[natalia]

Droposo, thanks for posting that -- very enlightening!

[squarejawhero]

I always find it amusing/disturbing that so many people put ownership on faith. What both Mohammed and Jesus taught was that God/Allah is everywhere in life... Jesus even went as far to preach that you can pray to God anywhere. Hell, he kicked the moneylenders out of the temples. And then... he died... and we built more temples. And those temples became corrupt.

What Trep says, for me, is true. Fortunately there's enough practisers of faith out there to realise that as well and practise it to the doctrine they see fit, or rather believe in, without forcing those beliefs in others. Unfortunately, the very nature of difference in religion means that in each religion, if you don't worship that monoethist religion as the only one, it means the others are not going to be saved/go to hell etc. - the very idea of which, for me, is wrong. If God is so tolerant, forgiving, merciful... why aren't the people who praise it the same, and why are some teachings so unforgiving. Some people see tests in our inhibitions. I don't see tests. I see common sense... which itself is a test.

To continue... I don't believe in any kind of figurative, literal figure to be honest. Any entity with that kind of power would be so beyond our own comprehension... so beyond our ideas of the universe... as to be infinite. Any attempt to ascribe any kind of ideas it would possibly come up with seems futile to me, as it'd be so totally alien to our tiny minds... why would it even attempt communicating with us? We could even be a mistake, a byproduct of a natural cycle in its creation...

A great line from a movie I like, the Mothman Prophecies, which I kind of see this whole God thing is -

John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don't they just come right out and tell us what's on their minds?

Alexander Leek: You're more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?

So, I don't believe God could actually feel the need to be some kind of father figure. There's many examples in nature of the parents leaving the kids to get on with it, including within humanity. I also don't think that He/it could actually explain anything in any kind of language we could understand...

[Kolzig]

Oh man, Jack T Chick comics...

Years ago there used to be piles of those everywhere on our old school after the summer when we returned to the school. During the summer some religious people used the empty school for their own purposes.

All of those comics have such weird, disturbing and really stupid stuff inside them that me and couple of friends of mine just started laughing everytime we happened to read those. There were couple of real "classics".

[Jeysie]

Originally Posted by doroposo

*sigh* I don't know if that makes any sense... even though this is what I was taught for years, you can probably tell it doesn't make sense to me. I spent several years studying church history to try to sort it all out, even became Catholic for a while (went through the whole confirmation process). After that I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy for a time since I thought that was a happy middle between Protestantism and Catholicism, then finally gave up on Christianity altogether. It simply wore me out.

It's years later now, and I'm more or less an atheist these days, so there's very little religion that actually does make sense to me. I don't object to the idea that there could be a God, but generally I feel that he or she or it got lost in all the mess of human stupidity long, long ago...

I hear that, dude... one of the reasons I'm not religious is that I simply cannot find any logic in any of the tanglings of religion... at least, not any of the religions I'm familiar with. Far less confusing to simply find your own path.

At any rate, I have to admit I find the whole "Catholics aren't Christians" bit even more bizarre now. I always thought that the core of being a Christian (as opposed to a Jew or Muslim or what have you) was to follow Jesus' teachings of brotherly love and tolerance... so how can having faith in Jesus mean anything if you do not honor your faith with your actions? Consequently, I think that if someone does good deeds and promotes love all their life, what does it matter if you have faith or not? There are many reasons not to have faith which have nothing to do with how good a person you are.

For instance, I'm just naturally wired to try to be logical and analytical and follow my senses... even as a child I found it difficult to truly believe in anything I didn't have at least some train of logic for. (For instance, the only real reason I believed Santa Claus might exist is because I couldn't figure out at the time how my parents could afford to buy me all the stuff they did... ) I mean, if God made me, then He's the one who made me wired to be unable to have faith in anything (since AFAIK, faith by definition means believing without proof)... would He really set me up to fail?

Anyhoo. I didn't mean to dredge up any unpleasant memories for anyone... I was just suffering from my other hard-wired trait of insatiable curiousity. Thank you for sharing, Doro.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[nikoniko]

Wow, I didn't know the forums had a 10000 character limit. That was the first time I reached it.

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Does this mean Catholicism is its own "religion", then?

It's interesting to note that if you ask a Catholic, "Are you a Christian?", you'll often get an answer like, "Sure, I am. I believe in God and try to be a good person." Then ask, "Is Christianity a religion?" and you'll get the answer you expect, "Yes, of course it is."

Ask the kind of Protestants I grew up with the same question, and you'll get an answer like, "Sure, I am. I believe in Jesus as my Savior." Then ask if Christianity is a religion, and you'll get the reply, "It may be for some [namely Catholics], but as for me, I have a relationship, not a religion." For those people, the word religion triggers a bad association of something false, something missing the point.

