Religious/Philosophical Profile Thread

[Himster]

In reality the new definition agnosticism means "Prove it to me and I will believe it".

Nope. It means what it says: it means the lack of gnosticism and gnosticism means knowledge of god.

Though of course even Dawkins would believe in God if you could thrust real objective evidence in his face so it amounts to the same ultimately.

Dawkins is a gnostic-atheist. That has nothing to do with what we're talking about right now but what ever.

[Gigan]

I'm unsure of the existence of a God. There is no evidence for one yet he could be just observing us.

[uos_spo6]

Hostile Atheism. To an extent.

I reject any notion of religion or worship or known spiritual truths. I see them as mans need to justify his seemingly superior and incredible existence above all else he sees around him. No one has any clue, in my belief the most likely is spirituality is nothingness. Existence exists because it can. No personable or identifiable deified entity with silly human notions like morality or emotions is out there watching, calculating, judging etc.

I think people are of the Earth. A freak organism if you will. Our incredible intelligence is assumed to be a blessing for our species because we use it to make life easier and have developed all kinds of distracting abstracts, entertainments, and follies such as art, electronic technology, religion and complex emotional relationships. Should we be able to supplant human settlement and society and life on other worlds and extend our existence in the universe beyond what birthing and shelter Earth has given us, then hoorah for mankind. Another small stepping stone in evading the ultimate fate of being recycled into the grand dance of the stars.

Remember what it was like before you were born? Exactly. Just like that, except afterwards. After life that is. There doesn't have to be a reason for existing to justify it, the need to justify is a human concept anyways. Without a human mind there is no logic or reasoning to anything just physical laws that exist independent of human thought governing matter and how it behaves.

Salvation? Damnation? Souls? Gods? Heavens, Hells, Purgatory, Morality, Right and Wrong. Ridiculous to even consider that these concepts exist beyond human imagination of them. That is all the jusification we need for having them, we came up with it. It makes sense in the scheme of enduring life we've constructed with modern society and how our inter-personal relationships work.

Our existence here is nothing more than a footnote in the history of the universe which spans inconceivable distances that can't even really be imagined well and while we occupy some minute fragment of an atom sized particle in relationship to the whole scheme of things, life is nothing spectacular and mathematically speaking its absurd to think the only place it happened or ever will happen in billions and billions of years to come and go was here.

Ultimately I think nothing anyone does matters outside of the minds of other men. Society has simplified life to great extent and drastically complicated it to another.

The elegance of the human mind makes it almost need to view itself as divinely orchestrated. When man gets to thinking too much he can conceive all kinds of wild notions. In reality I think it's just a random occurrence of events under random circumstances that happened to work out for the better in the long run. For us anyways, for the time being.

The obvious nature of life is to thrive. The obvious nature of life that is aware of it's mortality is to thrive and cheat death however possible. We do it in the physical medically as well as emotionally with religion. With self awareness comes the emotional burden that many would say differs us from the animals. All self awareness has led us to is more thought out deliberate action based upon our emotional states and burdens.

I enjoy my life a lot, but I don't know that I'm enjoying mine more than a well cared for dog is enjoying his just because I can think a little deeper than he does. And I seriously doubt I could have a soul and he wouldn't, being another living creature of this earth and from the same humble beginnings as my lineage of evolutions. So if dogs have souls than everything has a soul and we'd have to get in to some Eastern religions for that I believe.

We're all equally worthless. The value of living or lack of it lies with each individual.

Religion just seems silly and juvenile to me. What else could religion offer you accept existence after death to make such wild stories seem worthy of emotionally investing yourself in to?

Then again I went to Catholic school from Pre K to 11th grade. Non-believer since 14 or 15yr old. Now I'm 28 with plenty of loss in life and plenty to be happy for as well.

Ok, time to game which is the "gosh darn" point of a pc and the internet anyways. Stupid thoughts always getting in the way of genuine endorphin charged enjoyment.

[Himster]

I'm unsure of the existence of a God. There is no evidence for one yet he could be just observing us.

