What is your religion / faith?

[rewind]

the way i see it i was christened(sp?) and that makes me christian. i'd say im an atheist though. perhaps im wrong but its never bothered me so i wont let me bother me now either

definition of a christian:
One who knows and accepts Jesus as the lord and saviour of his/her life, and beleives in him without question.

The act of christening is your parents saying that you will be a catholic. it was their choice not yours. baptism or conformation is where you yourself make the decision to follow the faith of your own accord and not that of your parents.

 

[Bon]

The quandary that remains is that IF God revealed himself to us now we would have no choice but to beleive in his existence, and it would not be faith, rather knowledge.

But is not knowledge the foundation for improving ourselfs? If we had the Knowledge that god exists, that there is something past this life, that he himself said he wouldnt fix our screwups, would that not make us better as a species?

There would be noneed for greed and wealth, as everyone would know that everything they do here, would be nothing in comparison to what he could tell us.

 

[Echowitch]

Im a Pagan. The specific branch is British Traditional Witchcraft, but using the term Pagan or Tree Hugging Hippy is easier for people and means less bizarre looks. Basically no belief in any deities, the only big all powerful thing I believe in is nature, of which we are all a part of. And Im opposed to organised religion. Belief's are fine, just not organised religion as it always involves one or more muppets (generally going by the term priests) telling everyone else how to think and everyone else switching off their brains and believing it all.

 

[Rider]

mmm.

generally i'd put myself in the agnostic position. like pete, i am of a scientific persuasion, and also frequently find that current science only explains things so far.

my background is chemistry - allbeit organic, rather than quantum - but i could never get past the questions "but what is it actually made of?" and "where did it come from then?" without thinking there may be more than science could cope with.

take matter. an earlier poster commented on the fact that matter had to come from other matter (or some such) - but in actual fact there is no such thing as matter.

i'll explain (kind of). take a piece of stuff, anything. break it down and you have atoms (or ions if you want to get picky). basic high school chemistry. go further those atoms/ions are made of 3 other particles - protons, neutrons, electron. still rudimentrary stuff (and not exactly correct, but simplified). anyway, these particles in turn are made from (in some cases) combinations of other yet smaller particles. now at some stage these particles stop being particles per se, but become nothing more than quantified energy packets.

and here is where the science fails me every time.
Q: "where did the energy come from?"
A: "it has always been there".

this handy little thing called the conservation of energy means that it can never go away and must always be there. it explains the big bang, so far as all that energy in one place creates a supermassive amount of matter, that can no longer coexist in one place, so......BOOM! it all seperates.

very good.

so where did that energy come from again?

oh, that's right, it's always been there........

erm.....how?

so for my mind it gets stuck at this point. until proven otherwise i think there may be some form of something from beyond our universe's existance that provide the initial energy......but then again it might not. i'll just sit on the fence while science decides...

the haydron collider may stuff all this up and confue me even more however (if they can ever get it to work.....) by proving that humans can make a big bang in a lab.

 

[onasilverbike]

I pray at the church of Canon, creator of the mightiest image capturing devices known to mankind!

I am also a regular at the church of Gaffer tape - it is the Force, it has a light side and a dark side and holds the universe together!

 

[Gassy]

I don't believe in religion or a God or many Gods.

Can someone show me one example of something good coming from religion ?

Also the idea you can be a mass muderer and commit the most hideous crimes against humanity but then go to confession and be forgiven in the eyes of god because you said sorry really tickles me.Obviously this is only one religion.

 

[Clompy]

I hear your calling to the church of gaffer tape pete, amen to that

 

[ReservoirFrog]

Dyeism at the mo, but tempted by Eclipseist teachings!

Anyone here read a book called "God's Debris" ?

It basically suggests that any omnipotent God would be essentially bored, as it would know all that was and all that could be apart from what would happen if it were to destroy itself.
This would be it's only challenge and so it would do so.
The book theorises that The Big Bang was this event and that those first Hydrogen atoms that became Helium etc. etc. and by extension all physical matter today, is infact made of God's debris.
Of course this also means that God no longer exists as an entity but does within all things.
This ties in nicely with a few different belief systems.

Not necessarily my beliefs but an interesting thought exercise.

RF

 

[bmw]

christoned Presbyterian, but have no interest in religion, and in my opinion is the creator of most wars past and present

 

[outkastmike]

Methodist................Life is to be endured not enjoyed