religion

[arvut]

Really interesting topic I must say, love the later part where science and stuff comes in =) (im also a big fan of science as its open-minded, mostly anyway..)

I've always considered myself (or been considered by others as) an atheist. Which I nowadays think of as a brief explanation of the fact that I do not believe. Yes that's right, I do not believe in anything at all. As I consider a belief to be a limitation of ones creative thinking. Or a prison for thoughts.

I can however completely understand why others would want to limit themselves to this kind of thinking. It makes life so much easier if you don't like to use your grey matter That's the basic function of laws and such which upholds our crazy society. And I don't blame it too much as it works kinda good most of the time. After all, we humans love programming everything possible, including ourselves

And when I say I don't believe in anything then I really stand by that. Cause that's what my theory of science is all about, keeping an open mind about theories and not believing in one theory at all, just applying the IF and XOR to all thoughts

All this thinking do however get abit messy... So believing in a theory for a time 'til something comes and replaces it with another can be nice aswell. But I don't do that, I let others do it and instead I don't think too much about it all cuz too much chaos of thoughts gives me a headache

Oh, and all this universal stuff should be moved to a new topic IMO, same with the abortion/killing stuff (come on guys and gals, we alrdy have a topic for abortion, use it!)

 

[BruceCM_Aspergic]

If you never go beyond what can be PROVED, you can't have relationships! What do you mean by proof, anyway? How do you prove anything?

 

[Sipe]

Depends of the religion. Some religions are good someones bad. But we humans are the ones who can make even such a peace loving religion like Christianity to look bad. Those "Christians" who tells other people what to do and think instead of doing it themselves are not true Christians. I think that way too many Christians are corrupted and they forgot what Jesus had taught them. Religion should`t become an obsession either.

I would also like to remind you that religion gives many people the reason to live, especially for very poor people. If one day science could prove that there is no God it would crush the believers world. They might get so depressed that they even end up killing themselves because if God does`t exist, there is no reason to live. So, for some people believing in something is a better option than not to believe in anything. It gives the reason to life and do good deeds.

 

[Carl Carter]

@Sipe: I think if it was ever proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that there was no god/s a lot of believers would simply go on believing anyway and ignore the facts.

There is great deal of what I call "willful ignorance" in religious communities, whereby they choose to ignore the most likely/proven explanations in favour of their chosen religious doctrine. We are all creatures of habit.

As for religion holding back tehnology, actually Muslims are responsible for a great deal of advancements; they were the first to develope advanced mathematics, plus numerous mechanical inventions. It isn't so much religion that is at fault, but people (as always). Anyone with a good brain can come up with a series of rules/laws/ideas which would benefit humanity, doesn't mean everyone would follow them. A large part of the problem is our "us and them" psychology. We're still primitive deep down, still "tribal". This applies not only to religion but to many other aspects of modern civilization. It is simply not possible for everyone to agree, it isn't in our nature, and as much as some people might try to deny their nature, it will always come through in the end.

I tend to try and look at religion/superstition from a distance; when man first became capable of abstract thought he had no way of explaining anything. Curiosity and a lack of understanding inevitably leads to fear. The only way to abate such fear is to explain away the unexplained. Early man did this in the only manner he could: with his imagination. From this comes all superstitious and ultimately organised religious belief. Countless years of repetitive reinforcement of said beliefs lead to an inevitable difficulty in shedding such ideas. Human ego is a powerful motivator: we want to believe we're important, that we matter, that our life has meaning; superstition provides all of this and is therefore unlikely ever to be annihilated completely. Proof is irrelevant, only need matters and many people need to believe, for whatever reason; be it comfort, hope for the future or whatever.

I'm just rambling, sorry if I haven't made much sense, but anyhoo...

Incidentally, I'm an atheist; a state I reached after years studying religion and the supernatural.

 

[Sean2222]

I'm agnostic, so I simply open up the possibility of god(s) existing. It's very implausible though.

I think most people who choose to adhere to a religion do so mostly because they fear that life without a god would be meaningless. I also think that the thought of there not being an after-life can cause people great distress and that only a minority of people can get past this fear. This was the case for me back when I was a Christian adherent. However, at this point, even if it was 100% proven that a god didn't exist, I'd be content. And if it was proven that there was a god? Well, what would give me the reason to "worship" it when there are wars, famines, etc.? It just wouldn't make sense. I admit that the thought of there being nothing after death sometimes scares me, but I refuse to believe something just because I want to. But this is only me. If a god didn't exist I can honestly say that, with the knowledge of there being no god, I'd still view the world in a romantic way. By viewing it in a "romantic" way I merely mean a "humanistic" way; I'm a realistic person.

