Hamlet, Catch 22, Fallout, etc.) in the English language.

Moving on, how do you decide which parts of The Bible are false? Are they the parts that conflict with your modern sensibilities? How can you be sure that anything that you decide is wrong is truly wrong? Remember if you're wrong about what's wrong, you go to Hell.

Wouldn't the safest option (if you want to be religious, anyway) be to follow The Bible as much as you possibly can instead of rewriting The Bible to suit your own beliefs?

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

I'm religious, I mean, why not? I don't shout down science, it makes sense, but could there be a higher power orchestrating what happens when and why? I logically can not see how it COULDN'T work. In fact it just makes sense. I believe in a life after death, do I go rushing to said death, even though eternal bliss lies beyond? No, no I do not, because I'm not done here. There's still people to talk to and get to know and to inspire. Be it inspiring them to become religious or inspiring them to simple be better people. At the core of it I want peace in the world, I want love in the world, and I want happiness in the world. Because those are the core tenets of my faith. To discredit ALL religions is to discredit the founding of the Red Cross and many other charities. I do not force my opinions on anyone though I will speak on it if asked or if asked to do something that directly conflicts with my beliefs, just like I expect of every other person. Call me "Lawful Good", never call me "Lawful Stupid".

 

[Jak LesStrange]

Like Grif, I have joined every religion just to take advantage of all the days of rest...except Mondays... Mondays just universally suck.

 

[Colour Scientist]

I answered the poll but I've learned not to discuss my beliefs, or lack thereof, in public. I think religious belief, or lack of it, is something best kept to oneself. I have a pretty large main group of friends which has never disagreed over religion because we simply don't discuss it. I don't know the beliefs of many of my friends because I don't think it reflects anything on who they are as a person while ranting and raving about someone else's beliefs certainly does.

 

[Polarity27]

Polytheistic Pagan here.

(And yeah, there kind of is a middle ground between "gods exist" and gods don't exist", and it might be along the lines of Lon Milo DuQuette's quote "yes it's all in your head, but your head is bigger than you think it is". I'll leave interpretation of that up to you.

 

[PurePareidolia]

I no more believe in God than I do aliens, the illuminati, bigfoot, ghosts, alternative medicine or psychics.

I have many strong opinions about why all of them are liable to not exist, but when it comes down to it, they're all little more than unproven claims that make people feel better about not understanding how reality works.

So though I voted no, I have to claim agnosticism as well.

To paraphrase one of my favourite musicians, one Tim Minchin: If anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single spiritual person who's been able to show either empirically or logically the existence of a higher power with any sort of consciousness or interest in the human race, or ability to punish or reward humans for their moral choices, or that there is any reason other than fear to believe in any version of an afterlife, I'll absolutely believe it 100%.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened once in the entire history of human civilization, so I remain unconvinced.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Nah, that whole idiotic money scam and testament to the gullibility of humanity isn't for me.

Sort of. I'm Catholic, but I don't blindly accept everything. If there is a policy or teaching I think is stupid or makes no sense, I will call them on it.

I don't understand this position. If you believe that The Bible is the word of God then what right do you have to disagree with it. If it's the work of a perfect divine being then it isn't wrong on anything. If The Bible's true then you'll be damned to Hell for having the audacity to put yourself before God and rewriting his most holy book to suit your whims.

I'm not a religious man, but if I was I'd be a fundamentalist. If I was a Christian I'd be in the WBC, if I was a Buddhist I'd be a monk, because those are the only intellectually tenable positions for a religious person. I don't see how you can disobey your God while still thinking that you follow Him and are in his good graces.

If you were a fundamentalist you'd be a hypocrite anyway, because most religious texts are very contradictory of their own writings.

Well yeah, that's one of the many problems of religion. However, if I were a fundamentalist I could minimize if not eliminate that problem only following the prohibitive and proscriptive options when a contradiction arises. For example, The Bible says that it's not acceptable to divorce and that it is acceptable to divorce. If I were a fundamentalist christian I'd have to think that it's not acceptable to divorce, because if the correct interpretation of The Bible is that divorce is bad I would've be correctly following The Bible whereas if the correct interpretation is that divorce is acceptable then by not divorcing I would've still not violated The Bible because that interpretation would still mean that not divorcing is still acceptable. The real problems lie when a book makes proscriptive and prohibitive decrees that are directly contradictory (e.g. that killing is always bad and that killing should be done under certain circumstances.) Not being hugely well versed in religious texts I do not know of any such drastic contradictions, but there probably are a few.

Nevertheless, being a fundamentalist is still a more intellectually tenable position than being a moderate. Even if a fundamentalist can't follow his holy tome perfectly, the fundamentalist's attempt to do so is still more honest than the moderate's rewriting of his proclaimed perfect text.

Well there is the thing in the Bible with the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and then the story of Abraham where God tells Abraham to go to the top of the mountain and kill his son, before Ashton Kutcher jumped out at the last minute shouting "Punk'd!!!!!" Oh and the fact that God himself destroyed several cities and murdered the entire population of the planet (minues a couple) at least once (the Flood)

Also there's the thing that there's two different stories of Genesis, and they contradict each other.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Honestly, what did you expect asking this question here? The majority of people on this forum are no different than the religious extremists they love to criticize, except in the other direction - instead of hating and insulting anyone who doesn't believe, the hate and insult anyone who does. To all of you who do this, I'm going to kindly ask you to knock it off and grow up. When you go around insulting other people's beliefs, you're making yourself look just as bad as Fox News. In fact, probably worse. Stop it.



