Poll: What's your religion?

[Ares Tyr]

On the other hand, I could never buy into the idea of heaven or reincarnation as a means of escape. Just as eternal punishment for an individual seems unjust, any sort of eternal reward for an individual rubs me the wrong way.

This isn't necessarily what I believe exists, it's more like how I think things ought to work.

People are reborn but there's no getting out, you never progress, you never leave this world, you just keep coming back, not on your own anyway. Your reward for making the world a better place is to return to a world that is better than it was your last time through. If you made it worse, or even just let things decay for lack of involvement, then your punishment is to come back to a world that's fallen a little further down the hole. So maybe you were an utter shit in your last life and you are reborn as one of the blessed and priviledge - were you punished? No, you don't get punished in this system. What you get is increased odds of coming back miserable. Or happy, if you manage to take your priviledge and blessings and try to repair the collective damage.

Russian roulette - you pull the trigger every time, so are you adding bullets to the Cosmic Gun or taking them away? This life, you put it to your head and hear a click. Empty. But what about the next pull of the trigger? You keep putting ammo in that thing, one of these lives you are going to be born into bullets. If one day the gun comes up totally empty, then maybe that's the day we all go to heaven together. If one day the gun is fully loaded, maybe that's the end of the apocalypse. Until then, I just try to take the bullets out.

My view on reincarnation within my spiritual beliefs is that during your current life, the karma you acquire brings you closer to the realization of the truth and the achievement of nirvana. Say in my past life, I was a decent enough guy to realize the 'truth' of reincarnation and karma in this current life of mine.

So now that I understand this truth, and the way it works, I can work towards the achievement of nirvana, which is an escape from the cycle of death and rebirth. There is an escape, and once you realize the "path to the truth", you can work towards the escape of Nirvana.


If I don't achieve nirvana in this life, but I gain enough positive karma, I believe that in my next life I will realize the path towards nirvana sooner, and hopefully achieve it then. But if I flip the script in this life, and start doing horrible shit despite knowing what it will bring upon me, I'll be further away from that goal. Of course short of me going insane, that won't happen, and I'll only continue accumilating good karma. So by me knowing and understanding "the way", I will achvieve enlightenment hopefully by the end of this life, and maybe even nirvana if not in this lifetime, then the next. And I will have escaped the cycle of reincarnation and become one with "God" and all that exists.

 

[Liatach]

Animist, Atheist, Scientist
take great comfort from knowing that my atoms will eventually be spread evenly across the universe.
being one with everything
peace.

P.S
Love that this community answers predominantly Atheist, inspires confidence in its intellectual capabilities.

 

[Bob the Average]

Ok here goes.
Im a Jehovah's Witness. and before people go off about how we try to "force" our religion on someone, I need to say, your reasoning is flawed. We cant force anything on you, just like i cant stuff a dachsund down your throat. When we come to your door, we are not trying to convert you, we are just there to share an interesting scriptural thought, and maybe some free, bible based literature. Also, if you dont want to talk to any JW that comes to your door, be polite about it. we are humans too. say, thanks for your time, but we are not interested, and gently shut your door. we dont like having the door slammed in our faces anymore than you like getting your face slapped. be civil about it, and for the most part, we will accept that. true, there are some real hardcore people out there, but that is any religion. So yeah, theres my answer, may the HATE begin!!!

The only time I really dislike missionaries is when they knock on the door a second time after I tell them I'm not interested and it never fails that they do it as i go back to what I was doing.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

I have a question for the athiests. I have been a fairly religeous person my entire life, so some of these things i can't quite wrap my head around and i'm sort of looking for someone to explain it.

Athiests don't believe in a higher power. yes?
Therfor don't believe in an afterlife?

So whats the point then? it's kind of depressing to think of the world as just one big fluke. you live and then die and... thats it? Why wouldn't everyone just kill themselves now then? I don't understand...

Okay, here's one way an atheist could come to have no fear of death.

