What do you believe in?

Okay, let me start by saying this thread is for the discussion of religion, not a debate on whether religion is legitimate or not. It doesn't mean that people who don't follow a particular religion can't post in here, I encourage people, from all walks of life, to come and discuss their religious, non-religious beliefs/practices. The purpose of this thread is to have a mindful discussion about what it means to be spiritual and what it means to be human. This a place to learn about other people's beliefs and explore other concepts/ religions that people follow.

I will start by saying that I am a practitioner of Chinese Shamanism. I believe in the concept of there being a spirit world, in addition to our physical world. I believe in multiple gods and honor my ancestors, and I will often pray to them for good luck and offer them sacrifices, in the form of food or items. Often times my religion is called Neo-Confucianism or Taoism, though I consider all three of these religions to be different. I visit the graves of my relatives in order to ask for their blessing and I have shrines in my house dedicated to my gods and my ancestors. My religion has no set practices, with each practitioner having their own set of gods and rules which they follow.

Now that I have talked a little about my own personal beliefs, I would love to hear about the personal beliefs of others. So hoping for a productive thread and many responses, let the discussion begin.

I believe in the Trinity, being the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. I believe in the Bible as the Holy Word of God, and strive to live my life as such. Although, I believe many things that set me at odds with other Christians, and have even lead me to be shunned my some, especially since much of it is in the Bible, but ignored. One example of this is the existence of dragons. I have also practiced energy manipulation(I believe the Eastern word is Chi) and believe that some humans at some point would have been able to manipulate energy outside their bodies, such as telekinesis, using similar techniques.

Deism, there's a God, but he doesn't interfere with humanity in any way.

Are you a practitioner of Modern Deism or Classic Deism? Also what is your thought about the immortality of the soul? Do you believe that it survives after death and travels to some place or is reincarnated into another body?

The best of people when we need it......

@omgomgwtfwtf:

I sort of believe in a mix of clasical and modern, basically I believe that:

1. God doesn't interfere with our everyday lives, thus, miracles, divine intervention etc most likely doesn't happen, it also answer the question of "If God exists, why does evil exist?"

2. I don't really believe any "holy book" is the word of God, just the words of men who claim it's the word of God.

3. I don't believe in any types of Dogmas that must be obeyed.

As for the afterlife, I'm a moral relativist, what's right and wrong for some, may not be for others, thus, sin is subjective, since sin is what is traditionally used to judge where you go when you die, I don't believe in Hell (that would suggest a certain moral code) I believe that we all die and go to some afterlife better than Earth, thus, I believe "Heaven" exists, but Hell does not.

Im a nihilist that believes we're not alone in the world, we're just one planet in trillions of star systems that just happened to crawl out of the muck and evolve, we're nothin special, we're just the exception for our empty solar system, and odds are somewhere out there there is another race who addresses these same questions whether they found the answer or are just as clueless as us remains to be seen

Is it possible theres a god sure why not, its not for us to understand and if there is, whos to say we're smart enough to even understand or comprehend the very concept of what a god is, for all we know it could be a tip of the ice berg deal where what we believe and understand is just a small portion of a bigger picture, or we've blown it widely out of proportian and its the most minimal concept imaginable.

Theres also the simple chance that we got lucky, millions of organisms swimming around in the primordeal goo, we just beat the odds and crawled to land started to grow hair then survived an apocolypse brought on by a freak accident from space, learned to walk upright and use tools then kept going from there.

In the long run, the thing that holds us back no matter what is the simplest thing in the world, each other. Theres those the will always say we've strayed to far for the true path and have lost our way, and theres those that always say religion and its beliefs hold us back from progressing as a people and civilization, and until we breakdown to the level where a genecide of one of these groups takes place thats how its always gonna be...

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you dont, or none of it matters at all in the long run, neither of these are apealling but thats sadly as far as we've come as a people.

