What do you believe in?

Do you believe in anything at all?

I thought I would establish this thread in an effort for us henchmen and sidekicks to get to know each other better. We're all not idiots here, ARE WE NOT?

I see no reason why we can't have civil conversation about our beliefs without fear of some douchebag ruining it.

Personally, I am Catholic. I'm very religious but not in the way you would envision a religious person. I can't really explain it.

Once upon a time I was religious. Then, in stereotypical fashion, I started seeing some of the atrocities that mankind is capable of and decided that it didn't matter what god a man worshiped, no god would allow that. Which then led me to the conclusion that there is no god.

Then one day, I decided that maybe a god would allow that, because a god allows man to make decisions for himself. So I started believing again. Right when I thought I had it figured out, out of nowhere I was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. I wasn't obese, I didn't eat tons of sugar, and I had no family history on either side with either Type I or Type II. I also developed it at a rather unusual age. Most kids get it young, I was a teenager. Other people develop type II when they are older. Rather then blame an almighty god, I decided again that a god doesn't exist.

I don't believe it's just "a test" to see how I handle it. I'm not angry about it. I just decided that if someone who's worst crime in life is going 10mph over the speed limit could be stricken with something that could potentially end my life at an early age, with no good reason, that god is just a myth.

I understand religion, I have actually researched many of them. By research I mean read books on, not take official classes. I harbor no ill will towards religious people. I don't challenge them on their beliefs. But I do take exception to people who question my reasoning why I don't have faith. It's easy to say you need to believe it's just "a test." It's a lot tougher to know that you have to take three to six injections every day for the rest of your shortened life. It's tough to say I'll give up some of my limited to worship what may or may not be truth.

For me personally though, it's easier and more satisfying to say I'll use my shortened time to the fullest and live what I know is truth. My life.

Postscript - Just so everyone knows, I keep very good control of my condition and plan on leading a long life. I have just researched enough to know that even the perfect diabetic has a very slim chance of seeing old age.

I am Catholic and I am a firm believer in our Lord but I also understand that pushing a religion is wrong and I much rather STFU and ignore others opinions on my faith.

I would consider myself to be agnostic. I believe in God, but I dont think that there is a religion out there that isnt out to push itself forward before spreading the word. The reason I came to this conclusion is because the defination of church is a group of people talking about God or religion or faith or anything of that nature. Not a building that you have to go to once a week. Not a place where one or a few people go up to the front and tell you what to believe or think. Not a place that half way through passes around a hat or plate or tray and expects you to give money to them so that they can spread. To believe shouldnt cost you 10% off the top.

Saying this I also have a fair amount of knowledge about religion and I do believe that we were created and didnt evolve. I dont come to this conclusion because Im anti science or anything. It just makes more sence to me because the facts regarding it hold up instead of theories. There is a lot of evidence to back up creation and with evolution I find that people are just assuming too much and trying to string together different theories to make a fact.

I think the Bible is a good book. I dont think that it should be considered the end all and be all of Christianity. Over the many years since it came to be there have been many revisions, alterations, books taken out and other ones put in its place. Many different words mean different things while translated and I think that now the main idea is there but its surrounded with a lot of misinformation. Kind of like the telephone game, where one person starts off with a sentance and at the end its mostly there but stuff is added or taken away from it.

I can defend what I believe without having to resort to saying things like "You just dont get it" or "Youre uneducated" or something like that. I know the information to stand behind what I think and feel. God it out there, I can feel it.

CRX Forum

I don't believe in a god telling you what to do and how to do it... For me, the bible story is interesting... but it is what it is: a story. I believe there might be something... just not a bearded man sending you to an eternity of suffering for not obeying him. I guess I'm an agnostic...?

P.S.: Anyone watched Zeitgeist? What did you think? (Maybe this needs its own post)

God isnt telling you to do anything. God wants you to live the way you think is right. God wants you to be happy and successful. To live your life to the fullest.