Imagine a two-dimensional universe, populated by two-dimensional creatures. Now imagine time as the third dimension for a place like that. Take their universe at a certain moment in time. It's a flat plane. Lay it down horizontally. Now take the next moment in time. It's another flat plane. Lay it down on top of the first one. Then go forward another moment in time, and that's another 2-D universe stacked on top of the others. And so on. You end up with a stack of universes, starting with the beginning of time at the bottom and the end of time at the top. Perhaps they form a ring where the top meets the bottom, but never mind that for now.

Now imagine a little 2-d creature living in this universe. It begins its existence as a tiny little dot in one moment, then it grows and moves about. It only ever occupies one place in each individual moment, but the moments, stacked atop one another, form a three-dimensional shape. You, as a three-dimensional creature, can see the entirety of that creature in both space and time, from its birth to its death. For you, time is a single moment that lasts forever. The creature never really dies and is never really born. Its existence has a shape you can see. And that shape might be very beautiful and very meaningful. If it took up the whole universe, all of space and time, it would just be a plain column (or ring). So its beauty comes from the fact that it doesn't take up all of space and time.

Now imagine a many-dimensional being looking at you right now in this 3-d world. It sees the eternal moment you live in. It sees you worrying about not existing in infinite time, and wonders why you're not worried about the fact that you're not infinitely tall or wide or long. Mathematically, time is no different from height or width or depth. From outside our universe, they look exactly the same.

If you close one eye and hold an egg in one hand close to your face, and another egg in your other hand farther out, the closer egg looks bigger, but it isn't really. It's just a perspective illusion.

Nothing actually dies. Death is only a perspective illusion created by our three-dimensional nature, so don't be alarmed. You have nothing to fear. None of us does.

 

[Loki127]

personally I don't really over-think religion... probably because I'm a nihilist. when I die, I will figure out who is right and wrong, until then I don't think it's important to concern myself with the afterlife

although I have to admit it would be cool to sit next to Odin in Valhalla feasting on a roast that replenishes itself every morning....

 

[Matthew Alexander]

personally I don't really over-think religion... probably because I'm a nihilist. when I die, I will figure out who is right and wrong, until then I don't think it's important to concern myself with the afterlife...

although I have to admit it would be cool to sit next to Odin in Valhalla feasting on a roast that replenishes itself every morning....

I don't think nihilist is the word you are looking for, that implies a belief in nothing and everything that implies. I think your looking for agnostic.

 

[Dalisclock]

Agnostic.

If you've found something to believe that works for you, more power to you. As long as you don't try to force your beliefs down other peoples throats, I don't care.

 

[Jark212]

I have no idea what I am, for a while i was Buddhist but now-a-days I just kind-of drift from one religion to another

 

[The Potato Lord]

I'm a Christian, with no "But I don't..." involved, Because that Crap vastly irritates me. If you're going to believe in something do it whole-heartedly. In fact there's a verse in the bible dealing with this, It talks about how it is better to be hot or cold(Towards God with Hot meaning you follow and obey him, and cold meaning you don't believe at all/ don't follow him)than Luke-warm, because he will spit you out if you are luke-warm.(Metaphorically of course, It means you will be rejected more-so than a non-believer by God).

If you follow a different religion(or don't believe at all) I won't bother or judge you, but I won't support it either, So long as you do the same.

Though discussion is fine and dandy when it remains civil.

Also, the first paragraph is more for border-line Christians than anyone else.
Also, Also, Because I see this a lot, Believeing in God does NOT make you a Christian, Following Christ does. Believing in God is Thesim, not Christianity.

Here are the verses I mentioned for those interested: Revelation 3:14-3:17 This is part of John's letter to the Church in Laodicea(This Church was like the Border-line Christians We see today).

 

[pieeater911]

Sometimes I feel as if I am the only person on the whole wide Internets who hasn't yet read 'The Call of Cthulhu.'

 

[AntiAntagonist]

This is all news to me. From what I've heard and researched myself, the only "violent" sect of Buddhist were those of the Shaolin Temple in China, who developed fighting arts that because kung fu and almost every other martial art through out the Eastern Asian continent. And these were developed soley for self-defense and excersise.

