What is it you believe?

[Queeaqueg]

I have never noticed this.

The only thing I have really believed in is Reincarnation. I like to keep an open-mind about everyone's belief. I think God could exist and he could not. I believe that Supernatural and strange things do happen in this world but that doesn't mean I hate science because I love that too.

I don't believe religion or religious experiences to be false, I believe that many of tem probably did happen. If it is all false, though, I can't see a problem in these ideas because it gives people morals and makes them happy.

I try to keep open-minded about everything in this world. No one has all the answers(though some pretend).

[Fist and Faith]

The only thing I have really believed in is Reincarnation.

Very interesting. How did that come to be the only thing you believe in?

[Queeaqueg]

'Queeaqueg wrote:
The only thing I have really believed in is Reincarnation.
Very interesting. How did that come to be the only thing you believe in?'

From went I was about 5 I thought that when we die, we come come back again. My Mum and Dad were into Buddhism, so many will probably say that it is from them. When I look at life(and this will probably sound stupid) but I have always found life both mysterious and special, it is one reason why I keep an open mind and believe in lots of things. Maybe it is just part of our minds, maybe it is this or that... we don't really know but I find that there are strange special things in this world.

[Fist and Faith]

When I look at life(and this will probably sound stupid) but I have always found life both mysterious and special,

Nothing stupid about that!

So you have an undeniable feeling about reincarnation? That's cool. I was just curious.

[Queeaqueg]

'So you have an undeniable feeling about reincarnation? That's cool. I was just curious.'
(sorry I am doing it this way but my quote button isn't working).

I wouldn't say I am 100% on it because I don't believe we can be 100% about anything. Theories, ideas, etc that we take for granted to be true, sometimes don't the way we planned or turn out different(if you see what I mean).

[rusmeister]

rus - thanks for the offer of prayers, but I can;t see how, if there's a merciful god at the end of it all, the dead would need our prayers. I rather think it'd be the other way round!

I appreciate what you're getting at with childlike understanding of religion etc, but my difficulties go a little further. It;s the whole concept of worship and the fundamental interpretation of the scriptures that are flawed. For example, Paul's writings are centrally and doctrinally important for Christianity. He was quote an extreme character. But for me it's fairly obvious that he had a very political perspective in what he preached. He's obviously a misogynist and was cautious not to upset the Romans - he never criticises them. James however (whom the Christian church omits from the scripture) had an entirely different take on things - his gospel is interesting. For me such disparities place fundamental baseline flaws in the whole thang.

If you are a Christian you can argue that you should take the New testament at it's word and be done with it. Any interpretation or deviation is inexplicable and stinks of changing the "facts" to suit an agenda whether that be modernisation or whatever. In this respect I have a far higher regard for Islam; their holy book is unaltered (even down to a comma) since it was written, apparently by god himself. If you have a holy book, I can't see how you can have any other way of treating it. Whereas the Bible was first officially compiled by James 1st, King of England in a highly political and multi agenda fashion.

ergo, I have no affinity to this type of religion.

I think the real challenge comes with how didi everything really start? What was there before the big bang, how did slef replicating molecules appear, what was there before all this? It's all too mind blowing to conceive really and a faith is one way of dealing with this.

But I'm not so up my own back end to say that I hvae the answer, or that a religion doesn't have the answer either. No, my standpoint is that religions in the main don't have a convincing enough answer. But then that I guess is where faith comes in. Faith to me is a little too much of a suspension of disbelief mechanism, a safe bet, just in case when I die there is a big fella with a book of judgement!

What I can also say is I find hardcore christians alarming. I just think they've been done, got it all wrong. And I don't think a gos would want all that really, surely he'd be above it all?

I look around the streets of England though and think sometimes a little biblical wrath, sea of fire or something would do society a bit of a favour, clear some of the dross out

Agnosticism - perhaps it's a cop out, but I look at it like this: I dont accept that when it comes to spirituality, someone else knows better than each individual. A relationship with a god surely is entirely personal and no-one knows anything about anyone else's said relationship. Accordingly they can't really comment. If there is anything else out there, it's for me to find it, or it to find me; I'll see what happens.

