Other religions

[Ronasanchez]

Is anyone here into another religion? Any Muslims? Jews? Etc?

[Thurisaz]

 

Hail Thor.

[midniterider]

1 hour ago, Ronasanchez said:

Is anyone here into another religion? Any Muslims? Jews? Etc?

 

Kind of pantheistic here. With a pinch of paganism. And a dash of advaita.

[TABA]

Not aware that we have any current members who have became Jews or Muslims.  I doubt they’d feel at home here, to be honest.  I believe we have at least one member who left Christianity and returned to his Hindu roots, to some extent anyway.  

 

Myself, I’m not into any religion now. 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

No, I dabbled with witchcraft and such for a while, but relaxed into more of a respect for nature and its cycles, connection with the other living things this planet has spawned, and possibly with others elsewhere. Nature isn't really kind, life eats life or at least the remnants. The old song "Old Man River" tells us that nature has been here forever and "must know something, but he don't say nothing, he just keeps rollin' along" not caring if we live or suffer or die. But we are part of it, and I see the cycles of life, and see that many creatures can express kindness and gratitude for kindness, perhaps because it isn't all that common in nature. I see us trashing it at every turn, shitting in our water bowl for money. It can't last much longer. Something will survive and the landscape will change, new things will arise. Maybe something will evolve to eat all the plastic we made. 

 

Here's a famous quote from Carl Sagan about this little planet

 

Carl Sagan in his 1994 book, "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space."
Here's what he wrote about this photo of Earth from 12 billion miles away (Voyager spacecraft):

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us.

On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.

How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.

Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

[Joshpantera]

18 hours ago, Ronasanchez said:

Is anyone here into another religion? Any Muslims? Jews? Etc?

 

We have an ex christianity spirituality section for those who have moved on to other religions or spiritual beliefs. But I'm not aware of any jewish or muslim converts. The main problem is that in the process of seeing what's wrong with christianity, judaism and islam tend to get bull dozed in the process. So people tend more towards new age stuff, paganism, pantheisms, buddhism, hinduism and eastern philosophy more so than moving between abrahamic religions. 

[Tsathoggua9]

I have dabbled a bit in the occult. Tied some "chaos magick" with mixed results. Don't really "believe" in anything, but i'm willing to consider that we are more than just our physical selves.

[MOHO]

Nope.

 

And the reason is once I embraced science and reality to explain the world relying on religion is, clearly, a major step backwards.

 

No offense to those who are "into" other religions and can get something out of them - as long as it harms no one.

[Tsathoggua9]

9 minutes ago, MOHO said:

Nope.

 

And the reason is once I embraced science and reality to explain the world relying on religion is, clearly, a major step backwards.

 

No offense to those who are "into" other religions and can get something out of them - as long as it harms no one.

 

The way I see it is this -- science explains the world around us, while religion explains human culture!  It is a truly great thing to grow out of a slavish devotion to outdated scriptural traditions, but a familiarity with said scripture is probably a good thing, since it helps how people think, or at least have thought, about ultimate origins, morality and such matters.

[Derek]

Nope...because religion is the evil that is holding back human progress. High time to ditch that shit.

[florduh]

Pastafarian and Dudeist Priest here. The other religions are just as silly as Christianity.

[LogicalFallacy]

Ask 10 different people to define religion and you'll get 12 different answers. So let me first define what I mean by religion:

 

Religion is the acceptance of the supernatural in some form or other, and the associated ideology and rituals upon which one bases their life to varying degrees.

 

This definition specifically excludes things often touted as 'religions' e.g. Science, Global Warming, Trump Worship, etc as they do not have the supernatural element required. At best some things like the examples could be described as dogmatic ideologies when taken to the extreme.

 

I see no evidence for anything supernatural. I don't rule it out absolutely, but until we get decent evidence for it you are simply accepting things for which you have no good reason to believe.

 

Thus I have no religion.

 

I understand some find a cultural or personal meaning to religion but personally I see no point in believing things which are not true, even if comforting.

 

Now, what if you just like the culture of a religion but don't believe in the supernatural? - maybe you like attending services because you like the music and the community? Well in that case I wouldn't describe you as religious because you don't actually accept the supernatural, and you probably do not base your entire life on the ideology of it.

[midniterider]

My higher power is also me.

[Joshpantera]

12 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Religion is the acceptance of the supernatural in some form or other, and the associated ideology and rituals upon which one bases their life to varying degrees.

 

This still doesn't work. Remember Robert Tulip, christian atheist? 

 

He's religious without any supernatural beliefs. He's christian. Attends church every week. Argues with theists right along side of atheists. And remains religious about christianity. He's religious about the philosophical content taken from plato and other sources that informed philo and then the NT writers. Because the holidays are oriented to the solstices and equinoxes, he finds value in their naturalistic meanings. And in his case religion is the rejection of the supernatural. And he represents, basically, taking liberal christianity to the far extreme end of the possible spectrum. 

 

Just something to consider when trying to hammer down a definition. 

[Geezer]

I don’t have a problem with Pantheism, but I wouldn’t classify it as a religion. To me it’s more like a philosophical way of looking at the universe, creation, and the laws of science, nature, physics and math.  

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

10 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

This still doesn't work. Remember Robert Tulip, christian atheist? 