As for me, I consider myself a bit of a spiritualist - religious, but strictly non-denominational. I'm not a fan of organized religion (though I'm not going to judge anyone who practices it). While I believe that having intimate knowledge of any one particular deity's will is foolish (at best), the possibility of some kind of existence beyond our physical universe/multiverse isn't at all illogical.

Indeed, the whole history of Earth has been one long retreat of Earth from the center of the universe. First Earth was everything, then it was part of a tiny cosmic sphere, then a single solar system, then a single galaxy, then a whole universe of galaxies. Now, we're discovering that our universe may be only one of an infinite number of universes. Is it really totally implausible that that rabbit hole goes even deeper, into other "planes" of existence entirely? While we of course don't know that it does, I'll remind you that we also don't know that it doesn't.

It's completely idiotic to claim definitively that there is or isn't a god, or some other power. Frankly, you don't know that, and neither do I. That is a FACT. Beliefs are one thing, but they should taken as beliefs and not scientific knowledge.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Nah, that whole idiotic money scam and testament to the gullibility of humanity isn't for me.

Sort of. I'm Catholic, but I don't blindly accept everything. If there is a policy or teaching I think is stupid or makes no sense, I will call them on it.

I don't understand this position. If you believe that The Bible is the word of God then what right do you have to disagree with it. If it's the work of a perfect divine being then it isn't wrong on anything. If The Bible's true then you'll be damned to Hell for having the audacity to put yourself before God and rewriting his most holy book to suit your whims.

I'm not a religious man, but if I was I'd be a fundamentalist. If I was a Christian I'd be in the WBC, if I was a Buddhist I'd be a monk, because those are the only intellectually tenable positions for a religious person. I don't see how you can disobey your God while still thinking that you follow Him and are in his good graces.

I think he takes that position because the Bible was written by man who was told to write down Gods word. Well after a few thousand years, that word could easily be misinterpreted, changed around and even have some books edited out of the current version of whatever religious texts there are.
He's not going against God, but merely his religions interpretation of his sacred text.

So then what's the point of following any part of The Bible if it's all suspect? If the parts of The Bible about how homosexuality, divorce, and mixing fabrics could be wrong then why can't the parts of The Bible about God, miracles, and the afterlife be wrong? Why would you believe such extraordinary claims from an imperfect book? If God does exist then how could you possibly follow him through a book that's been edited and rewritten? It'd be like trying to build a clock using instructions that tell you how to build a rocking chair. The only positions without cognitive dissonance are fundamentalism or atheism. Of course no holy book is true, but if you believe that they are true then the least you can do is obey them fully and not rewrite them to suit your tastes.

 

[Joos]

I'd like to think of myself as spiritual if not religious.

 

[Gustavo S. Buschle]

I might be wrong, but I do believe that agnosticism is covered by "no". From what I know agnosticism is essentially "the universe could have been created by a giant banana for all I know".

 

[Evaheist666]

I used to be religious because I was a devout Satanist (church of Anton LaVey) but I'm just Atheist now.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Nah, that whole idiotic money scam and testament to the gullibility of humanity isn't for me.

Sort of. I'm Catholic, but I don't blindly accept everything. If there is a policy or teaching I think is stupid or makes no sense, I will call them on it.

I don't understand this position. If you believe that The Bible is the word of God then what right do you have to disagree with it. If it's the work of a perfect divine being then it isn't wrong on anything. If The Bible's true then you'll be damned to Hell for having the audacity to put yourself before God and rewriting his most holy book to suit your whims.

I'm not a religious man, but if I was I'd be a fundamentalist. If I was a Christian I'd be in the WBC, if I was a Buddhist I'd be a monk, because those are the only intellectually tenable positions for a religious person. I don't see how you can disobey your God while still thinking that you follow Him and are in his good graces.

If you were a fundamentalist you'd be a hypocrite anyway, because most religious texts are very contradictory of their own writings.

Well yeah, that's one of the many problems of religion. However, if I were a fundamentalist I could minimize if not eliminate that problem only following the prohibitive and proscriptive options when a contradiction arises. For example, The Bible says that it's not acceptable to divorce and that it is acceptable to divorce. If I were a fundamentalist christian I'd have to think that it's not acceptable to divorce, because if the correct interpretation of The Bible is that divorce is bad I would've be correctly following The Bible whereas if the correct interpretation is that divorce is acceptable then by not divorcing I would've still not violated The Bible because that interpretation would still mean that not divorcing is still acceptable. The real problems lie when a book makes proscriptive and prohibitive decrees that are directly contradictory (e.g. that killing is always bad and that killing should be done under certain circumstances.) Not being hugely well versed in religious texts I do not know of any such drastic contradictions, but there probably are a few.

Nevertheless, being a fundamentalist is still a more intellectually tenable position than being a moderate. Even if a fundamentalist can't follow his holy tome perfectly, the fundamentalist's attempt to do so is still more honest than the moderate's rewriting of his proclaimed perfect text.

Well there is the thing in the Bible with the commandment "thou shalt not kill" and then the story of Abraham where God tells Abraham to go to the top of the mountain and kill his son, before Ashton Kutcher jumped out at the last minute shouting "Punk'd!!!!!" Oh and the fact that God himself destroyed several cities and murdered the entire population of the planet (minues a couple) at least once (the Flood)

Also there's the thing that there's two different stories of Genesis, and they contradict each other.

Maybe God's a hypocrite but if he was a hypocrite then he wouldn't be perfect and if he wasn't perfect then he wouldn't be God. Yeah, religion doesn't make any fucking sense, that's why I'm not religious. All I'm trying to say here is that if I was crazy enough to be religious then I would certainly try my best to follow whatever religion I chose. Being a fundamentalist seems to be a less intellectually untenable position than being a moderate. At least fundamentalists try to stick to their holy books instead of rewriting them.