See that makes you an agnostic-atheist. I'm almost the same except I have had personal experiences that have lead me to believe that there is a god so I'm an agnostic-theist.

[Lord de Lyonesse]

Born into a methodist household, I hope to convert to Orthodoxy during freshers week at university.

[America74]

Non-denominational Christian.

Simplicity at its best.

[Habelo]

I dont really know what my religion counts as. I know that i am a god, the best of humanity. I do not require worship, i do not require people to follow my words. The only thing i require is this earths continued existence. So whenever some people are trying to make a specie extinct or test a nuclear bomb- my heart hurts. Unfortunaly i am in a position where i cannot intervene. It was probaly me who strained myself this way though, i cannot be a guardian of earth for all eternity, i need to believe that humans are worthy of living, they need to be able to look forward so that they can live good. However, things look bleak. I hope that in my anger i will find another way then to exterminate humanity becuse in my short life i have found reasons to believe that it is not impossible for humans to be something glorious. They can become ubermenchen! The closest i have come to see this is in mythology, there is one in particular where one flaw, loki, was the only thing disturbing perfection.

I guess that sums up my religious belief.

For my political. Well politics are in general below the notice of a god but i have found that oldschool capitalism (quality above all else) is pretty awesome. Otherwise i think i stand more towards Nazism- with a few tweaks ofc.

[Emperador Carlos]

I am a disciple of the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia,
el Señor es contigo.
Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres,
y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús.
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.

Amén.

[America74]

I am a disciple of the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia,
el Señor es contigo.
Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres,
y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús.
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.

Amén.

Perhaps it is best to be a disciple of the Lord, and a follower of the principles of the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church?

[Invictus XII]

I was born a Roman Catholic, I practise it and am devout, a couple of years ago I considered becoming a Jehovah's Witness, but their lack of a sence of family, their idea that everything needs to be proved by facts, their ignorance not to listen to God that speaks past the Bible, and the fact that they talk, with no physical action. So I have always been a Catholic, I'm proud to be a Catholic, I am a follower of the principles of the Roman Catholic Church.

[America74]

I was born a Roman Catholic, I practise it and am devout, a couple of years ago I considered becoming a Jehovah's Witness, but their lack of a sence of family, their idea that everything needs to be proved by facts, their ignorance not to listen to God that speaks past the Bible, and the fact that they talk, with no physical action. So I have always been a Catholic, I'm proud to be a Catholic, I am a follower of the principles of the Roman Catholic Church.

Good for you, my good friend!

[MathiasOfAthens]

I was born a Roman Catholic, I practise it and am devout, a couple of years ago I considered becoming a Jehovah's Witness, but their lack of a sence of family, their idea that everything needs to be proved by facts, their ignorance not to listen to God that speaks past the Bible, and the fact that they talk, with no physical action. So I have always been a Catholic, I'm proud to be a Catholic, I am a follower of the principles of the Roman Catholic Church.

And maybe also because Jehovah's are the complete opposite of the Roman Church. They take the 6 days literally and believe the planet is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old. Dinosaurs never existed but if they did then they coexisted with man before god killed them all during the flood because they were too big to fit on the ark that would be too big to have been built out of wood and by one family. Plus they take the flood story literally and literally believe Noah was able to feed hundreds of animals and a couple people for 12 months.

[Orko]

Here's mine:
I was born as a secular Jew(Ibelieved in good and the hebrew bible and all and followed the halacha but little more). My interest in science led me to question god, although I returned to my beliefes later. A few years after I cam across a ytube video which mocked religion and put it all into prespective for me. I kept believing in god, but to a much weaker extent and 'embraced'(does that make me sound smuggish?) evolution and science once more. My beliefs in god kept on weakening until I finally realised that I have little reason to believe in god. My beliefs in most things are based upon reason, and thus I view god as merely an assumption, that may or may not be correct(just like any other mere assumption in science that has not been disproven yet), and I have no problems about other people who believe in god/s. However, I think that as there are no evidence pointing towards god's existence as well as the fact that evil still exists in this world(and shouldn't, if there was a god) and also the history of why people invented god in the first place make me not believe in a god.