I consider myself as an agnostic, possibly a deist or misotheist sometimes. I don't feel as though that we as human beings right now (and it looks like for the foreseeable future) posses a way to gain knowledge of a god. If he DOES exist, he's obviously either apathetic to us, or just an asshole. I mean if his existence is proven, then the guy single handilied allowed murder, rape, genocide and much more in HIS name...with different interperations and did nothing about it. Atheism is depressing, but I cannot act as though it has any answers either.

Maybe if something IS out there, it's so big and so complex humans just can't understand it...Or maybe there is nothing out there. I will never know

I don't really believe in things per say, I accept and understand things or at least attempt to. You could perhaps say I have three axioms? I believe there is a universe, I believe I exist, I believe I can learn from the universe. Except I don't have faith in those three things, I have reason and the reason I have reason in them, is because its practical. Thats all you really need to start applying reason and science without worrying and questioning that at any moment the moon might jump down and start punting people into space - that wouldn't be consistent with what we know of reality no matter how amusing it might be.

I really like people, usually a lot of things many believe in I don't, and for a lot of reasons. One of the most incredible things i know is the learning power of a child, the extent of which has been demonstrated in objective ways in the last twenty years that have not before. So I am pretty fortunate and lucky to live when I do. What that also means that I and many people living today have a superior understanding to the billions and billions of humans that lived in the thousands and thousands of years before us as far as what you can make a child believe. How they learn, why, and not just those basic things, which have been known for a long time, but the extent of which. I mean there is a correlation between length of pregnancy and the dependency and development of young species to species, the point being what may have been considered the norm hundreds of years ago, may be seen as unethical today. We even know that if you expose any young child to a variety of different ethnicity's and facial structures in neutral terms that child will have a much lesser chance of being racist or exhibiting racist behavior and attitudes.

It took a lot of time for my species to get to a point where information and knowledge could be shared and passed on and used as a basis to aid others in learning and finding truth and objectivity in reality, and I am humble by the efforts and achievements of all the scientists, artists, historians, teachers, philosophers that have come before, most of whom will never be known. Of course there is still a lot more to know and I will die not knowing everything and I am okay with that. Oh and I always try to remember the gorilla in the room - there are many tests old and new that have people failing to spot a gorilla (man in a gorilla suit) in a room with other people when asked to do a counting exercise - and there have even been tests where people expect a gorilla but then fail to notice other things they should have because they anticipated a surprise like a gorilla and spent all their time looking for it. Peoples sense's and perceptions are flawed and we are adapted to traditionally deny this heh heh and also well for thousands and thousands of years the knowledge they were flawed or our ideas were flawed didn't really help when we were running from predators or natural disasters - our senses, prejudices and ability to think abstractly were all really had. Hence I am a fan of critical thinking for those that can afford it. Critical thinking tends to ruin my beliefs though but I am okay with that also. Gives me a greater appreciation of fiction and the human imagination.

@the_stegman: Very insightful! I enjoyed your part about the concept of morality and the invention of sin. There is an ongoing theory among many religious experts that Hell was a construct created to control its believers through fear of pain and death. Similarly to how Purgatory was a creation of the Church to sell indulgences.

@dh69: Your last paragraph reminds me so much of Friedrich Nietzche's view on morality and how its a concept created by the weaker majority to control the stronger individuals. It echos the 'death of god' in my opinion. Super awesome!

@sc: When I read your post all I could think about were Descartes' quote, "Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)"; and the quote, "Vi veri universum vives vici (By the power of truth, I while living have conquered the universe)". While these sayings may not be indicative of your beliefs or even remotely related to what you were trying to say. For some reason these sayings just resonated, to me at least, with what you were saying. However, if I was completely off, I apologize.

humanity

interconnectivity and interconnectedness

"I believe in Jim Gordon. I believe in Harvey Dent. I believe in Gotham City."

Name sounds familiar, but i can't remember where i've heard it before, oh well, apperantly im super insightful just after i wake up, and then it goes away...woot

@dh69:

"Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses." - Amy Tan

Well I certainly don't have any religious beliefs or faith in any religion.Nor in a god or in an afterlife.I am an atheist.And yes I am also anti religious,for many reasons really. I will spare the reasons why since the OP probably does not want this to become a debate thread.And if I do state the reasons someone may disagree with me and start stating why.So I will spare all that.

