the whole religion thing

[SwampGas]

i was reading http://www.opensourcejudaism.com/ and it got me thinking...

WHY do i have faith? WHY do i believe what i believe? WHY do i not constantly practice it?

in all honesty, i think the only reason why i consider myself jewish rather than agnostic is because i've always been told to.

why do i still have faith? there's an underlying fear that if i'm wrong at the end all that bad stuff will happen. kind of a "just incase" and "this would be cool if i were true" factor.

also, the world seems incomplete to me. answers are missing. i don't care HOW we got here. i want to know WHY. it's been bugging me since i was a kid...i'm haunted by this question that i'll never get a straight answer to. it's clear that life isn't an accident...far too many variables for that. but why create humans? why go through all of this for a couple thousand years of humanity just to kill us all?

i can't even explain the question fully...it's more of a feeling than something i can put to words.

reminds me of the matrix. "it's the question that drives us." it's the same for me. i believe in this religion (just like neo believed in the matrix) because i want the answer to the question.

furthermore, how did god come to be? "i am that i am" doesn't satisfy me.

that's why i like judaism. fellow jews don't shun you for questioning something...they start a discussion about it to try and find the answer. go into a catholic church and question something...haw..good luck.

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[wingless]

> that's why i like judaism. fellow jews don't shun you for
> questioning something...they start a discussion about it to
> try and find the answer. go into a catholic church and
> question something...haw..good luck.

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[SpaceTiger]

> in all honesty, i think the only reason why i consider
> myself jewish rather than agnostic is because i've always
> been told to.

Join the club. I'm officially agnostic, but I often think that religion=mass delusion. Pretty much everything else our parents said turned out to be accurate, so I think most people just assume that it's true (whatever they're raised with).

As for the "born-agains", I think they're probably just rationalizing what they want to believe. There have been countless people who firmly believed in things that later turned out to be wrong beyond a reasonable doubt (witches, loch ness monster, crop circles, flat earth, etc.). If we don't remain skeptical, our mind can carry us to some pretty crazy places. This kind of rationalization process has been exploited by astrologers, cults, fortune tellers, scammers, and spammers for centuries. I try to avoid being similarly exploited.

Of course, it could be true. By its nature, it is impossible to disprove. Furthermore, religion serves a purpose that might be considered good for a society. I'm still not fully sure if that's the case, however, seeing as how most of the conflict in the world right now is at least somewhat related to religion.

Overall, I think I subscribe to the philosophy of live and let live. Believe whatever you like, just be careful about how it infringes on others.


> i don't care HOW we got here. i want to know WHY.

One of the most disturbing things about being a human is dealing with the possibility that the question "why?" might have no answer at all.


> reminds me of the matrix. "it's the question that drives
> us." it's the same for me. i believe in this religion
> (just like neo believed in the matrix) because i want the
> answer to the question.

Unfortunately for us, Neo had quite a bit more evidence for the existence of the Matrix than we do for any religion.


> go into a catholic church and
> question something...haw..good luck.

Catholicism (particularly the strict kind) shouldn't be used to characterize all of Christianity. There are many Christians who are very open-minded.

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[SpaceTiger]

He's reflecting upon himself, not arguing with anybody. I think as long as people restrict their posts to sharing their beliefs (and not attacking others), it should stay in this forum.

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[Quasius]

> go into a catholic church and
> question something...haw..good luck.

I have never had any problems asking priests faith questions. I think this might be a mischaracterization.

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[ricardobaltazar]

> I have never had any problems asking priests faith
> questions. I think this might be a mischaracterization.

Don't worry, they'll come for you in the night. <img src=smilies/thumb.gif>

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[Goku]

There are many
> Christians who are very open-minded.
>
And ofcourse, many of are also far more closed minded.

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[SwampGas]

where the hell else would my personal reflection on religion go?

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[Satans Blob]

> also, the world seems incomplete to me. answers are
> missing. i don't care HOW we got here. i want to know WHY.



Why create humans? Well in my personal beliefs. I believe God created us so we could have a relationship with him. So we could love him. And he could love us back, but that dosn't always happen. God gave us freewill so we wouldn't be mindless robots going around saying "I love you God," all the time. He created us perfect, and we chose to become sinful.

In this Protestant Christian (Reformed) perspective at least.



>furthermore, how did god come to be? "i am that i am" >doesn't satisfy me.

