Religion- Read first post please

[crazyflight]

Personally, I don't think a nit-picky, literal interpretation of the Bible is healthy. There are many people who do this and are happy, and I don't discourage them at all. However, I've read a true account of a lesbian's experience of her father almost murdering her to "save her soul" from being sent to the fiery pits of hell because she happened to be gay. It's better for people to find spirituality themselves and use holy texts as a guide to find themselves, in my opinion. With that being said, I think that a lot in the Bible is inaccurate and often hypocritical. If the person following the Bible literally followed the rule "treat thy neighbor as if they were thyself" (or something like that), they wouldn't curse and spit at their neighbor who happened to be different from them, in a way that they couldn't control, because they were predetermined to be damned to hell. This is what confuses me about the Bible, and any clarification on this would be lovely.

[BradTheMad]

If the person following the Bible literally followed the rule "treat thy neighbor as if they were thyself" (or something like that), they wouldn't curse and spit at their neighbor who happened to be different from them, in a way that they couldn't control, because they were predetermined to be damned to hell. This is what confuses me about the Bible, and any clarification on this would be lovely.

I personally couldn't help you there as I don't believe in hell or killing in the name of G-d. That sounds counterintuitive if you read some of the incredibly violent and racist passages but my denomination does not interpret anything literally. I take great issues with people doing that or, possibly even worse, them personally picking what is and isn't literal. That's hypocritical in my personal opinion as you handpick whatever suits you and ignore the things you find difficult.
If taken literally the Scriptures are(pardon my language) disgusting, outdated, racist, bigoted, hate-filled and could never, ever be taken as moral guidelines.
That said my denomination isn't taken seriously by a lot of Jews either, they call us "mystical idiots" or even worse names but I'd rather be a mystical idiot than somebody filled with hatred towards non-believers for instance. I do not judge others, that is not for us to do and I wish more religious people would keep that in mind and don't stick their noses where it doesn't belong.

I seriously do not get how you could condemn somebody to eternal suffering or death because they do not follow what you do.

[crazyflight]

That's what I admire. After reading More Than A Carpenter, my agnostic atheist beliefs were strengthened. Personally, that book made me sick. I couldn't even finish it. It just seemed as though it was directly appealing to someone who was already religious, and it was recommended to me by a religious friend of mine, which confused me. I don't know what he was trying to do; put things into perspective? Anyways, for someone who hasn't read it (I don't recommend you wasting your time with it), it's the autobiographical experience of how an atheist found God through research of historical connections with the Bible, which proved the existence of Jesus Christ and that the Bible is historically accurate. People like the authors of that book defeat the whole purpose of religion to me. Faith isn't about setting out to prove the existence of God, to me at least. It's finding Him in your own heart, and as soon as you can accept that, there's no point in trying so very hard to convert other people. When I asked my extremely devout History teacher why the missionaries tried to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, he replied "Why not?" That answer didn't satisfy me at all.

I used to identify as being a skeptic/agnostic/atheist. However, recently, I've been converted in my own way. It's strange. As soon as I was figuring out my identity, and that I'm certainly gay, I also found my own God within myself. I don't know why, but It just showed up. I say It because I'm not sure if it's a male or a female God. I don't really know much about It yet. I'm sure as I grow and continue to develop my own beliefs, It will grow with me. But I don't know why people need religious books and texts to find their God.

[Ravenclaw101]

Well speaking of religion, I am Wiccan. Unfortunately, I live in a town of "bible beaters" so pagans are hated. Especially when everyone preaches to you constantly and try's to convert u. I'm not satanic, I don't worship any form of demon (we don't even have a form of satan) and I abide by the Rede so I'm not gonna hurt anyone... But no one understands that.-.-

[Taxi]

Well speaking of religion, I am Wiccan.

That's pretty cool, what do you do as a Wiccan?

[ZerKo]

I am Hindu and ugh is it complicated. Still trying to figure out how I feel about things wrt God/gods/anybody really out there? I dun feel like my prayers have been answered but then again I have been praying for a boyfriend. Oh and for people to be safe. And then there are issues with other Hindus like "who is a proper Hindu" and casteism. I sound all complainy but I do enjoy it.