So I guess that answers the question regarding the OP since it seems to specify religious belief.And even though the OP may not have wanted me to post that here,I thought I would since I came onto this thread,that and my post is doing absolutely nothing to offend or upset anyone,which can happen,the word offended gets thrown around alot unnecessarily in religious debate/discussion.

I have my own views on alot of things,though I wouldn't really consider them beliefs,or certainly not in the sense of installing faith in something.

Islam

There is only one God, supreme and eternal, infinite and mighty, merciful and compassionate, creator and provider.

لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا الله مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ الله

Deism, I believe there is a creator,but he/she/it does not give a damn what we do.I believe it sort of kick started the Big Bang and let the Universe as we know it work it's magic.

I believe in the Judo-Christian-Islamic God, it's all the same lady :D That also doesn't mean I believe in pixies, I also believe in science. I accept all views(cept Satan) as strong possibilities, cause I'm not sure my way is right, I have faith that it is, if you got something different(Lyko hehe) its all good in a red hood <3 as long as your not an A** rat about it.

I mainly believe in science, but then maybe there's something more, something that created everything, but then I don't know how to call it, I just do not believe in the common conception of God or of religion, made of dogmas and "human" beliefs. I mean, if there is a higher power, why should it think about us, why should it think about the way we think, why should it consider us the same way we consider us, or think about our problems and our actions as we do? The concept of God is relative, as are the concepts of creation, soul, even of bad or good ... most of what are human explanations to something that is not human. I do not believe there's a human god, who is male or female, there may be an higher power but then it's not something we could decipher with human fees. Or maybe it's just the Higgs' boson the thing we should believe in lol

Fitness.

@jonny_anonymous said:

It was only a matter of time :P

@pyrogram said:

@jonny_anonymous said:

It was only a matter of time :P

Well it was ether that or this:

A combination of zen Buddhism, humanism, and taoism, with some quantum theory thrown in. Also, i'm a dudeist minister .

http://dudeism.com/tao/38-religion

I believe in a relationship with Jesus and God. I don't use a name of religion.

Antitheism - I beleive any theistic ideology is more harmful to society than it is good.

@jonny_anonymous said:

@pyrogram said:

@jonny_anonymous said:

It was only a matter of time :P

Well it was ether that or this:

You guys are on it lol

Agnostic Pandeism.

To quote Wikipedia:

Pandeism (or pan-deism) combines aspects of pantheism and deism. It holds that the creator of the universe actually became the universe, and so ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity. Pandeism is proposed to explain as to deism why God would create a universe and then abandon it, and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.

I think the Agnostic part is simply self-explanatory.

@hsm1 said:

Same here.

Was raised Christian-Catholic, but I just consider myself a theist and have considered myself an agnostic in the past.

I will also spare this thread my thoughts and views of certain types of people because I respect the OP's request.

Win

friday night will forever be pizza night

@jonny_anonymous said:

Instant win lol

I believe in the Great Evil Beast.

Machines

@omgomgwtfwtf said:

Heh thats cool you don't have to apologize regardless. Interesting interpretation if not strictly how I view things, Descartes was being a bit more philosophical than I. I prefer to be a bit more descriptive and explanatory ^_^

Great idea for a thread too by the way.

Christian, non-denominational

I don't believe in anything supernatural or superstitious, and since we don't have a new word for "nonbelievers" of every possibility of things to "believe in" like Santa or Unicorns (honestly not supposed to be provocative but I'm not sure how else to say my point) then I don't see why we need words like atheist. Grouping everyone into the other category atheists just creates the mentality that it's yet another religion, when it's fully the opposite.

If I had to be "religious" for whatever reason I would definitely choose Secular Buddhism. They have some very beneficial teachings and practices (like meditation) but without any of the supernatural elements (things that no one could claim to know, like reincarnation). Although my lifestyle is probably closer to Rastafarianism lol.