What is it that YOU believe in?

[Siberys]

What is it that you believe in, in terms of gods and such?

Well, my opinion that because of the bible, people are told what to
believe in. A good percentage of people at least believe in 1 god, dunno
how much though. Now, my questions.

What do you believe in? Do you believe in the teachings of the bible, or
do you believe in the word of god. There is a difference.

Why do you believe in this? Were you raised to believe in god, or was it
that you chose? Do you honestly believe this?

With how much influence there is on god, do you believe there is such a thing
as an athiest? Note, just by saying the name god alone means you believe it
exists. "I don't believe in god," is hypocrisy as you mention that god exists
yet you don't believe he exists.

Is there such a thing as "God," or is it something else? A belief structure?
A higher life form? Just in your opinion, what is god to you?

Do you believe in the evoloutionary theory, or the creation? Why?


Now, this isn't so much as a debate, as a debate can get quite hectic with
what people believe in. It's an opinion thread, just what is it that you
believe in.

I'll answer first.

Ever since I found out that it is, in my opinion, impossible to not believe
in god, I became neutral on all religions. I do believe there is a higher
life form out there, not necessarily a god. I do believe there is punishment
for "sins," but not necessarily a mystical hell. I do believe that people watch
over us, but again, not necessarily angels. I respect that everyone has the right
to their religion, but I do not involve myself in any. I respect a majority of
the teachings within the religion, but I do not believe that it was all an
influence of something higher.

In my opinion, I think that society has become too used to the bible and such,
that they forgot all of it's teachings and virtues. It's like the pledge of
allegiance, listening to it every day became a habit, for at least me when I
was growing up.

I don't believe there is such a thing as an athiest, because an athiest is
a person who doesn't have belief in anything of a higher life form. We have
yet to prove that life forms from out of this planet exist, but that does
not mean they don't.

I believe in the evoloutionary theory, not because I think the creation one is
just plain bad. It has it's sense about it, but I think that the evoloution just
makes more logical sense.

I'm not saying any of you are wrong, because none of you are, but I am saying
that this is what I believe in.

[Magrus]

I've gone into this before, but...what the heck.

1. I have my own religion, I refuse to preach, and won't discuss unless asked to do so. I view preaching and trying to convert others as wrong, ignorant and rude.

2. My religion is polytheistic, meaning I believe in more than one deity. I happen to believe in other deities outside of the ones I worship, however I simply do not believe they are worth worshipping, and hence, they don't fall in with those I do worship.

3. I do believe in organized religion, as I believe organized religion can be corrupted and warped in order to fuel human prejudice, stereotypes, hatreds, greed and other negative things. War, disease, famine, death, etc have all been caused by organized religions, all in the name of "good" and "god".

4. I believe everyone should be able to hold their own beliefs without being pressure to hold different ones. Also, anyone should be able to believe anything they want. Anything. However, once it goes past believing and enters into speaking or acting my view differs. Anything causing harm to another being without "good reason" is wrong in my view. "Good reason" being self defense, or in defense of an innocent.

Eh...that's all I can think of for right now.

[Lasher]

I was raised in a not-so-devout christian family, though I was never very enthusiastic about it. Still, Bible knowledge always comes in usefull.
I don't believe god would make us burn in hell for any reason, and that punishment for evil(not sins) comes around in Karma.

I'm convinced that there is a god, and one quite close to the Judeo-Christian one, but that it's priesthood has warped and ravaged It into a "teaching", "guiding", "judging" Thing.

[Phreddie]

I'll say this regarding religion:
While I am a registered Christian, I dont exactly believe in God, what I do believe is that life is to short to be spent worshipping something that might not come through for you in the end, spend life the way you want to, and you'll have no regrets, personally, I dont want to be happy my entire life, I want to be depressed, I want to be extremely happy, I want to experience the extremes and in betweens of every emotion, every mental experience that I can, I don't want to lead a life limited to finding happiness, because most likely I would stop when I found the Societal norm for Happy, but it may not be happy for me, Happy for me is being content with my life, having no regrets, and not wanting anything more, in essence, I want to die happy, because if Im happy and IM not dead, then Im either Dying, or I did something wrong, I want to feel the way people say is happy, and sad, but seeings as definitions for feelings are all relative to what people think about them selves, I dont want to feel what I would consider being happy until Im dead, and if there is a Heaven, and a Hell, just like in the Divine Comedy, then I know write where I would fit in: Purgatory, not infinite bliss, and not infinite torment, more of a medium between the two, if possible i would rather have a pass, that I could go any where I wanted for as long as I wanted, because personally I believe that an eternity of Bliss would get old after a while... but those are jsut my thought, my 'religion' is my philosophy on life, not some book written thousands of years ago.

[ik911]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siberys With how much influence there is on god, do you believe there is such a thing as an athiest? Note, just by saying the name god alone means you believe it exists. "I don't believe in god," is hypocrisy as you mention that god exists yet you don't believe he exists.