[America74]

And maybe also because Jehovah's are the complete opposite of the Roman Church. They take the 6 days literally and believe the planet is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old. Dinosaurs never existed but if they did then they coexisted with man before god killed them all during the flood because they were too big to fit on the ark that would be too big to have been built out of wood and by one family. Plus they take the flood story literally and literally believe Noah was able to feed hundreds of animals and a couple people for 12 months.

Why couldn't Noah do that? He was blessed by the Lord. :/

[Elfdude]

Why couldn't Noah do that? He was blessed by the Lord. :/

He could. Fairies could also exist. Your argument is unconvincing.

The reason for this is that your ignoring plausibility in an attempt to prove something is possible. Unfortunately the reality of the universe is that probability is far more important than possibility. Hence it's improbable that noah literally existed or did as the story described.

However that doesn't necessarily mean the story is entirely wrong.

We know it's physically impossible for a middle eastern nomad to gather two of every animal on the planet. One simply could not build a boat big enough. Further if you want to say humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time you'll have to make room for them too. We might as well include the Cambrian explosion from a half billion years ago too. In total you've got a minimum of millions of species just to gather the well known ones. More likely such an action would have to include billions of animals.

But god is infinitely powerful, maybe he just created a pocket universe inside of the ark? Possibly, but there's nothing stated about it in the story. God might've also instructed other cultures to similarly build arks but that's unlikely given the story doesn't include such an idea. Further historically we have beautiful human historical records going beyond the hypothetical time of the flood. The oldest living plants known to man are over 20,000 years old.

How did noah gather the animals from all over the world? Well that's difficult to explain, if god had physically moved noah the friction of moving so fast would probably kill him. God could've slowed down time to allow this but there's no mention of such a miracle. God could've vested noah with superhuman powers but again no mention of this.

How did noah deliver all of the animals from all over the world? More importantly how did he locate them in the right environments? If we look at how invasive species take over based on modern human travels it's very likely that noah would've accidentally established invasive species all over the planet traveling in his slow boat.

Where is the boat? To date no evidence has been provided for a real noahs ark. Quite a lot of hoaxes in the last ten years alone but when push came to shove all were identified as hoaxes.

Where's the evidence of the flood? It rained 40 days and 40 nights, of course rain would never actually flood the planet because the more rain that falls the more rain water that evaporated. Glaciers could've melted but god doesn't describe this, presumably because the writers were unfamiliar with glaciers. Even if glaciers did melt all of the land would not be flooded. God could've transported a large amount of water vapor to the planet but the sudden addition of enough water to flood the tops of mountains would increase the weight of the planet monsterously. We'd have significant evidence of such a geological event.

For example we do have evidence of a 200 foot wall of water flooding the Columbia river valley in oregon. This happened because a glacier gave way allowing a massive freshwater lake (think a great lake) to drain in hours. There are very noticeable structures, massive boulders placed into the middle of wide open rolling hills, 30 foot sand bars and ripple marks only apparent from the air, etc etc. Where is the floods? Did god just flood around the earth with some magical substance that killed everything except plants?

Perhaps a flood in the area did occur. Perhaps thousands of people die. We know very well that more people die in the desert each year from flash floods than do of thirst, perhaps in ancient times a real flash flood occurred carrying away a village or even several villages. Or perhaps the story started out as nothing more than a fable that was written down and somehow got included in what to believe literally happened. Many early cultures had concluded (wrongly) that their areas made up the entire world.

Frankly to believe the flood literally occurred is... well to be honest it's simply funny.

[Dominicvs]

Atheist or Theist: Theist

Religion: Roman Catholic

Born into faith: Yes

Reason for current belief: I believe, via my interpretations of the Bible that the Catholic church was the original faith founded by man, inspired by God.

Origin of Existence: Creation

Philosophy on life: Life is what it is, we are here to stay until death in this universe of ours.

Morals: I believe firmly in respect, honour, loyalty and trust. Without these in society, you have a breakdown.