There's a few things I see that are worthy of a degree of worship and veneration:

a beautiful woman
a fine malt whisky (Scottish of course)
a decent guitar solo
a good hot curry



Avatar - cheers, you may notice I have mellowed.....

Thanks for the detailed response, Hamako!

I would just say (because so many of us here are adults, even older adults, with fully-formed opinions and beliefs) that my only response would be to echo yours - "I can't see". Hoping to seem neither disrespectful or arrogant, I would say that there are answers to your concerns that you have simply never found out.

Your comments on Paul and James are interesting (oh, you may know this, but James left us an epistle, not a gospel), but hardly any kind of proof of falsehood or even inconsistency.

Your arguments concerning the use of Scripture seems to represent common Protestant practice, particularly within the US. Again, there are faiths that do not engage in this. Orthodox, Catholic, and High Anglican have something called Tradition, which is the clarification of (among other things) Scripture and what it is intended to mean passed down over the centuries. Those faiths do not use Scripture in the way you describe - they have a clear and developed teaching, which is largely or entirely universal. In this respect they are not different from Islam as you describe it. I quite sympathize with your reaction to what we call "Sola Scriptura" (the interpretation of the Bible by the individual (who is far removed in space and time from the authors of an incredibly complex work, never mind language and cultural misunderstandings) without any recourse to Tradition). You're quite right to feel the way you do, and I have no affinity for that kind of religion, either.
Faith in a self-creating big bang is also faith (I'm not espousing creationism at all here; just pointing that out).

All I'm trying to say is that faith can be rational (although with our finite minds the infinite at some point must always be taken on faith, and that is worth considering. The version(s) of Christianity you describe all represent ways people have gone wrong in trying to be Christian.

Have you ever read anything at all by G.K. Chesterton?
www.chesterton.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton

C.S. Lewis is great, too. They demonstrate the rationality and common sense that Christianity really has. Frankly, reading Lewis was what lead me to reject my agnosticism, so I guess I would say be careful about picking them up!

[Fist and Faith]

Agnosticism - perhaps it's a cop out,

Not at all. I have been looking for answers for 42 years now. I've read many books on many religions, and talked to many people of strong faith. (Alas, being in the USA, nearly all have been Christians of one sort or other. I wish I knew more people of other faiths.) I think it would be very nice to have a strong belief one way or another, but no positive ideas from one side are able to drown out those of the other side. I am not an agnostic because I can't be bothered looking into it, or because I'm indecisive in general. I'm an agnostic because sufficient evidence is not presenting itself. Without a gut feeling one way or the other to tip the scales, I'm stuck here.

There's a few things I see that are worthy of a degree of worship and veneration:

a beautiful woman
a fine malt whisky (Scottish of course)
a decent guitar solo
a good hot curry

Amen, my brother! You got the first thing on your list right!

Welcome to the Watch, rusmeister!

C.S. Lewis is great, too. They demonstrate the rationality and common sense that Christianity really has. Frankly, reading Lewis was what lead me to reject my agnosticism, so I guess I would say be careful about picking them up!

I started this thread kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10341 because Lewis disappointed me. I was reading another book that mentioned Lewis' Mere Christianity. It said Lewis proved that Christian belief could be very rational and logical. I know I could never follow any religion I didn't find rational and logical. And, although I've found some - including versions of Christianity, particularly Conversations With God - that are, I'm always looking for more. Alas, Lewis didn't do it for me.

[rusmeister]

The central problem of Lewis's "Mere Christianity" is that it is a popular work - a simplification for ordinary folks who do not hold advanced degrees and are not philosophy majors.

It was originally a series of radio talks on BBC for Brits facing the war (WWII). Still, it's pretty good, as long as you don't expect too much from it.

It was Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters" that really played a role in my conversion. The device of everything written from a demon's point of view is powerful.