CRX Forum

That may be true... But people are sometimes (often) taking it too seriously, or misinterpreting it, taking the bible as the ultimate truth. The Bible should be remembered for the good values it encourages. It's not rules, it's suggestions... well that's how I see it and that's how everyone should see it IMO.

I used to help out at my weekly church bingo night when I was a kid. It was the last smoking venue in the county so it was routinely crowded in the basement, but the actual church was desolate. I had access to my church sound system and would blare Nine Inch Nails til about 2 AM. I eventually began seeing the church as this money swilling entity. When the church refused to grant my confirmation until I did more work for the church I threatened to report the bingo for its obvious fire code violations that would have lost them a ton of money. I try to keep my options open when it comes to belief these days and only say I'm Catholic to effectively end questions. I really don't understand the full entent of what I believe yet.

To put it simply, I have never known God.

I dabbled in Gnostiscism (mainly the Cathar philosophies) when I was a young teenager as I found that to be the most reasonable view of God (i.e. God as a concept and a force instead of a sentient being) , but I quickly strayed and made up my own mind; organized religion never worked for me.

Seeing as I never felt the presence of God during this time (when I really needed it the most btw) I got pissed off and decided that God couldn't exist and became a staunch atheist. That lasted up until late last year when I understood that there is no ultimate truth in this world and that the only thing that a god would require to exist is at least one believer.

In the end, does God (in any form; Jahwe, Jehova, Allah, Brahma etc) exist? Does he control our destinies? Does he care about us at all?

I really don't care. I will continue to not care until I get definitive proof to motivate me (and for anyone interested: definitive proof is not as simple as a convincing argument. I want tangible, efficient proof. God isn't a science after all.) and until then I will view most religions for what they are, sans dieties: ideologies.

PS: I might add that I find the concept of baptism sickening; forcing a child barely old enough to know what side of the sandbox it wants to pee in into a group that claims either cosmic salvation or damnation at a young age without them knowing what it all means is truly a weird practice that I will never understand.

PPS: These are merely my opinions and are not intended as an attack on anyone's religion, faith, God, intellect or education and does not suggest that your God/Religion is stupid, ignorant, foolish, misleading, conniving, vicious, backwards, despotic or inefficient. Just chill and don't kill me, please.

As Alucard so fittingly put in the Hellsing manga, "Catholics...2,000 years and you still think the world belongs to you!"

I went to Catholic high school (even though I never have been Catholic and never will be), and it was not fun for me. Having the religion shoved down my throat in my own home and in school has never made it easy for me to accept it, so I ended up renouncing anything and everything related to Christianity in general and I've been much happier for it. I don't adhere to any religions because truth is only what you perceive it to be.

In the end, nobody is right when it comes to religion, there are only wrongs, and nobody is immune to it.

This topic is just gonna open a can of worms eventually. But ah well, I'm Non-Denominational Christian.

Here is some information that makes sence to me that God does infact exist and that we were created and did not evolve.

I dont know if people have talked about it but its something I thought up on my own and I dont really know how to describe it that well so Im just going to call it Reverse Evolution.

If you read some of the stories from the Bible you will hear some pretty amazing things. People living hundreds of years, acts of strength, almost paranormal abilities, and many other things that today we would just assume are elaborations on a real situation back in the day.

What if these stories are not fabrications, and that in fact they were mostly true. That the information about these extreme longevity and feats of strength actually did take place. What if all the main information about the core of the story was correct?

It makes sence if you think about it now. If Adam and Eve, or whomever were the first people created were created in the image of God then it would be safe to assume that they themselves were near perfect. With great health, long life spans and strength. As more and more people started to populate the earth it also would be safe to assume due to imbreeding and thinning of the original almost 'perfect' genes that their decendants would not have the exact same traits as their reletives.

Now move this onto a grander scale. As more time goes on you see people dying earlier and earlier until the invention of modern medicine. However you see a lot more diseases and people with Cancer, and other viruses modifying to fight out medicines.