Well if you ever meet him, just ask him. <img src=smilies/laff.gif>



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[Slicer S. V.]

hmmm... this is a very good question... btw, do not use catholics to characterize all of christianity, i do not care if we are only considered a 'modern christian movement' or a 'christian cult' depending on what source you site, we are still christians and we tend to be VERY open-minded...

as for me... why did i ask to be baptised at 9? my parents would have allowed me to remain a non-member all my life if i chose to... but i chose to be baptised a year after what is normal... why? it certainly wasn't peer pressure, i never have felt peer pressure and you'd think that there'd be more peer pressure to remain non-member. and why didn't i get baptised sooner? well, that last question is quite easy enough to answer, my parents wouldn't let me, i told them i wanted baptised and they told me that i needed to wait a year to make sure... but why do i continue to believe in my religion so vehemently? perhaps because i see people in other religions getting their thoughts constantly repressed, whereas i can think as i wish and as long as i live as i see the gospel to be i'm fine. perhaps it is because i never had a terribly great family and my religion stresses the family so vehemently... or maybe it is the educational stress that i appreciate. 'course, i COULD be dating right now, i COULD be single dating, i have less than a year before i COULD marry... but i don't, because i choose to live the gospel as fully as i can -- which includes more than fulfilling ALL preisthood obligations... for me dating would overcomplicate matters, most probably keep me from my mission or at least distract me while on it. but why?

i also tend to question the why's and why not's of things.. the how's and the how not's... i tend to question everything... perhaps the reason i hold to my religion as strongly as i do because it fosters free-thinking and asking questions... we are founded on the principal that "if any man lacks wisdom let him ask of god, for god giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not..." james 1:5-6 i beleive...

and i certainly do not believe i am continuing to practice my religion as a backup plan... except were i among the quorum of the twelve or a member of the first presidency or a first-hand observer of a vision it would be impossible for me to go to outer darkness (hell, which we beleive to be the utter disjoining from the presence of god into the hands of the devil)... of course i wouldn't make it to the celestial kingdom either and wouldn't become a god, but i never have held out much for traditional leadership roles...

as for why we are here my religion fosters the notion that we are here to become gods in our own right of our own kingdoms... as for why god chose to do this is not specified and we are therefore free to ponder and i feel that he must be mighty lonely up there, he was once one of us, so he knows what it is like to have a bunch of noisy people all around him, but he is up there all alone except for those who were translated and however many heavenly mothers there might be... i would think that could get pretty lonely, i'd prolly even become melancholy about it...

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[Quasius]

> hmmm... this is a very good question... btw, do not use
> catholics to characterize all of christianity, i do not care
> if we are only considered a 'modern christian movement' or a
> 'christian cult' depending on what source you site, we are
> still christians and we tend to be VERY open-minded...

And Catholics are specifically not?

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[Slicer S. V.]

> And Catholics are specifically not?
>
most catholics i have talked to complain about a lack of open-mindedness, perhaps your priesthood might have different views on open-mindedness... but most here in toledo seem to be close-minded, in fact there was one moron catholic minister in the area that thought that allah, yahweh, and GOD were not all the same god... and what does he think christ was if he wasn't a jew? and the muslims are supposedly the result of a family conflict long ago (before either jews or muslims were defined yet)... there was a branching off of jews and muslims, but they served the same god with different ideas is all

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[shawn]

> in fact there was one moron
> catholic minister in the area that thought that allah,
> yahweh, and GOD were not all the same god

Probably for the same reason that most catholics think a witch *a wiccan follower* is a satan worshiper is a satanist and not a nature/life worshipper. For many centuries the church has sought to segregate it's followers from all other religions and by making all other religions seem evil or cults *cultures* they found they could make their followers fanatics and be like puppets and forget trying to think for themselves. This has changed quite a bit in the last few decades thanks to technology and education but there are still some nutcases out there that believe whatever they are told by the church without question and that scares me that some people can trust an organization so fully to the point of absolute ignorance, but of course this does not include you Slicer *and a few other friends of mine with common sense and high intelligence* who not only read or listen to things about your religion but assess the facts obtained and try to separate the bullshit from the actual fact. To tell you the truth I think most religious people are more what are referred to as Spiritualists than actual followers of a particular belief but they just haven't realized it quite yet, just an opinion of my own mind you. <img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>

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[shawn]

> "Wicca" only sprouted up about 50 years ago. It was founded
> mainly by hippies (not exactly the literal hippies of the
> 60's, but akin to them).

That is not wiccan/pagan your referring to but neo wiccan, the real wiccan/pagan religion started up before the catholic church was even thought of, they had their own calandars with 13 months and each month was 28 days long and they all coincided with the full moon for the worship of the goddess and the 13 full moons of the year. The romans and then the catholic church have since then proceded to slaughter the wiccan/pagan followers by many means including witch burning in an attempt to validate thier own religion to their followers and to make anyone think it's either evil to join wiccan/pagan or you'll die a horrible death if you do. Sure this has been all but stopped in modern times but only because of education and such. <img src=smilies/cwm11.gif>

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[Narvi]

Shucks...
You're back just a day too late to get into a debate with Sabian.

Now that would have been grand!

Edit: Oh yeah and neo-wiccans suck because most of them are 14 year old girls who wear torn black leotards, dress in a gothic Catholic schoolgirl outfit and wear way too much black eyeshadow and black lipstick while they have silly little books from Waldenbooks that they like to read hexes and spells out of to curse people thinking it's actually going to work. Well guess what Shauna, my penis didn't fall off yet!!!

<P ID="signature">Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wander. Sometimes I do both. Sometimes when I do both, I get lost. </P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by Narvi on 06/01/03 07:34 AM.</FONT></P>