The one thing that these writers convinced me of was that (coming from agnosticism) Christianity is the most sensible faith of the lot. Unfortunately, when I use that word you may have an image of Bible-belt folk thumping at your door and saying to yourselves "Been there, done that". I found that my childhood Baptist upbringing was wrong on a lot of points, and that I had had that 2nd-graders' version of Christianity in my head.

I think Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" is one of the most difficult books I have read, that I had to read very slowly, but when I thought it through, I 'got it'. I found 'Orthodoxy' to be simpler and more direct.

Normally, I'd just recommend the Gospels, but most people in my experience seem to think they know the content of the Gospels, yet have this idea of Christ as a mild pacifist teacher, which goes to show that they DON'T know the content of the Gospels. Since a lot of people have ideas already in their heads as to what Christianity is (as was pointed out, many of us grew up in America) and demand rationality, I'd point those people that way.

I'll end off with a couple of Chesterton quotes, and offer this page of quotations (they're about everything, not only religion):

"It has been often said, very truely, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary." - Charles Dickens

"Theology is only thought applied to religion." - The New Jerusalem

www.chesterton.org/discover/quotations.html

PS - F&F - I took a look at your thread. It will take some time to go through it. (Not ignoring you!)

[rusmeister]

Hamako, I would like to add that I incorrectly responded to your observation concerning Islam and the Bible.

First, Islam does have a unified text. However, they do not have unified teachings (Islam experts, please correct me if I am wrong!). An imam is basically anybody who gets up and reads out of the Koran and gives their interpretation or teaching, thus explaining why you can have Sunnis and Shi'ites, moderates and radicals...


The Bible was compiled, as such, by the Church (there was only one Christian church for the first 1,000 years - 1054 to be exact) by the 4th century, preceding the English version you refer to by a good 1300 years. Printed versions appeared after Gutenberg, of course, but we have had one and the same Bible that long.That was the point when it was determined that the gospel of John was canonical and inspired, and the gospel of Judas was not.

Changes that you are thinking about are primarily 'changes' of translation. Have you ever engaged in translation from a foreign language into English? If not, you will quickly find that it is impossible to preserve every comma, and even every little word - many languages don't have articles like a and the, and they are necessary additions in translations into English. Also, since languages over time, a translation into Old or early Middle English (like Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales', or even more so the language of a work like 'Beowulf') would have to be re-translated into a more modern form to be understood at all. For a long time, the Church used the translations from the original Greek and Aramaic into Latin, as Latin was the language of the Roman empire and the one most people knew best. After the fall of the Roman Empire fewer and fewer people knew Latin, until by the time of the Great Schism between the East and the West (1054) most people did not understand what was being read from the Bible (in the West).

The Orthodox (Eastern) point of view is that the Bishop of Rome went wrong by declaring himself supreme ruler of all the Church, rather than merely the Roman Church (There were 5 Church Centers, including Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople). After going wrong, in the West we had fun things like the Crusades and indulgences and other things, many of which became the basis for the protests of Martin Luther and the birth of the Protestant movement, which is what dominated later in America, and therefore most probably the form of Christianity you have experienced. But the Protestants, from the Orthodox point of view, were protesting against a Church that had already gone wrong!

The Protestants, with Sola Scriptura guided by their personal interpretations of what they read, rejecting Tradition (because to them, all Tradition was Roman, and therefore, wrong) have splintered into 1,000s of versions of Christianity, most contradictory on many points. So again, you are right to want to reject that.

The Orthodox has changed nothing, essentially since the first days of Christian worship. James, to whom you referred, developed the earliest liturgies in worship, and while liturgical forms underwent several changes, by and large it has been the same for 2,000 years. By contrast the Baptist church (if you can consider it as unified) is hardly 400 years old.

Consider that if you choose a faith because it's comfortable, it probably doesn't reflect the truth about real life or us. It should seem TRUE, not 'nice'.

If you are looking for a faith that doesn't change its tune every hundred years or so and has unified teachings, check out the Orthodox Church - Come and see!