Do you see what I mean? Its kind of hard to explain but as time goes on the original genes of the first people who were able to live a very long time and be very healthy are being diluted and spread out and thats why there are so many sick people and people dying so young and things of that nature.

I hope I wrote it out explaining enough to make sence.

CRX Forum

I choose to remain agnostic, because who am I to say whether or not any religion is right or wrong? Call me noncommittal, but I can't absolutely believe in something that hasn't been proven. Also, I don't take lack of evidence as equal to evidence against (that goes out to all atheists).

But at the same time, I hope that most religions are wrong. If what many Christians, Muslims or Jews believe is right, then I would rather go to Hell than hang out with their respective Gods, because the way they depict him/her/it makes him/her/it look like a total jackass.

If there is a god, then I prefer to think that it is above our petty prejudices and therefore couldn't care less which gender/species you decide to have romantic relations with, or whether or not you decide to worship it. But the god who many Christians believe in would send Mahatma Gandhi to Hell simply because he was Hindu instead of Christian.

That's my problem with religion in general. You'll smile and be polite to my face, or even be my best friend; but in the end you still believe I'm going to Hell.

So, you may very well be right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.


I agree wholeheartedly. Baptizing a child effectively denies them the right to choose for themselves, which in turn goes against everything I believe in as it pertains to objectivity.

So many people say "I'm Christian, but I don't believe in forcing my beliefs on others." Well, baptism is exactly that. Enjoy your hypocrisy.

Edit: Oh, and then there's Pascal's Wager (I know this hasn't come up yet, but it inevitably does), which is the biggest crock of shit ever when it's used to validate religion.

Okay, if you don't believe in God you go to Hell, so you have everything to gain by believing in Him and nothing to lose. But then what about all the other religions that believe the same thing? If the Muslims are right, then all the Christians are punished for not believing in the right god.

Never mind that the wager itself was proposed simply as a means to illustrate that reason is untrustworthy, and was not originally used as a defence of any religion.

Edit 2:

@CRX Forum: What you propose makes sense, but is entirely based off of a "what if?" scenario, which in turn depends on the validity of a book written by men over 1,000 years ago and has been translated through several languages. (Regardless of any divine inspiration, men make mistakes. To say that God would have prevented them from messing up the Bible contradicts the belief that God gave us free will.)

I don't believe in anything

"No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of."

=p

Um, I'm Catholic. Goes to Mass every Sunday, receives the Sacraments, prays, yada yada yada.

You know, nihilism doesn't sound half bad really. I originally passed up the idea because nihilists tend to be depressed bags of shit, and I'm much too happy for that.

Beat me to it. We have to remember that the bible contains two different versions on how humans were created (one with Adam and Eve being created at the same time as equals and one where Eve was created from Adam, effectively making her subserviant... oh, and then I'm not counting the many gnostic versions that were destroyed by the Catholic church where Lillith was created before Eve and rejected Adam) so taking it literally is probably not a good idea... also it's missing the point IMO.

I suppose I would have to be called an atheist. There are several things about religion that simply robs me the wrong way. Note that I'm not trying to attack anyone beliefs here, what I'm doing is explain why I'm not a believer. Everyone is free to believe what they want and be what they want as long as they keep to themselves and don't hurt anyone in the process.

First of, I'm not very fond of the idea of submitting myself to something that may or may not be. Some people might say "Are you going to bet on that cold shoulder of pride that your not going to be judged?" The answer is simple - Yes I am. I have yet to see anything that would indicate the presence of an all power full being, watching me. If a god is proven, I will submit to him no doubt, but as things are now, I have yet to be convinced. Some people may say "I experience God on a daily basis", well I don't, and someone elses personal, spiritual experiences is not very persuasive. I could not convince a religious person to become an atheist by saying I don't experience God.

