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View Poll Results: What religion, if any, do you follow?
Christianity 20 37.04%
Judaism 3 5.56%
Islam 1 1.85%
Hinduism 0 0%
Chinese Traditional 0 0%
Buddhism 1 1.85%
No Religion 29 53.70%
Voters: 54. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 09-15-2019, 03:41 PM
 
Location: Heidelberg, Germany
326 posts, read 669,618 times
Reputation: 480

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Quote:
The True Christian God is the one in The Book of Job. He places Satan in Control of the earth.
And why would he do that?

Last edited by mensaguy; 09-15-2019 at 04:44 PM.. Reason: Fixed quote
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:48 PM
 
Location: NY
5,209 posts, read 1,789,541 times
Reputation: 3423
I'm a Christian--more on the contemplative side of things. I have been vexed by the problem of suffering for as long as I can remember. I can't say that my religious experience has answered that for me, but all through my questioning I have had the sense that in spite of how I perceive reality, there is a loving force at the core of it. It's more of a feeling than anything else. Getting out of my own head and experiencing just being through things like yoga and meditation is what leads me to the sense that there is a God. Why Christianity? Basically, love. In spite of how it is carried out by actual Christians, it is supposed to be a religion of love. The incarnation---God suffering with us---somehow helps me to deal with the problem of suffering.

I've also never seen a conflict between science and religion. It's like the separation of church and state. I just don't let them mix. Things work better that way for me.
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:58 PM
 
1,378 posts, read 390,714 times
Reputation: 185
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan_from_Germany View Post

Children die every day through conflict, hunger, accidents or disease and innocent good people lose loved ones for no good reason. That seems so wrong to me that no religious explanation I have heard to date could even come close to explaining these tragedies.
Yes that is all explained in The Book of Job. Satan's place is on the earth, traversing every square inch & causing all those problems you abhor. While God watches from Heaven. That is the spiritual facts of life.
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Old 09-15-2019, 04:09 PM
 
Location: Long Island
1,790 posts, read 1,857,894 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan_from_Germany View Post
May I ask how you explain the extreme suffering that many good, innocent people have to endure on this planet?

How can any "good God" allow this? I understand the "god God" concept is more a new testament thing and not so much an old testament or Hebrew Bible concept, but I would like to know your views.
What is there to explain? Death, hunger, and pain are just as much part of life as is birth, contentment, and joy. God hasn't promised this world would be free of discomfort or pain; He is responsible for both the light and the dark, for good and for evil. Both are as much part of our world as are the air and water.

And both are part of us. God created man with two natures; a good inclination and a bad (or base) inclination. One drives us to be holy and help our fellow man, and one drives us to be the opposite. While both are needed to make us fully human, we choose which to follow to a greater degree. I bring that part up because God did not give us a paradise with everything we need (well, He did, but we chose to leave it). He gave us a world that can be cruel and harsh, but he also gave us the tools to take care of ourselves and each other. Rather than asking yourself "Where was God?", have you ever asked "Where was man?". If we have the knowledge and resources to feed the world but choose not to because it isn't profitable enough, is that God's fault or our own?


I just want to add that there are many schools of thought in Judaism, and these are my views. There undoubtedly will be many of my fellow Jews who disagree with me.

Last edited by JB from NC; 09-15-2019 at 04:53 PM..
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Old 09-15-2019, 06:01 PM
 
Location: Willamette Valley, Oregon
6,830 posts, read 3,203,413 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2x3x29x41 View Post
I'm an atheist, because of insufficient evidence of deities.

[The word insufficient is accurate, yet a massive understatement - the only evidence is personal revelation, which is no more compelling than the testimony of claimed UFO abductees or claimed time-travelers]



I am an atheist and an agnostic. The terms are not mutually exclusive. However, I consider the latter an irrelevant term. I mean, I'm agnostic about Darth Vader because I cannot prove that he doesn't exist, but I don't feel the need to point this out with a special term for my lack of Darth Vader belief.

