What is it you believe?

[Avatar]

Sheesh...way to frighten off the fresh meat...I mean...new members, Prebe.

--A

[unicorngirl]

Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!

Well, you are both wrong. But I won't try to convince either of you that you are.

[Prebe]

Heh!

[rusmeister]

Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!

Well, you are both wrong. But I won't try to convince either of you that you are.

As long as we can admit that there is a right and a wrong there is hope for us all! When we say that it doesn't matter or there is no truth, then we are beyond hope.
The question becomes, "Who is right, and on what basis?".

It's good to not be timid about what you believe!

[Prebe]

I'm not saying it's wrong to be religious. Nor do I think it's right to be an atheist (sorry). I'm simply trying to make people lose their faith because I hate it when powers of perception and reasoning become clouded by the acceptance of the "I just don't know".

Universal "rights" and "wrongs" are religious/human concepts. Nice try, but no cigar

[unicorngirl]

Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!

Well, you are both wrong. But I won't try to convince either of you that you are.

As long as we can admit that there is a right and a wrong there is hope for us all! When we say that it doesn't matter or there is no truth, then we are beyond hope.
The question becomes, "Who is right, and on what basis?".

It's good to not be timid about what you believe!

Nice try. But I'm not taking the bait.

[rusmeister]

Universal "rights" and "wrongs" are religious/human concepts. Nice try, but no cigar

Fine. I'll buy my own cigar!
Are you in the US? If so - Ha ha, I can legally smoke cubans!!! Nyeahhh!

Waaaaaait a minute - according to your avatar, your a-a-a-a-a... HUMAN!!!

Seriously, you can't pretend to study humans as if you yourself were not the subject you studied. Right and wrong is exactly one of the things we get from being inside the thing we study, and amazingly, human societies have held moralities that are more striking by their similarity than by their differences.

Golly, I hope all of my tries are nice!

[storm]

Religion always gets me in trouble, but i'll just kick out how i believe.

A good bit of how i see the world is how Danlo described. I was raised lutheran, then turned towards agnosticism/atheism, and now have turned towards a path closer to blending christianity with buddhism.

I have held life in my hands as its slipped away, i've seen life begun. I have studied the intricacies of our biology. I have contemplated how and why in the span of countless millenia of geologic time how one species developed rational thought, civilization, the ability to change its own place in the food chain. Random chance seems too improbable to me, human qualities that we quantify as our sense of "humanness" make no sense in the scheme of nature.

I believe that much of the structure of religion has been based on social control and lies. The church changed the rules and banned those books that detracted from the consolidation of its power structure. Other religions have done similar things. At first these things made me believe that all religion was a lie, but just because its in a book doesn't make it true. The teachings of christ; compassion, love, honor, respect, etc. are all good things. I have heard the argument that no rational human being can believe in a higher power and still consider themselves rational. I don't agree with this assertion because I watch people live who should die and see people die who should live, this is beyond the realm of logic or reason. I have seen people who live with diseases that have a prognosis of 3 months live for 2 years and counting, living life as fully as they can and praising their God each and every day for the pleasure of seeing another sunrise with their significant other. While others who believe in nothing and should recover just fine die with no real explanation other than they just lost the will to live.

For me, the human condition is just not mere chance. I cannot believe that the gifts of love and family are some mistake of evolution that will just be a blip in the evolutionary timeline. Maybe i'm wrong and maybe i'm not, but belief costs me nothing.

[rusmeister]

A central problem I have with a thread like this in general is that the general attitude is that what we all believe may be mildly interesting, but does not, or cannot reflect a cosmology, a universal philosophy, that also affects me, whether I like it or not. In a word, believe what you like, but what you believe doesn't matter! It isn't really the Truth! Everybody makes their own truth, which is to say, there IS no Truth!

Chesterton totally nails this in his 1905 book, Heretics:

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.

My view, which was GKC's view and which happens to be the correct view (NO personal pride in this):

But there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch1.html

[storm]

A central problem I have with a thread like this in general is that the general attitude is that what we all believe may be mildly interesting, but does not, or cannot reflect a cosmology, a universal philosophy, that also affects me, whether I like it or not. In a word, believe what you like, but what you believe doesn't matter! It isn't really the Truth! Everybody makes their own truth, which is to say, there IS no Truth!

Chesterton totally nails this in his 1905 book, Heretics:

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.

My view, which was GKC's view and which happens to be the correct view (NO personal pride in this):

But there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch1.html

Interesting, but only "True" if there is in fact no true structure to the universe and everyone's beliefs are just rationalizations to make them feel like their life has meaning. If not, then some people are encompassing that truth and others are not. The nature of the metaphysical structure of the universe can be theorized and hypothesized but never tested or quantified. As the person in your first quoted block says, discussion of the nature of the universe is relevant because there are those who say it is not relevant...if it can be debated, it has relevance. Even with philosophy, we pick ones we like based on our own cosmology. For those who are Atheistic, Nietzche is their guy. For those who walk both with God and down the middle path, perhaps we identify more with Kierkegard.

[rusmeister]

A central problem I have with a thread like this in general is that the general attitude is that what we all believe may be mildly interesting, but does not, or cannot reflect a cosmology, a universal philosophy, that also affects me, whether I like it or not. In a word, believe what you like, but what you believe doesn't matter! It isn't really the Truth! Everybody makes their own truth, which is to say, there IS no Truth!