I just want to set this straight. God is a name that people give to a higher life form that they think exists. If you do not think there is a higher life form as such, then it is not hypocrisy to say you don't believe in that higher life form which they call God. However, "that higher life form" that you speak of in the previous sentence is called "God", so you can leave a part out as they are the same. That leaves "I don't believe in God". You could also say "I don't believe in that higher life form." However, the word 'that' now refers to nothing, so when talking about the monotheistic Christian/Catholic god, we prefer using the first sentence as it is instantly clear which God is meant.

Hmmm, scratch that. I do think I see where your statement about hypocrisy comes from now. The word "in". But to believe "in" God does not only mean you believe that he has powers and abilities and control, but also his very existance. When one says to not believe "in" God, he means that he thinks God does not exist. It's just a way of saying it.

Having said all that: I don't believe in anything. I think it's a bit pointless to believe in something that only exists in your mind, for any other evidence of God is not here on earth. Then again, I would not be very surprised if there are higher beings toying with our reality, because there's lots of amazing things floating in our galaxy, one of which being earth, ofcourse. This is one amazing blue ball we live on.

[ch85us2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siberys Ever since I found out that it is, in my opinion, impossible to not believe in god, I became neutral on all religions. I do believe there is a higher life form out there, not necessarily a god. I do believe there is punishment for "sins," but not necessarily a mystical hell. I do believe that people watch over us, but again, not necessarily angels. I respect that everyone has the right to their religion, but I do not involve myself in any. I respect a majority of the teachings within the religion, but I do not believe that it was all an influence of something higher. In my opinion, I think that society has become too used to the bible and such, that they forgot all of it's teachings and virtues. It's like the pledge of allegiance, listening to it every day became a habit, for at least me when I was growing up. I believe in the evoloutionary theory, not because I think the creation one is just plain bad. It has it's sense about it, but I think that the evoloution just makes more logical sense. I'm not saying any of you are wrong, because none of you are, but I am saying that this is what I believe in.

Ditto. Im to lazy to type that right now though.

Im kind of inclined to believe a higher power created the universe, but not all the life and that, just the actual matter.

[Lasher]

No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn
-Jim Morrison

[Kipi]

As I have stated in profile-thread, I do believe in God but not in Church. Now I'm going more detalijed about it:

First of all, as Siberys mentioned already, there is huge difference in wether person believes in God or Bible. If one believes in God, he thinks that there is some higher power, but if he believes in Bible, then the god is Christian god. Also, believeing in Bible makes it that the person more or less believe what is said in it.

I do not believe in Bible. In fact, I do not believe in Church overall. The Bible is, after all, important only to Church. But, I still believe in God. The God I believe does have nothing to do with Bible.

I'm from somewhat christian family. The decision of not believing what Church says has been totally my own. The reason can be found from history. As some of you may already know, I'm very interested in history and archelogy. Now, if we study the history of Christianity and Church, it's very easy to see how much and often Church has lied, changed attitude towards different things, and adopted things from original cultures and then claimed that those adoptions are their old tradition. It's very easy to see how Church has denied that something is not true, hunted and even killed those who have claimed otherwise, just because there has been no mention of it in Bible or priests doesn't like it. It's not even rare that priests have been thinking their own personal power, career and future while making such claims. It's also very easy to see how members of Church has killed thousands of people, and still claiming that their religion is very open-minded.

Also, let's think for a moment what kind of versions there has been of God during different ages. At times, the God has been teached to be very friendly, forgiving nad loving. At other times God has been thinked as "Big Judge" (sorry, no offense meant, but that's just so good term to describe it) who will punish from every sin. There are dozens of other descriptions, not so common but still used at some time in history. And why is it that there are so many of those? Basically, the different version has been used in different situation. If Church saw that their control and power was threated, the used "angry" version, and so on. So, how can I believe their God if I can't be sure what even they themself think of the right version?

Still, as I do not believe in Bible and Church, I think that everybody has right to choose their own religion. If someone thinkg that he wants to believe in Bible, it's fine to me. I'm not going to stop talking such persons or anything else similiar.

[dj_venom]

I believe someone put everything, here if it was a few chemicals, someone had to have put them here.

I also believe in evolution, and know that I came from a fleshy little thing licking the bottom of the sea .

However, I think that the whole idea of teaching and punishments is simply because human's have a habbit of not being able to self-regulate. In that, if someone was simply told not to steal, then they might steal if they know they won't be caught, however if someone is told, if you steal, you will be punished, even if you are not caught here, you will spend Eternity in torture etc etc.

Which to me is fine, because if it helps keep the knife out of your back, then I'm all for it.

[Oskatat]

I believe, kind off, in a higher being. I just don't believe that it cares much

I believe in evolution and science, because evolution sounds logical and science just shows again and again how beautifull our world actualy is.