If I'm to convert to a religion in the future (which I highly doubt), I don't know what religion it'll be. I think it would be cliche to convert to Christianity because that's the religion that 95%+ of people where I live adhere to. Buddhism doesn't seem so bad, but the sole reason why you never hear (or seldom hear) of people in the western world converting to it is because Buddhism isn't a "white" religion. I'm a very non-conformist person, so I'd simply adhere to what I feel is the most sensible religion.

Anyway, I'm with Encyclopedia in that I feel that there's more to the world than what can be observed, and I definitely open up the possibility of there being god(s) as it's impossible to disprove them at this point in time. This is why I choose to be agnostic as opposed to atheistic. I also believe that our brains aren't meant to be able to decipher everything. The only things that are observable to humans are the things are brains are "meant" to decode. Does a computer have an understanding of love and affection? No, because computers aren't made to understand these things just like humans probably aren't capable of understanding a lot of things out there.

Something to add: Unlike what some people think, I believe that agnosticism, not atheism, is the most scientific approach to religion. In science, you must always open your mind up to possibilities no matter how infeasible something is.

Only my opinion.

Well since we are giving opinions, I will give mine.
I am not totally religious but I do believe in god and hold many faceted beliefs. I don't necessarily see life without god to be meaningless. We make our own purpose. We cast our own destinies and we can choose to get our strength and direction from a number of sources. I choose to honor that saying where if you can't truly find happiness within yourself, you aren't going to find it elsewhere. But you can find god within yourself as well. So draw what you want from that.

Hmmm again, I'm not sure I agree on your notion of a lost world without an afterlife. We are here right now. We have to make the best of what we have to offer, what is offered to us. You can't look too much into the future or you will forget about the present.

The importance in finding connections with people, and realizing their place and role in our lives is significant. Even for those of us who can't stand to be around people some of the time You can't ignore the amazing encompassing feeling of love. I don't see there being any stronger force out there. People often say they love someone else or something else all too often. Do they really mean it? Or do they not even conceive of what it truly is and are just trying to hold onto something to sustain themselves temporarily.

People are good at fooling themselves. On a daily basis the average person will tell themselves or think to themselves positive things that they may not even believe. But it feels better and more fulfilling than saying hurtful or negative things of ones' self as the alternative. Even if the negative words may lean towards being more accurate or realistic in the moment.

I don't think anyone can really prove a god exists or doesn't exist. It's all in the heart of each individual and what they see. Whether they choose to feel close to a higher power, or to just ignore its existence. I prefer to see one as guidance to me that is over and above my own spirituality. I don't think any person is capable of truly knowing everything there is and in some way belief in god shines a light on some pathway of thought or emotion that we never knew existed.

I'm a realistic person as well. But some thing do defy reality and logic. What I live with and deal with daily always overpowers my own boundaries of what I perceive as logical or sensible. You ahve to trust yourself though inevitably and you aren't going to force anything into your body, mind, heart, or soul that you won't truly accept.

If you are looking to find a religion that you can accept as playing a role in your life, stop looking. I think it will come to you naturally and you won't have to force anything into yourself or go outside too far of what's already inside of you. There are great ideas in the beiefs of so many religions, so don't reduce yourself to some bias based on what the 'majority' thinks or wants. And it's good that you are leaving yourself open to discovering that there is so much more than what you perceive right now.

I disagree, the human brain has the capacity to learn, discover, realize so many things on so many levels. Emotional intelligence is something entirely different than anything our brains can ascertain. I don't really see it as something you can learn. While normal intelligence can be furthered everyday at school, work, etc. Our brains can take us just so far but I believe our hearts hold so much more power and potential .

Well after 'talking' with someone recently I am starting to realize that there is no 'science' to religion. The less logic you use and the more emotion you feel, the closer you get to seeing things for how they truly are. Such as most other things actually. Less thinking, more feeling is usually something I live by (although I do too much of both lol) , whether it is a voluntary or involuntary thing . I just think with asperger's many tend to overuse the logical parts of our being and ignore what is truly more important.

-sean-