Self-Discipline: I do believe in restricting oneself in order to be what you are able to be. Without restrictions, we have an even balance of good and bad, with restrictions, we can limit the bad.

I'm not as up tight, conservative as I sound. I studied evolution, science, biology and I still concluded with myself that there are too many faults with those theories. I like to educate myself, and always think out of the square, my father is quite conservative, I am not, I accept all sexualities, races and creeds. I have gay, black, Muslim friends, I find differences are the best part of society, it creates culture. All faiths are just as likely to be correct as the next.

[Humble Warrior]

I am a neopagan polytheist, currently practising Wicca, a modern neopagan religions based on Western Esoterica and Occult traditions as well as European, mainly British, mythology and folk magic. Something people might not know about Wicca, considering the influx of new agers and fluffies, is that it had a history of being a highly traditionalistic and initiatory religion. It's only in the past thirty years or so has it gradually shifted towards being more variable and heterodox. I attempt to be middle-of-the-road: mostly conventional, but practising on my own or with just a couple others. But also not into the very heterodox tendencies that some newbies espouse.

I believe in a core observation of ethics based the Aristotelian ethic of reciprocity or the Golden Rule. My opinion is that happiness, true happiness, is the ultimate moral good; but it should be pursued in ways that to do not impede the happiness of others. One is responsible for one's own actions and the consequences, both positive & negative. Claims of "The devil made me do it" simply do not fly. I am quite existentialist when it comes to this: because our perception of the world is in our hands, so are our actions. You have no excuse for doing evil deeds; your actions are your responsibility. This fits with Wicca's traditional ethical beliefs, which is that one must take responsibility for one's actions and be tolerant and open towards others: "Do what you will, if it harms none".

As a hard polytheist, I believe very strongly that all the gods are individual beings with their own personalities and associations. I now worship Pan and Hecate. Alongside them, I do venerate guardian spirits and tutelary spirits, which I see as lesser gods.

The philosophers I am most influenced by are Plato, Pythagoras, Locke, Marx, and Sartre. I also take a lot of influence from Sallustius, in the area of theology, and Scott Cunningham and Ray Buckland for my religious practices.

I decided to check your Religious proile out and wow! That`s complex. But do you really believe? Do they actually do anything for you? If the gods are individual personalities are they subject to responses to mortals? The Christian God says `You cannot tempt the Lord your God`, meaning you can`t trick or goad him into doing something or responding just for someone`s vanity, but I would`ve thought gods like Pan and Hecate would be vulnerable. meh, just my musings.

Well thanks for your candid words.

[Squiggle]

Of course he doesnt actually believe it.

[MaximiIian]

Of course he doesnt actually believe it.

Why would you say that? Because you can't conceive that others might believe differently than you? Because you can't conceptualise that other people have different experiences, different perception, and come to different conclusions than you do?

But do you really believe?

For the most part, yes. There's a lot there that is speculation, and I believe in it fideistically. But there are portions that are things I have felt through ritual and vision, and believe them because I have experienced them.

Do they actually do anything for you?

I believe so, yes.

If the gods are individual personalities are they subject to responses to mortals?

How do you mean? That the gods are empowered by human responses? I don't think so, for the most part. However, I do think that they can develop a relationship with people just as much as people can cultivate a relationship with the divine. Through mutual ritual and visionary experiences.

[Humble Warrior]

Of course he doesnt actually believe it.

I humour at least once (without ridicule) everyone no matter how silly they may sound, just to see for myself, especially if they go so far as to stick it permanently in their sig. Hence the probing questions. I would prefer his own answer though rather than someone else`s. I learned a long time ago to question everything I see written on the `internets`.

@MaximiIian:

Just saw your response.

Why would you say that? Because you can't conceive that others might believe differently than you? Because you can't conceptualise that other people have different experiences, different perception, and come to different conclusions than you do?

This is exactly why i am interested. I like to see different views since everyone has them from different experiences in life. And who knows? Maybe they found the answers!

Thankyou for your answers. This kind of stuff always fascinates me and makes me think.