Religion

[guy07]

So yeah, I've grown up believing in God and it's hard to like, not believe in God anymore, but I still completely understand if someone doesn't believe in him.

Interesting ...why is is hard to not believe in god? Because you've spent your whole life with people telling you he exists? Or have you drawn your own conclusions? If so, could you elaborate on them?
Don't worry, I'm not picking on you here, that's a serious question.

[Coffee 54]

Secondly, while I come from a decidedly Catholic heritage (Irish and Italian) my dad never raised me to be Catholic. Instead, we traveled around to this and that. We ALWAYS went to church of some sort, but it flopped around a lot before landing on Jehovah's Witnesses, the most extreme of all the ones he tried.

I actually have a similar story to yours, except I actually ended up a Witness. Ironically, my mom was directed to them by a Catholic priest who wanted her to stop bugging him. "If you want to know about the bible talk to Jehovah's Witnesses." My father remained Catholic so both religions influnced the earily part of my life.

On another religion related note, when I was in Tokyo last year I was able to meet my Japanese Japanese counterparts my Vietnamese Japanese counterparts but not my English speaking Japanese counterparts. I sat in an empty Hall for half an hour before figuring out they were all at an assembly in Chiba. A big part of the reason I'm going back to Tokyo this year is to meet Japanese Witnesses I can actually talk to.

[Beowulf]

I don't really "practice", but if I were to label myself, it would be as a sufi muslim.

Most of the atheists Ive met aren't very happy people. Personally I think its pretty ridiculous to think that this is all an accident, or the product of 500 monkeys banging on typewriters, or whatever analogy people are using today.

Also an FYI, the Bible has been re-written many more times than the Qur'an. The Qur'an has been re-written yes, but not the umpteen bajillion times that the bible has.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Most of the atheists Ive met aren't very happy people.

Combine the grim realization that death is final with resentment that religious folk are allowed to shape politics and social circumstances with bigoted positions towards gays, women, children, other religions, etc. under the untouchable reasoning of "hey it's my religious belief - deal with it" and you do get a lot of bitterness and unhappiness. That's usually in people that are atheist as a statement, and not in those millions that truly are but are afraid to admit it, or those that just don't care.

[Otohiko]

Before you get religious, you need to get informed. Blind faith leads nowhere.

Now this is counter to the main point religion serves.

I would be careful about that.

It's easy to forget that religion is not neccesarily the same as creed or dogma. The Quakers I mentioned are one (but not only) example of a religion that refuses to specify the former and rejects the latter. Same as it's easy to forget that religion does not neccesarily imply a concept of God. Confusianism is an example of an atheist religion, and some forms of socialism certainly developed into what was arguably religious (and some were deliberately designed as such - for example writer Maxim Gorky's efforts in the early 1900s to develop a form of Communism by taking a Christian framework and supplanting the notion of God within it with a collective consciousness of the working class, which was to be worshipped in a church - he hadn't succeeded and eventually ended up at odds with the Soviet regime that he helped create).

And atheists aren't neccesarily unhappy. It's just an argument theistic dogmatists like to throw around, because they have a notion of happiness that is grounded in their dogma, and like to contrast it with a (false) materialist notion of happiness - as if there's only two kinds of happiness in the world.

[Orwell]

Yahweh raped Jeremiah. All I ever need to know about the bible.

[Savia]

I was raised Anglican, skipped past that into a Quaker school, and now would consider myself non-denominational Christian with Quaker leanings and a little hesitation.

[godix]

As for humans being so special, haven't any of you heard of the Drake Equation? It's impossible for us to be the only intelligent life forms in the universe.
Seems to me like most of you are putting us up on a pedestal ...

Your ability to take ignorance to new levels constantly astounds me. It's easy to be some random dumbshit that believes aliens are fucking them up the ass with huge metal rods. It's fairly easy to know about the drake equation and realize it means exactly fuck all. But to know what the drake equation is and STILL believe it proves anything, wow, that level of idiocy actually requires effort.

[Sukunai]

Find the flaw in this sentence.

quoting the OP

"Ok, so as most of you probably know, I'm an Atheist. I believe you are born, live then die."

You used the word "believe".

I am not an atheist, because they are ruled by beliefs as much as any religious person.

I don't run my life on beliefs, I'll stick with cold impersonal harsh facts.

There is no no known label for those of us that are neither religious, or atheist.

There simply is no god. I have no trouble stating that as fact.
You go right ahead and "believe" anything you want though. Life is too short to expect me to waste my finite time ensuring you don't waste your finite time.

If you don't like modern science, I'll get over it.

You were born from a simple act of sex, you live a duration of time which is with a bit of luck longer than minutes or days.
You get to hopefully enjoy your life and with a bit of luck you can even create a bit of life as well.
You grow old and with a bit of luck the word old even applies.
Then you die, and experience what everyone that has ever died has experienced.

Which none of the living have a fucking clue about.

And remember people, I do not need to provide you with a correct answer to the meaning of life. I merely need to provide evidence you don't have the answer either.

This is the problem with religion. We proved they were full of shit a loooooong time ago. They simply don't like it.
They stomp their feet, and point to how our science books are always being corrected, and they think that proves we are wrong.
No, it just proves we still don't have all the correct answers.
And religion is still full of shit at the end of the day.

It's great for crowd control though.

[inthesto]

You'd think that a topic would start at rock bottom with guy07, but Sukunai busts out the fucking jackhammer of retardation.