Thus, the agnostic label strikes me as pointlessly self-evident.

It may be self-evident, but I consider it an important distinction from Atheism. I don't know for a fact that there is no god. I haven't seen conclusive evidence either way. I guess I'll have to wait until I'm dead.
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Old 09-15-2019, 06:23 PM
 
Location: Heidelberg, Germany
326 posts, read 669,618 times
Reputation: 480
Quote:
Originally Posted by JB from NC View Post
God created man with two natures; a good inclination and a bad (or base) inclination. One drives us to be holy and help our fellow man, and one drives us to be the opposite. While both are needed to make us fully human, we choose which to follow to a greater degree. I bring that part up because God did not give us a paradise with everything we need (well, He did, but we chose to leave it).
Thanks for another constructive post. However, I note that believers often state there beliefs as if they were facts. The same can be seen in your posts. To belief something to be true doesn't necessarily make it true. Of course that also goes the other way. Just because I don't believe there is a God doesn't mean I'm right.

What doesn't make sense to me is the following: God is supposedly all powerful and all knowing, right?

So he gave us a paradise but must have known that we would leave it because of the bad side he gave us. Why give us a bad side? The outcome must have been known to him before he even created us, if that is what one believes.

It seems like a weak explanation to me that God gave us a chance but we screwed it up. Again, he must have known we would screw it up. Why not create better people in the first place? What interest should he have to see all the wrong decision we make. And all the suffering we have to endure, often through no fault of our own.

I try to be a good person and do the right thing. I call it my moral compass and being guided by ethical principals. I don't feel the need for a God or a religion to be a decent human being. I have a feeling there are as many bad people amongst the believers across all religions as there are bad people amongst the non-believers. So what is the point of religion or indeed a God if it doesn't make our world a better place?

Now, I'm not suggesting we should not responsible for our own actions. Quite the contrary in fact. But to me that means questioning one's one actions and inactions and comparing them to what we feel would be the right thing to do and not necessarily what a religion tells us we should or shouldn't do.

Last edited by Stefan_from_Germany; 09-15-2019 at 07:04 PM..
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Old 09-15-2019, 06:48 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
21,481 posts, read 8,667,598 times
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I am like you, Stefan, an agnostic tending toward atheism. I actually envy people who are religious because it seems to bring them spiritual comfort as well as social benefits by providing a place for believers to meet and form relationships with one another. It's lonely being an agnostic! We don't get to have weekly meetings, there are no hymns of praise and no social events where we can meet like-minded nonbelievers.

Why do I not believe? As others have said, there is no evidence of a higher power, at least not one that takes an interest in human affairs, dispenses wisdom, metes out punishment and grants favors. These are human concepts. It is curious to me that believers refer to God as "he" even though supposedly in heaven we are pure spirits with neither bodies and nor genders. I would love to believe that there is such an entity in control of everything. But to me God seems like a story the ancient people invented to make sense of a senseless world.

If there were a higher power, I feel that this entity would be far beyond our human capacity to comprehend. I also believe that this entity would be unable to communicate with us and would be indifferent to our fate because it would not be anything like a human being and thus would not have the kind of human feelings that are ascribed to the supreme being in religious writings.

The book "God is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens explains how I feel better than anything, although I thought he was a bit too harsh in his judgments. It's true, as he says, that religion has caused a lot of evil in this world such as torture and murder of "heretics" by Catholics during the Inquisition and the torture and murder of Christians by modern-day Muslim extremists. In my view there are still a lot of good, sincere believers in this world, and religion has inspired many to be better people. Jimmy Carter to me exemplifies the best of what religion can do for people. But on the whole, I think that religions that preach that they exclusively own the truth and that all those outside their belief system are damned tend to lead to intolerance.
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Old 09-15-2019, 07:14 PM
 
30,876 posts, read 36,858,638 times
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This is tricky because a lot of people have different connotations of what "religious" is. I find a lot of people mix up religious and spiritual. In an ideal world, the two would be the same. In practice, they're not.