I believe in religion because it gives us hints on how to live our lives without harm to others, but I don't believe in church as it is a selfish institution (I excuse for the generalisation, there are plenty examples of altruisme) not intent on the well being of individuals but on the well being of the church.

So what is left? I believe in everything 'god' created. The world. Not the bible, not a church, temple or mosque. Those are how other people interperted it, which is not my way

[Fiona]

I'm an atheist. Apparently I don't exist. *poof*

[Aegis]

Quote:

What do you believe in? Do you believe in the teachings of the bible, or do you believe in the word of god. There is a difference.

The way this question is worded, it is very obvious you are primarily targetting Christians. With that in mind, I shall attempt to do the same in answering. There is a fundemental acknowledgement and belief regarding the bible. I am not speaking of the liberal vs. fundementalists of the religion, so do not confuse what I am saying, and what they are.

The Bible was written, as having been inspired by the Divine word. As far back as the Old Testament/Torah, the writings were divinly inspired to those that wrote it, be it by angel, spirit or the divine presence. The New Testament is no different. This is an excepted belief of all major Christian organizations. If you read scripture, you are presumably reading the word of God.

A little thing to look for that supports this accepted belief is in the reliefs and stainglass images of Saints. Often you will see them with a small animal on their shoulder, which is called a Tetramorph. The Tetramorph is the source of the divine inspiration; essentially, it is God, or one of God's agents dictating/inspiring the authors of the books of the Bible.

Having said that, there is both historical, and spiritual grounds for beliefing in the teachings of the Bible as being the word of God. You cannot have one with the other.

Quote:

With how much influence there is on god, do you believe there is such a thing as an athiest? Note, just by saying the name god alone means you believe it exists. "I don't believe in god," is hypocrisy as you mention that god exists yet you don't believe he exists.

Personally, I would like to ignore this comment, especially considering how preachy and ignorant it comes off as. You cannot simply claim existence, or acknowledgment of existence simply because you say the word 'God'. Sorry, but that is not quite how it works. I can go around saying 'There is a Leprachaun in my pocket.', but that does not mean Leprachauns exist, much less that I believe it to be true. A name does not imply existence, simple as that. The same holds true of your reasoning, which is greatly flawed. To use your analogy of Aliens. Yes, you are right in claiming that just because we have yet to encounter them, it does not mean they are not there. But the opposite could be just as true. We could be the only ones. It is just highly unlikely in this particular case. In the case of God, we have yet to prove existence, but saying that alone is proof is a fallicy, because we do not know. Until we have a definite answer, we cannot say god exists, or does not exists. Simple, no?

@Kipi: Interesting little tidbit, when speaking of the difference of God in the Old Testament/Torah, and God in the Testament. When you really begin to examine Scripture, you begin to learn that the Judeo G-d is actually different than the God mentioned in the New Testament. Two seperate entities have been created, and yet fused. Quite fascinating.

As for the adopting older traditions and rituals, you are true, but that was done before the Catholic church held any real power or authority, much of which came about with a merging of the Poly-theistic Roman religions, and the Christian one. This occured roughly aound 312 C.E., with Emperor Constantine's conversion. The basis behind such a merging was not hostile in any manner, but it was a way to introduce and welcome a populace that used these traditions and rituals already. Basically, what the church 'stole' was little more than what the people brought with them to Christianity, and what the church allowed them to celebrate to keep them happy.

Quote:

I just want to set this straight. God is a name that people give to a higher life form that they think exists. If you do not think there is a higher life form as such, then it is not hypocrisy to say you don't believe in that higher life form which they call God. However, "that higher life form" that you speak of in the previous sentence is called "God", so you can leave a part out as they are the same. That leaves "I don't believe in God". You could also say "I don't believe in that higher life form." However, the word 'that' now refers to nothing, so when talking about the monotheistic Christian/Catholic god, we prefer using the first sentence as it is instantly clear which God is meant. Hmmm, scratch that. I do think I see where your statement about hypocrisy comes from now. The word "in". But to believe "in" God does not only mean you believe that he has powers and abilities and control, but also his very existance. When one says to not believe "in" God, he means that he thinks God does not exist. It's just a way of saying it. Having said all that: I don't believe in anything. I think it's a bit pointless to believe in something that only exists in your mind, for any other evidence of God is not here on earth. Then again, I would not be very surprised if there are higher beings toying with our reality, because there's lots of amazing things floating in our galaxy, one of which being earth, ofcourse. This is one amazing blue ball we live on.

Oh, and Newbie, well said.