PS - in America there are a number of different jurisdictions, but they are all in communion with each other - if they aren't in communion, they ain't Orthodox!

www.oca.org/

www.antiochian.org/

www.goarch.org/

[Avatar]

That was the point when it was determined that the gospel of John was canonical and inspired, and the gospel of Judas was not.

And how was that determined?

--A

[balon!]

I havent noticed this before!

I believe in love. Plain and simple. Friends, Family, your one true love, cousins, favorite band members you have a shrine dev...........whoops.

In any case, i dont think about the afterlife too much, Im too busy, and I dont really care a whole lot. I like living in the present.

[rusmeister]

I havent noticed this before!

I believe in love. Plain and simple. Friends, Family, your one true love, cousins, favorite band members you have a shrine dev...........whoops.

In any case, i dont think about the afterlife too much, Im too busy, and I dont really care a whole lot. I like living in the present.

That IS the most pleasant way to live, until death stares you in the face, directly or via a close loved one. Everything must pass, including our lives. You can try to look and see what's there, or squeeze your eyes shut to it and scream as you are dragged over the precipice...

[balon!]

I havent noticed this before!

I believe in love. Plain and simple. Friends, Family, your one true love, cousins, favorite band members you have a shrine dev...........whoops.

In any case, i dont think about the afterlife too much, Im too busy, and I dont really care a whole lot. I like living in the present.

That IS the most pleasant way to live, until death stares you in the face, directly or via a close loved one. Everything must pass, including our lives. You can try to look and see what's there, or squeeze your eyes shut to it and scream as you are dragged over the precipice...

I agree, but still, even after one of my family members died, it hurt for a long time, but now I can look back and all thats left is love for him.

[hamako]

Rus,

interesting response on the history of the scriptures, but I don't agree with you on the Orthodox Church, I simply see this church as yet another one to wondere about and possibly be alarmed at along with the rest. For the record I am English and was raised a Catholic, went through the Charismaric Renewal in the 80s, came out of that, reverted to quieter modern Catholicism, and have a free church (non established Church of England) minister for a Dad. I also have a higher qualification in theology/scripture so I think I'm fairly well placed. I don't come from any sort of fundamental Christian background and well familiar with the tolerant loving teachings. My godfather is a priest too!

No, my issue is with Christianity as a whole. I feel it's based on mistruths. take the New Testament for example; there's an enormous difference between Christ in John and the synoptics. Too fundamentally different to reconcile really. In John he's a quiet, spiritual "let them find out for themselves and come to me" type; in the synoptics he's an evangelical miracle weaving almost hellraiser (not quite apt, but you know what I mean. In James & Judas, different again.

there's too many discrepancies on which central tenets of faith are made, particularly surrounding Mary. The very fact that the first "authorised" gospel was written around 65AD is iffy. Christianity hangs on some hard adherence to parts of the gospels - but they were written over 30 years after Christ's death and so can't be accurate. They were arguably written not as scriptures at all, but as a rough record of what happened that needed to be got down somehow before some of the eyewitnesses died.

Then you have the first "priests and bishops" - Paul, Peter, James etc. They all had very different agendas both politically and spiritually. James & Paul did not agree, or even as rumour has it liked each other. You have Paul a political animal, tryiong to assuage the authorities and James the evangelist and purist trying to continue a contentious, argumentative, anti Roman faith. And Paul becomes the scirpture of choice - that's rocky for me.

Not convincing enough.

[balon!]

Well my last post was before any sort of research into religion.

Right now, I take a removed position on religion. I haven't found enough proveable evidence to either prove or disprove a god or gods. There are a bunch of philosophies that seem to work really well for many different groups of people, but I either disagree with or don't care enough to take part.

I think it'll stay this way untill I either come across something more proveable or find evidence to prove a current religion.