Secondly (this one is about creationism), the evidence in support of evolution. Almost every field of science have in one way or another supported the theory of evolution, be it genetics (HUGE support), fossils, geology, chemistry etc. Many of the arguments against these are quite often just false, like there are no transitional fossils. That's just not true, there are tons, hundreds even, yet some people still exist that they simply don't exist. I can name one right off the bat; Tiktaalik (google it). Also, the "counter part" to evolution, Intelligent Design, is a joke! The entire premise behind it is based on a negative argument. It has no real evidence, what it does is to "pray" on the gaps in the theory of evolution. I'd hardly call that a scientific theory, and neither did the American court. I could go on, but I'll just direct you to these YouTube profiles: http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t and http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa .

Thirdly, there are so many religions and I have yet to see one make more sense than any other. If there was one supreme being that was addressed in all religions, all the scriptures would point in the same direction, which they clearly don't. If there is one right religion, how can we be sure which one is the real one? If you look at the world from their prospective, they all seem like they are the one, so what would point to one religion over another?

Fourth, the problem with evil. Supposedly God is all power full, all good and all knowing. So how can evil exist? If he wants to stop evil but can't, he is powerless. If he can stop evil but doesn't want to, he is wicked. If he can and want to stop it, how can evil and pain still exist? Some might say that pin exist to remind of that we are not happy or don't feel comfortable, but couldn't we just indicate that with less pleasure? Not to the degree where we suffer, just so that we understand like something is wrong.

Finally, I'm not fond of anything that actively hates certain kinds of people. This is only for the extremists, but still, be it people hating homosexuals, black people (claiming the bear the Mark of Kain), people of other religion, anyone who is not of their specific culture, whatever, I will not accept these kinds of intolerants. And this goes for anyone, including atheists who harass religious people, no such harassment is OK, no matter who does it.

Again, I'm not here to insult anybody, these are just things the way I see it. If you have found the truth (if there is such a thing) in religion, that's great! All I ask is that you don't try to force this truth onto everyone else. If we think your version of the truth is the most plausible, we'll come to you.

While I loathe ID there is something I have to point out that a lot of people forget: Evolution doesn't debunk the hypothetical existance of a God/Supreme Creator. All it means is that living things evolve in regards to their environment. Theoretically there could be a creator who started it all but that can, as of now, not be proven.

Indeed, I won't deny that. To say that such a thing is impossible would just be narrow minded. As I said though, what I was criticizing was creationism and ID, it's fully possible that a supreme being triggered evolution, there is no proof against that. There is however evidence that the earth is way more than 6000 years old and that beings did not just pop into existence fully formed.

Edit:


I don't mean to sound aggressive, but isn't it the other way around? I mean for example, are you familiar with the famous chromosome number 2, the various transitional fossils and the various other things that have been discovered in favor of evolution? If you look for instance at some of the "evidence" put forward by Kent Howind, for example, he assumes a giant ice barrier appeared above the atmosphere and in another case a comet entering the solar system. I'd call that wildly assuming. The thing about evolution is that is not fact, it is a theory, just like gravity and the atom. A theory in science is something backed up by large bodies of evidence from several fields of science. The fact that evolution is considered a theory and creationism is not is not because people are bias towards evolution, but because there is simply far, FAR more evidence to support it. Disproving it would win you a noble prize, that is saying a lot about how widely accepted it is in the scientific world. I could be wrong but I think about 2-1,5% of the worlds scientists don't accept it, so there's really no debate going on here.

Also, you mentioned that we can now be be killed by for example AIDS because we're evolving backwards. It's the other way around, it's the viruses that are evolving and finding new ways to break our immune system. We have become more vulnerable though, not due to backward evolution, but because we live in such clean and sterile environment that our immune system don't have anything to practice on, thus it's becoming weaker, and it doesn't help that we are more on less constantly on some sort of medication doing the work for us. Thus when a newly mutated virus that the medication can't protect us against strikes, we're toast until we come up with a new medication for it, then it's only a matter of time before the virus mutates again and we need to get a new medicine. Thus the virus is mutating and adjusting itself to best fit the environment i.e it's evolving.