I'm not a churchgoer. But I definitely consider myself a Christian. I met Jesus in a dream many years ago when I was 24. I was not looking for it at all. In fact, when I had the dream I fell asleep in the middle of the day on the couch even though I slept well the night before (and I never sleep on the couch). It was like no other dream. I knew from just one look from Him that he knew me inside and out (flaws and all) and I also knew how much he loved me--much more than any human on earth could love me--all communicated in just one look.

So, depending on some people's perspective my strong faith (I'd say knowledge) makes me religious. I'd say I'm spiritual.
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Old 09-15-2019, 07:54 PM
 
1,378 posts, read 390,714 times
Reputation: 185
Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
I fell asleep in the middle of the day on the couch even though I slept well the night before (and I never sleep on the couch).

The Angel of God stands behind people from dawn till dusk & then takes their soul to Heaven each night. If a person lies down to sleep in the middle of the day, or if a person gets up for a while in the early hours & then goes back to bed, then the angel is placed in a difficult position & gives the person a direct encounter to try & wake their spirit up to the facts of Spiritual life.

99% of spiritual encounters happen when people alter their sleeping pattern & their Angel from God is placed in a spot where it can't go back to Heaven yet & it can't walk behind the human 'so it gives the person a vivid dream or spiritual encounter to try & let the human know it is there with the person.

That is why you had an encounter with The Son of God when you went to sleep during the day.

The Book of Revelations is just some guy who fell asleep at an odd time & turned around & met The Angel of God who takes care of his soul. Of course it knows you personally & loves you. It has cared for you since before you were born. You can meet it anytime. Trust me on this matter. It will soon realise you are well aware of it & will just talk plainly to you 24/7 & manifest physically very often. Believe it.

Religions all started from people meeting their own Angel of God that cares for their soul. Jacob stayed up all night in expectation of fighting his brother in the morning, & the Angel of God that cares for his soul got put in a tough spot because it was supposed to take his soul back to heaven that night, as it did every night. So it was trapped on earth with Jacob & it wrestled with him till dawn, & then it gave him the name "Israel" & returned to standing directly behind him, as it did from dawn till dusk every day. It has happened to me often & I have wrestled with God many times.

Moses went up the mountain & then probably rested, & The Angel of God who always stood behind him appeared & spoke to him. Enoch rested & two Angels of God appeared.

It is when the Angel leaves its place behind you & sometimes They have other Angels who came to visit them & so you will see more than one.

So "Spiritual" as in your own encounter, is what religions are made from. People with closed minds are parroting books word for word & they miss the bigger picture of what is going on worldwide. God is with everyone & interacts with a million people every day the same way He interacted with Moses & all the other prophets.


So get up early & do things for an hour or so, & then lay back down & fall to sleep. Flat on your back if you can. Do that every day & you will have an encounter with your Angel from God every day, or a vivid dream at the very least. It works almost every time believe me. It is what religions all started from.
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Old 09-15-2019, 09:12 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Willamette City View Post
It may be self-evident, but I consider it an important distinction from Atheism. I don't know for a fact that there is no god. I haven't seen conclusive evidence either way. I guess I'll have to wait until I'm dead.
The only difference is that you haven't (from a position of agnosticism) addressed whether you believe the god -claim or not (let alone the God -claim).

So that means I have posted So I'll have to take the Poll after all. I hate being coerced like this! Why am i so oppressed!!
....

Ha! Usual result. Half godsuckers and half goddless bastards. Plus a few Pagans, spaghetti -fetishists, juju -fanciers, flat -earthists and Saucer-flying - Annunaki - founded - the - Sumerians types and other odds and sods.

But I won't post My life -story just now. I have a few more theist apologists in agnostics' clothing to root out and subject, holding up their beltless pants, to a show trial.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-15-2019 at 09:22 PM..
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