Untill then, it'll be like my last post. Live for the now, plan for the future and remember the past. Throw in a lot of low, some occasional melancholy and you'll be fine.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I have also avoided thinking about the afterlife, except in terror. My one greatest fear on earth is that there is an afterlife.
It's not that I don't enjoy being me, I do-just temporarily.
That's also how I feel about 'being' in general. If there isn't a 'not-being' at the end of all this 'being' business, that sort of creates the impression of an eternity of incarnation. Ugh.
Reincarnation also shakes me a bit. What if you were dimly aware of your past lives, as some people indicate? It would be like being trapped in a nightmare where you keep waking up over and over.
*shudder*

The one thing I don't want to have to worry about is what happens after I'm dead - Isn't there enough to worry about now?

As far as the idea that what I do in life somehow has an impact on what happens when I'm dead, I find it highly unlikely. There's just no reason for it. I mean, the consequences of stupidity while you're alive are pretty severe, why would they continue into your death?

[balon!]

As far as the idea that what I do in life somehow has an impact on what happens when I'm dead, I find it highly unlikely. There's just no reason for it. I mean, the consequences of stupidity while you're alive are pretty severe, why would they continue into your death?

I agree, that concept already bothered me. Like why even punish me if I'll just "get it in the end"?

[Avatar]

JemCheetah! You do turn up at odd times huh?

I'm pretty sure that when you're dead, you're dead. So it does't worry me at all.

--A

[Xar]

Rus,

interesting response on the history of the scriptures, but I don't agree with you on the Orthodox Church, I simply see this church as yet another one to wondere about and possibly be alarmed at along with the rest. For the record I am English and was raised a Catholic, went through the Charismaric Renewal in the 80s, came out of that, reverted to quieter modern Catholicism, and have a free church (non established Church of England) minister for a Dad. I also have a higher qualification in theology/scripture so I think I'm fairly well placed. I don't come from any sort of fundamental Christian background and well familiar with the tolerant loving teachings. My godfather is a priest too!

No, my issue is with Christianity as a whole. I feel it's based on mistruths. take the New Testament for example; there's an enormous difference between Christ in John and the synoptics. Too fundamentally different to reconcile really. In John he's a quiet, spiritual "let them find out for themselves and come to me" type; in the synoptics he's an evangelical miracle weaving almost hellraiser (not quite apt, but you know what I mean. In James & Judas, different again.

there's too many discrepancies on which central tenets of faith are made, particularly surrounding Mary. The very fact that the first "authorised" gospel was written around 65AD is iffy. Christianity hangs on some hard adherence to parts of the gospels - but they were written over 30 years after Christ's death and so can't be accurate. They were arguably written not as scriptures at all, but as a rough record of what happened that needed to be got down somehow before some of the eyewitnesses died.

Then you have the first "priests and bishops" - Paul, Peter, James etc. They all had very different agendas both politically and spiritually. James & Paul did not agree, or even as rumour has it liked each other. You have Paul a political animal, tryiong to assuage the authorities and James the evangelist and purist trying to continue a contentious, argumentative, anti Roman faith. And Paul becomes the scirpture of choice - that's rocky for me.

Not convincing enough.

You also need to consider the fact that even gospels written a few decades after Jesus's death wouldn't necessarily be free of political corrections, placed there to suit the agenda of the writers and the fledgling group of followers; it is entirely possible that there is no true, factual, 100% (or even just 90%) accurate description of Jesus's life and works. Add to that translation errors and additional tampering with the gospels and the Bible throughout the centuries, and it's entirely possible that whole sections of them might have been heavily changed or completely removed (this would be, of course, more extensive in the Old Testament than the New Testament, due to the greater age of the former). And this applies also to the Church's tenets. Take, for example, the concepts of Limbo and of Purgatory, both of which were not in the original Christian teachings and were added afterwards. Limbo was recently declared untrue, but for centuries people believed that unbaptized children would not be admitted into Heaven, but rather left to an eternity in Limbo.
This leads in turn to the age-old question of sinning: not "why do people sin", but rather "why are some things considered to be sins" and "why, if God is infinitely merciful, are people punished for sins"? Is it possible that some sins were artificially called such by the early Church, in attempts to sway the population? There are theories, for example, that the "sin of suicide" was actually added in medieval times to prevent peasants and commoners from killing themselves rather than dedicating their lives to toiling for their earthly lord.