[Sage]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

I hear that, dude... one of the reasons I'm not religious is that I simply cannot find any logic in any of the tanglings of religion... at least, not any of the religions I'm familiar with. Far less confusing to simply find your own path.
I think that if someone does good deeds and promotes love all their life, what does it matter if you have faith or not? There are many reasons not to have faith which have nothing to do with how good a person you are.

Thank you for sharing, Doro.

Peace & Luv, Liz

Yes, thank you Doroposo. And thank you Jeysie.

By the way Doroposo, have you ever seen the movie "Dogma"? If you haven't, you certainly should. I think you'd enjoy it immensely.

[Jeysie]

Mmm. It occurred to me that before anyone takes me the wrong way, I should try to make something clear...

I don't have any problem with spirituality... just because religion and/or faith don't seem to work for me doesn't mean I have anything against other people pursuing that path. I just feel that faith vs no faith and what religion/belief system you follow is a personal choice, and that none of it is better or worst than the rest in an objective sense; only in the sense of what works for you.

Granted, that kind of goes against several religions' claim of being the "one true faith", but at least I'm not trying to be intentionally offensive/blasphemous.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[nikoniko]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Consequently, I think that if someone does good deeds and promotes love all their life, what does it matter if you have faith or not? There are many reasons not to have faith which have nothing to do with how good a person you are.

Actually, one of the things I always liked about Catholicism is that at least in its modern form, it teaches that Christians will be judged as Christians, but allows that we can't know for certain how God would judge anybody else. Protestants often spend a lot of time worrying about those who have never heard of Christ or who have outright rejected Christian faith, because they believe those people will go to hell after they die. Modern Catholics don't claim to be sure what God would do with anybody else.

There is also the Catholic concept of good conscience - that if one cannot in good conscience accept some teaching of the church, then it is not a sin to reject it, unless it is a rejection of the most basic Christian belief. I'm sure that many Catholic users of contraceptives are glad for that teaching.

[nikoniko]

Originally Posted by Thrift Store Scott

By the way Doroposo, have you ever seen the movie "Dogma"? If you haven't, you certainly should. I think you'd enjoy it immensely.

Yes, I did see it, and did enjoy it immensely.

By the way, like Jeysie said, I hope nobody takes offense at any of the opinions I've expressed here. While I may not follow any sort of religion my self, I certainly respect anyone else's right to believe what they believe. In the past, I was less open-minded due to my upbringing, but now I pretty much subscribe to the "boat float" philosophy: "whatever floats your boat is fine by me, as long as we all respect the rights of other boaters."

My obvious bias against my own religious background isn't a condemnation of anyone who believes or practices those things. The world's more interesting for all the variety we have, insofar as we don't hurt others through what we do.

[Stoofa]

Jack Chick is mental, everybody knows that. He's so far gone that his cartoons are utterly hilarious to some people who collect his paper tracts. I think he's pathetic, personally.

[stuboy]

I think I have a weighty claim that I'm a "True Christian" and that all the Protestants/Catholics/Orthodox followers aren't, because I try to follow Yeshua's teachings without relying on adulterated texts not written by him, (or even eyewitnesses) and don't believe claims he never actually made himself regarding his divinity.

I'm only being half-serious, but it brings into focus how ridiculous religious arguments really are. I have only one commandement for people, and after they follow that they can believe whatever they want and everyone will be happy;

BE NICE!

[RLacey]

I've always been tempted to write some spoof versions of this kind of thing. But these ones already do a good enough job of spoofing themselves ...

[Stoofa]

But you'd attract a following of obsessive maniacs!

There was a very very old Christian lady who used to live near my sister. Her name was Dorothea Earnst. I still remember her name because I thought it was hilarious. Anyway, Dorothea used to hand write very long letters for my sister, all about Jesus and the evil of Jews etc. My sister thought she was harmless and didn't have the heart to tell a geriatric to scram. Anyway, Dorothea found out that my sister had a sister back in Nova Scotia and started writing letters for her to give to ME. I went up to visit and my sister had all of these crazy letters stashed for me. The writing was so crabbed that I could barely make anything out, but I got the gist of it.

[nikoniko]

They even make Chick tracts in other languages, including Japanese. I was really surprised to see that they even went to the trouble to reillustrate all of the characters. Man, if they'd do a Sailor Moon version, these things could really take off!

[jjacob]

Originally Posted by doroposo

They even make Chick tracts in other languages, including Japanese. I was really surprised to see that they even went to the trouble to reillustrate all of the characters. Man, if they'd do a Sailor Moon version, these things could really take off!

Chick Mangas, holy mother of god

[Crunchy in milk]

Credentials!