 

He's religious without any supernatural beliefs. He's christian. Attends church every week. Argues with theists right along side of atheists. And remains religious about christianity. He's religious about the philosophical content taken from plato and other sources that informed philo and then the NT writers. Because the holidays are oriented to the solstices and equinoxes, he finds value in their naturalistic meanings. And in his case religion is the rejection of the supernatural. And he represents, basically, taking liberal christianity to the far extreme end of the possible spectrum. 

 

Just something to consider when trying to hammer down a definition. 

 

That was my point though wasn't it? I specifically defined him out of what I refer to as religious. If we don't then religion is just whatever you happen to have an interest in, and then the word loses any useful meaning.

 

Google defines religion as:

noun: religion

1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

   "ideas about the relationship between science and religion"

   synonyms:

   faith, belief, divinity, worship, creed, teaching, doctrine, theology; More sect, cult, religious group, faith community, church, denomination, body, following, persuasion, affiliation "the right to freedom of religion"

   • a particular system of faith and worship.

     plural noun: religions

     "the world's great religions"
   • a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.

     "consumerism is the new religion"

 

So my definition largely aligns with the first meaning, which when generally discussing do you have a religion is IMO the best use of the term.

 

If you want to broaden so much to the third definition, which you seem to imply, then sure I'm religious: The following are "a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion."

Fishing

Gaming

Science

Living

 

You see where such a broad, meaningless definition gets you?

 

Does Robert truly believe that Jesus was the son of God, died and rose again? If not I'm not sure you could actually define him as a Christian in any meaningful sense.

 

[Joshpantera]

3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Does Robert truly believe that Jesus was the son of God, died and rose again? If not I'm not sure you could actually define him as a Christian in any meaningful sense.

 

No, he's a mythicist. Doesn't believe there was any such historical jesus. He did originally but after reading the mythicist literature he changed his mind. And I've asked why he doesn't just drop the christianity. He just likes to keep his identity. Goes to church. This is where liberalism in christianity can go nowadays. Christian atheists. Christian for cultural, not supernatural belief reasons. Knowing the jesus myth is myth, but sticking with it anyways. 

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

32 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

No, he's a mythicist. Doesn't believe there was any such historical jesus.

 

See I tend to think on the balance of probabilities that an historical figure did exist. But I don't call myself Christian. I still listen to some of my old favourite Christian songs. But I still don't think I'm a Christian.

 

The way I see it, people like Robert are attempting to redefine what a Christian is. And maybe they have a case. In some aspects you could say that Christianity has become more than a religion - that it's so ingrained in western culture that western culture is Christian, and we are all cultural Christians, but not religious ones. There is precedence for this among the Jews. Many Jews retain a Jewish identity and culture without the religious beliefs. Maybe this is what Robert is? But then I'd still describe him as a cultural Christian, not a religious person when discussing religions.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

It's not a religion; it's a relationship.   

[◊ Weezer ◊]

I have faith in my dirt bike.  It has died on several occasions, and each time it has risen.   It has taken me to great heights.  It took me over a 13,280 ft mountain pass recently.  Has taken me over raging streams, and down dangerous highways, even though it was designed for dirt.  It is all powerful.  It has never failed me------yet.

 

I bow down to it periodically to change it's oil, so it will not forsake me.  I invite all of you to join me in my faith.  It is a blast.  And it is the one true God!  An Italian built Beta.

[Bhim]

On 7/7/2019 at 3:51 PM, TABA said:

Not aware that we have any current members who have became Jews or Muslims.  I doubt they’d feel at home here, to be honest.  I believe we have at least one member who left Christianity and returned to his Hindu roots, to some extent anyway.  

 

That would be me. Apologies for the late reply, I'm catching up on a bunch of posts. I don't personally believe in God or the supernatural, but after deconverting I did find it important to explicitly identify as Hindu and to engross myself in Hindu practices once again. That's where I've been the past nine years!

[ShotoManhattan]

I have studied other religions including the other Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Islam) as well as Buddhism. Ironically, it was my experiences at a Catholic fundamentalist college and arguments with Fundamentalist Evangelicals is what got to me to research other religions.

 

I go to Mass in body, but mind I'm not there.

 

I followed Wicca for a while, but started to get into the Law of Attraction as I find that philosophy much more self-empowering and helped me with life more than Mass ever did. I've been doing that for about a year now.

[Jagdish]

So GLAD to see this topic. I have hesitated to join in some of the discussions because the list seems to me to be an either or concept. Either one is a Christian or one is nothing. However since it is an American list that is to be expected.  However i found what I refer to as "spiritual liberation" via of Hinduism.  I even changed my name to match it. (not a mandatory requirement) but I wanted to divorce myself from my former title.

[Jagdish]

On 7/7/2019 at 9:27 AM, Ronasanchez said:

Is anyone here into another religion? Any Muslims? Jews? Etc?

Hindu

[Moonobserver]

Had trouble posting in the Introductions section, so I'll make an introduction here.

 

My path is Deism----not the narrowly-defined "God-made-everything-and-left" definition the media fixate on, when they mention Deism at all----that's one interpretation of Deism, but by no means the whole picture. I go along with one Deist commentator's suggestion that there are as many kinds of Deism as there are Deists.

 

The real heart of Deism is the belief that the Creator communicates directly with each individual human mind through reason and personal experience and not through special revelation to an individual or group. Thus, Deism has no priesthood, prophets or gurus. There are no dogmas. There are no heresies. No one is an "infidel". Nature itself is Deism's sacred text. The extent to which the Creator intervenes in the world is the subject of lively----and welcome---debate among Deists. I find this highly preferable to the presumptions and inconsistencies which often accompany organized religions.