Truth be told, there are of course difficult ethical questions in everyday life (consider abortion, for example - is it right to kill an unborn baby, or to force an unwilling woman to carry it to term so it can live?). And organized churches of every kind offer their own viewpoints on these topics (sometimes organized like orders, sometimes not). But ultimately, it is up to us to judge, and I can't reconcile the concept of an infinitely merciful and good God with eternal damnation. If even human, "flawed" parents would forgive their children anything (and we see examples of these in the news, when someone is arrested for murder and his/her parents still support him/her and love him/her unconditionally), then how could an infinitely good and merciful divine Father sentence his children to eternal suffering, no matter what the crime?
For that matter, what about regret? Why would regretting your sins while alive (and asking for forgiveness) grant you absolution (or at least respite from Hell) and regretting them after death, when facing God, not be enough? One could say "because once you're dead and facing God, your regret would be self-serving, a cheap way for you to escape the fires of Hell you now would know exist"; but surely, there might be people who died in accidents and such, who didn't have time to regret their sins, even though they might have done that if they had had a little more time. Are there special provisions? Where does one draw the line?

It all depends on the perception one has of the divine, of course. In medieval time, God as Father was not a widespread concept; God as Judge was. Therefore, it was unheard of to even propose that God would forgive your sins: if you sinned, God would send you to Hell for all eternity. Similarly, then, what I wrote above and what I'm going to write below would make no sense to some who have different concepts of what the divine is.

In truth (and here I'm offering my belief only) I find another concept easier and more believable - not just "more logical", but also better at avoiding the pitfalls of contradiction, rather than having God judge you for your sins, and cast you into the pit of Hell if you're unworthy of salvation. I find it far more believable to think that it is not God who sentences you to suffering, but yourself: not because of sins in this earthly life, but because you refuse to accept forgiveness. Forgiveness, after all, is a tricky thing: in order to accept it, you must admit (even just to yourself) you have done something to be forgiven for, and that the forgiving party judges wrong too. Follow me here - if you truly believe you've done nothing wrong (as it is the case with some murderers, for example, who after years are still secure in their belief they had every right to murder their victim), would you stand by and accept forgiveness offered to you by someone else? Or would you rather refuse to admit you ever had anything to forgive in the first place, and draw away from the person who - just by offering you forgiveness - is, in a way, "judging" your actions?
But if the forgiving party is God, wouldn't drawing away from God be a sort of Hell? To willingly keep yourself away from God, alone, because you believe you've done nothing wrong in your life?
And if, like many religions claim, God is omnipresent, wouldn't your denial be even more torturous, simply because you try to draw away from a presence which, no matter how hard you try, you cannot exclude? A constant presence reminding you it offers forgiveness for actions you believe you had every right to perform? For all eternity?
Isn't that Hell - a Hell you freely chose? And couldn't you end that torment at any time, just by admitting to yourself you've done something wrong and accept God's forgiveness? And wouldn't that be purgatory, of a sort?

Allright, I definitely strayed from the beginning of the post; but this is just to explain that in truth, a relationship with the divine is a personal thing, and it is - in my opinion - far more important for everyone to find his or her own way to relate with the divine, than simply accepting an institution's teachings without ever once questioning any part of them. Again, as a parent, what would you rather have - a child who blindingly obeys everything he's told by his brother on your behalf, or a child who thinks about what he is told, and tries to find his own way to relate to you without passing through his brother?

[Avatar]

Great post Xar. As always, I find your view of it all a far more appealing one. And of course, I certainly agree that the "scriptures" per se have been tampered with often with far less "spiritual" goals in mind.

That said, I'm not sure I agree with your comment about it being more prevalent in the OT. At least partly because of the Judiac tradition of including and preserving all discussion and commentary, rather than simply replacing. Could be wrong abut that, but it's my initial impression. (Also of course the fact that the OT really predates church etc.)

--A