I could be wrong, but any sect of Buddhist monks who conduct violent activities are more along the lines of extremists in my eyes, and are corrupting the very clear message of non-violence in the earliest Buddhist teachings.

I only read about it recently myself. I agree with you that those that try to represent Buddha and become violent are themselves extremists since they don't adhere to the Middle Path.
While I enjoy exploring Chinese/SouthEast Asia Buddhist practices I don't believe it the true path since "faith" & "worship" are used and stances seem to have been attributed to it that actually came from the society (LGBTa hate, etc).

 

[AntiAntagonist]

Buddha was once a man. Now he's a God, in whichever way you want to put that.

Buddha is worshiped like a god by some, however that worship came about due to societies preventing access to temples and priests to those of the lowest castes. From my own experience it seems most temples practice something more akin to "remembrance" than "worship."

What has been written points to Buddha as 'enlightened' or 'transcended,' but not as a deity.

 

[Chiasm]

Taoist,Only way of thinking in a spiritual/ethical mindset that I believe in.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

Here's where I find this a little odd, because you'll believe in ideas like Communism and Capitalism which are equally nonsensical. (Communism fails because of Greed, Capitalism fails due to finite resources)

I believe things are confused in this statement. Both Communism and Capitalism are forms of economy. Economy is predicated on the inherent limitation of resources (and if all physical resources are finite, time is still finite and a resource).

In both forms of economy (and many others) greed tends to be the thematic problem.

 

[Novan Leon]

To be an extremist/fundamentalist in your incorrect beliefs is no different than being a moderate in your incorrect beliefs, both are equally incorrect. On the other hand, being an extremist/fundamentalist in your correct beliefs cannot possibly make you wrong. Besides, if you're right, what kind of sense does it make to doubt you're right?

It's all about truth and falsehood, not whether you're "extreme" or not.

I think most people's reaction to the words "extremism" and "fundamentalism" is to think of some whacked out group of people who do terrible things in the name of "righteousness" or some other lofty ideal. In reality, if the fruit of a particular group's ideology is bad, it's not the extremism that is the cause, it's the incorrect belief behind it.

In many ways, society's objection to extremism/fundamentalism is society's way of "neutering" religion, demanding a centrist point-of-view on whatever you believe (unless you don't believe anything).

 

[Novan Leon]

Here's where I find this a little odd, because you'll believe in ideas like Communism and Capitalism which are equally nonsensical. (Communism fails because of Greed, Capitalism fails due to finite resources)

I believe things are confused in this statement. Both Communism and Capitalism are forms of economy. Economy is predicated on the inherent limitation of resources (and if all physical resources are finite, time is still finite and a resource).

In both forms of economy (and many others) greed tends to be the thematic problem.

I think this misconception comes from the fact that Communism and Totalitarianism usually go hand-in-hand.

 

[Wazzawa]

athiest but if there is some sort of after life i want it to be like in the Order of the Stick webcomic series.. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0492.html

 

[Master Kuja]

Happily atheist thanks, still, I don't hold it against people if they've found something like religion and it works for them.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

To be an extremist/fundamentalist in your incorrect beliefs is no different than being a moderate in your incorrect beliefs, both are equally incorrect. On the other hand, being an extremist/fundamentalist in your correct beliefs cannot possibly make you wrong. Besides, if you're right, what kind of sense does it make to doubt you're right?

It's all about truth and falsehood, not whether you're "extreme" or not.

I think most people's reaction to the words "extremism" and "fundamentalism" is to think of some whacked out group of people who do terrible things in the name of "righteousness" or some other lofty ideal. In reality, if the fruit of a particular group's ideology is bad, it's not the extremism that is the cause, it's the incorrect belief behind it.

In many ways, society's objection to extremism/fundamentalism is society's way of "neutering" religion, demanding a centrist point-of-view on whatever you believe (unless you don't believe anything).

I'm not sure who you're responding to, but I assume you're responding to me. In Buddhism there's this thing called "The Middle Path." It refers specifically avoiding extremism in all things (not just violence), which is why I had brought up the term.

The first paragraph seems muddled, could you restate it?