[slade]

I believe there is a God.....I was raised to believe in God.....but after I turned 18 it was my choice whether or not I would continue believing in God or existing to my churches....I always had that choice to choose,but I think when I turned 18 years ago it felt like what I wanted to believe in was really up to me and it was going to be a big discision because no one was going to give me a little push or ask me to do this or that. so a few years back I decided to "be Free" like some thought I should do......I did and my life was horrible....other religions that I heard from other people were very hypocritical....but i didnt blame the religion I blamed it on people....religions arent bad just the people who ruin it for their religion......well I re-established my self in my religion again with open arms ......Im the only one in my family who is really religious....the rest believe the is a God,but thats it.

I preach, but not to convert...but instead give people a message...what they do with it is there problem....if there interested in learnig more they'll usually tell me if not they'll tell me too.....or they'll come out butt naked to let me know....yeah Im looking at you Aegis

I agree with Aegis on the part of the Word of God and bible...I believe it to be the same.

[Vicsun]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siberys What is it that you believe in, in terms of gods and such?

I wrote a paragraph here and then I erased it after I re-read it. Then I wrote something different and erased it again. I did that about four times.
I really don't want to write the usual wishy-washy crap about 'being agnostic' or 'believing in a higher power' (on a sidenote, would that higher power not per definition be God?) because that's just code-speak for 'I haven't actually given it any thought". I'm probably just trying really hard to avoid saying I'm an atheist, since, as I mentioned later in the post, most self-described atheists make me cringe.

Quote:

Why do you believe in this? Were you raised to believe in god, or was it that you chose? Do you honestly believe this?

I was raised by mostly agnostic parents in a country which had outlawed religion.

Quote:

With how much influence there is on god, do you believe there is such a thing as an athiest? Note, just by saying the name god alone means you believe it exists.

That's the least thought-out string of words I've managed to read in a while. How does uttering a word imply belief in the concept that the word describes? You should know that I talk about aliens on a constant basis. Aliens and flying spaghetti monsters.

Quote:

Do you believe in the evoloutionary theory, or the creation? Why?

Up to this point my post was just good hearted fun. Now I'm rolling up my sleeves as you just struck a nerve.

I know a lot of people who describe themselves as atheists and react extremely smugly whenever someone as much as mentions religion, looking down upon and patronizing everything and everyone religious. I hate them with a burning passion normally reserved for zealots who won't shut up about Jesus and my soul. I don't think belief in God or participance in rituals specific to a religion implies ignorance or stupidity on the part of the believer.

When it comes to 'intelligent design' or 'creationism', however, I quickly abandon any sort of patience or consideration I might have previously held and sever any sort of communication with whoever it is that's trying to tell me that 'evolution is just a theory, guy!'. Belief in creationism or intelligent 'creationism lite' design does indicates both an absence of critical thought and ignorance, as well as a serious lack of rational thought. There, I said it. Anyone who believes in creationism is at the very least uninformed and lacks all knowledge of what sciense is and how it functions. I'll go as far as saying the very concept of 'believing' in creation (as opposed to evolution), is a misnomer since it's not something that's up to belief. Not believing in evolution is like not believing that parallel lines don't cross. It's absurd and nonsensical.

[Aegis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slade I believe there is a God.....I was raised to believe in God.....but after I turned 18 it was my choice whether or not I would continue believing in God or existing to my churches....I always had that choice to choose,but I think when I turned 18 years ago it felt like what I wanted to believe in was really up to me and it was going to be a big discision because no one was going to give me a little push or ask me to do this or that. so a few years back I decided to "be Free" like some thought I should do......I did and my life was horrible....other religions that I heard from other people were very hypocritical....but i didnt blame the religion I blamed it on people....religions arent bad just the people who ruin it for their religion......well I re-established my self in my religion again with open arms ......Im the only one in my family who is really religious....the rest believe the is a God,but thats it. I preach, but not to convert...but instead give people a message...what they do with it is there problem....if there interested in learnig more they'll usually tell me if not they'll tell me too.....or they'll come out butt naked to let me know....yeah Im looking at you Aegis I agree with Aegis on the part of the Word of God and bible...I believe it to be the same.

Stopped you from coming, though, did it not?

I feel as though I should add something in the thread, just so as people know I am not attempting to troll (as I happen to find religion quite fascinating, to the point in which it is my topic of expertise, and my future, hopeful, field of study/research). I find anybody who has found religion to be an admirable person. They can take faith and strength in something, without a tangible form of evidence. I lack such an ability, though this does not mean I seek it. People are able to work through difficult times in their lives, deaths, sickness and other such tragedies, and they are able to do so because of the strength they have in their belief and faith.

Some people, like myself, have found other ways to cope with such things. Being an Atheist, I have no need or desire to believe in a God, or a Divine Being. Perhaps I am simply at a different point in my life, or I take greater solace in tangible existence. I am not quite sure. It is my hope, though, to someday learn why people are so different on matters of religion. Why some people seek to push it on others, why some are able to just accept their belief with nothing in return, or why some do not seem to have a need for it.