Chesterton totally nails this in his 1905 book, Heretics:

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.

My view, which was GKC's view and which happens to be the correct view (NO personal pride in this):

But there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch1.html

Interesting, but only "True" if there is in fact no true structure to the universe and everyone's beliefs are just rationalizations to make them feel like their life has meaning. If not, then some people are encompassing that truth and others are not. The nature of the metaphysical structure of the universe can be theorized and hypothesized but never tested or quantified. As the person in your first quoted block says, discussion of the nature of the universe is relevant because there are those who say it is not relevant...if it can be debated, it has relevance. Even with philosophy, we pick ones we like based on our own cosmology. For those who are Atheistic, Nietzche is their guy. For those who walk both with God and down the middle path, perhaps we identify more with Kierkegard.

Obviously, then, it follows that it IS relevant and that there IS true structure to the universe. Ergo, people encompass that truth to greater or lesser degrees. Some are essentially wrong on the most critical points while retaining only smaller truths. Others are wrong on some details, but right in the essentials. It follows that there must be a 'bullseye', a fulness of the Truth, and then we can debate where that is.

"That guy that I'm always quoting" (It's OK. You can say "Chesterton". It won't kill you.):

Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.

[Blackhawk]

what i believe in is no organized religion no forcing of wills and definately not a God that I need to Fear, If your God is so bad that you fear him then get a new god that is stronger and has compassion, there are Hundreds of them out there and each one of them has their own version of Heaven. Alot of People have faith..but not always in the same god, my god doesnt require 10% before taxes like some. Without insult meant to anyone you should'nt have to pay god or his servants with mandatory fee. reminds me of a joke with money being tossed into the air and the priest saying..what god wants he keeps. what falls back to the ground we keep.

[aliantha]

I have no idea whether I've ever posted in this topic before (too lazy to go back and read all 12 pages ), but I did find Syl's link to belief.net's Belief-o-Matic on page 1, and I took the quiz, and it nailed me exactly: 100% Neo-Pagan!

Second place was "New Age" at 91% (musta been that question about Tarot cards...).

[Queeaqueg]

If your God is so bad that you fear him then get a new god that is stronger and has compassion, there are Hundreds of them out there and each one of them has their own version of Heaven.

If got a 100 people and asked them to describe me(and give me a name), I am sure there will be a lots of different descriptions of me(some will be the same but each one will have something different) based on everyone's perception of me. Same with a place, ask people to describe a place and you'll get lots of different descriptions and feelings.
I view God and the Afterlife as pretty much the same... lots of Gods but most of the time its sounds to me they are describing the same being. Is there really that much difference between God, Allah and Brahmin apart from name(I know Brahmin is slightly different... but doesn't sound that much different to God)?

[Brasidas]

Was it Dylan Moran who said that believing in God was a bit like still having an imaginary friend?

[drew]

Though I go to a Christian Church, nearly every week...I don't beleive in God The Father; ot the personification at all of any deity.

That is to say, I don't picture people created in the image of a man-like god.

I beleive in god for sure, but I doubt if we would even be able to comprehend the greatness of it.

I DO beleive that part of god DID walk the earth a few differnt times...as Mohamud, Jesus, Buhda..and others for sure.
I guess Walking the Earth, is not a very good way to put it.
Since I do't beleive that God is person-like at all, more of just a being or even just an energy..I beleive that god is in ALL of us...regardless of wether or not we want it there..but on differnt occasions I guess you could say that I figure MORE of god was in some people...to varying degrees; and some of those people went on the become patriarchs of differnt religions.

That's kind of what I beleive.

[Matthias]

I was raised a Mormon, born in Salt Lake City and only recently have I found new meaning in my belief. I'm 19 and will be going on a mission in a couple of months.

I believe that the bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly, but I also believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and is another testament of Jesus Christ and that it compliments the Bible. I believe that man will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression. I also believe we were created in the image of God and that God was once as we are.

This might confuse people as it had confused me, but we believe that life is a test of sorts and if we pass, so to speak, then we are given eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom and we become as God is.

That pretty much sums up the basics. Discussing religion makes me nervous, mostly because I'm afraid of argument. As always, I'm willing to risk it.

[drew]

Discussing religion makes me nervous, mostly because I'm afraid of argument..

That's pretty much why I stay out of the religios disscussions.
Chances of one person (especially on an online forum) convincing another person ANYTHING other than what they already beleive are fairly slim, I've come to find.

[Matthias]

The way I see it. You have principles, and so does the other person. You know you're not going to change your beliefs and you know that the other person won't either. So then why bother?

I've participated in only one religious debate in my life and no one got anywhere. It was a pointless exchange of emotion and words that affected nothing in the long run. Needless to say, I'm still as strong in my faith as I was then, if not stronger. So what's the point of arguing?

[rusmeister]

Well, I think we would probably agree that we all want to see and hold the best arguments, not the worst, and few things are more irritating than seeing your own faith presented or held in an infantile way. Most of my experience has been with non-Christians treating Christianity as a faith incompatible with reason, something I know to be nonsense.