[Orbit]

Oooh, interesting topic.

I'm Pagan, I suppose you could call me - my beliefs do come under the Pagan umbrella, of sorts (Paganism seems the best match). Religion is an interesting topic and it's interesting to read everyone's posts and the discussions on this thread c:

[Lufpleh]

It's so interesting to see all of you guys talking about your different religions! Personally, I always found religion mildly interesting, but only because of its various philosophies and I enjoyed learning about what people believed in. It was never actually a huge part of my life, and religion was just totally irrelevant to me. I used to be an extremely casual Christian, who started off by going off to church, but slowly stopping around the latter part of my elementary school years. Although I did believe in God, I got a lot of nonsense spewed out to me from a classmate about how I wasn't a “true Christian”.

Today my dad is an agnostic, my sister is an atheist, my mom is a Christian, and my brother is still not sure, but he's considering atheism. So I come from a pretty religiously diverse background. For the longest time, I had absolutely no idea about my own religion, and would get really uncomfortable about the topic because I, myself, could not categorize my own beliefs. I've always seen the merits of each religion, yet still find many things I disagree on. But a couple weeks ago, I discovered something called Omnism. I did some research and realized that there is a religion that properly incorporates my beliefs. If anybody wants to know what Omnism is, let me spoiler it for you, since it's rather long:

Spoiler

Okay, not only is the name pretty cool(omnomnomnomnom), but it is such an open religion/philosophy that shares many of the ideals that I find admirable in people. Here are some quotes that illustrate what Omnism is:

"Well put to the simplest definition an Omnist is a person who believes in all religions… Omnism is the belief that no one religion is perfectly right and yet, no one religion is totally wrong. Each religion and even science has a bit to offer to the total experience of faith and our world. Almost every religion is fundamentally the same. A God or Gods created, and or rule over the earth. Also we should know that we exist and try to live our lives in a positive manner. The problem is that these books have conflicting rules amongst each other and even in themselves. This is where the hand of man came in. For the Christians/Catholics, yes. The bible dictates very explicitly that god’s word should not be changed. But in the thousands of years the bible and every other religious text has been in print and translated, the interpretation of man steps in. Even when the books were first written they were subjects to interpretation. This is where Omnism helps out. Omnism is more of a philosophy rather than religion. It’s a means to explore religion in all facets."

"An Omnist is someone who seeks and is open to spiritual truths from many religions and then comes up with their own individual form of faith or spirituality. Omnists realize that although all religions have some powerful spiritual truths and great wisdom in them which can be very inspirational and moving, they also contain a lot of human opinion, social politics, and outdated viewpoints (beliefs and rules that made sense at one point in history but don’t apply as well in today’s world). Omnists explore spirituality and religion in a modern context using reason and their intelligence as well as their intuition and insights gained from personal mystical/spiritual experiences. The key is what has meaning and relevance to each individual in their seeking… Omnists respect the rights of each individual to have their own spiritual/religious views as long as those views do not espouse harming or being intolerant of those who disagree with them… Also there is no reason that Omnism needs to be an “exclusive" sort of label. Many people feel strongly about their own religion, using it as their spiritual center, and yet are open to, and actively study, the spiritual ideas and wisdom of other traditions. One could easily be a Christian Omnist, a Buddhist Omnist, a Neo-Pagan Omnist, etc.

"It is a belief in equality. Not one religion or the other should be superior. Everyone has their own ways of thinking and believing. There are many aspects to religion that not everyone agrees on."

“I understand that for most people, they don’t need to study religion to know how to live a good moral life… Omnism, for me, is a way to bring together different cultures and different people. Rather than arguing about whether Jesus is actually the son of God, or whether or not Muhammad was a false prophet, I think that it would be more productive to talk about the things that bring us together. Because those are the things that really matter. Jesus’s lessons wouldn’t be any less meaningful if he wasn’t the son of God. Heck, it doesn’t even matter if he existed or not. It’s the lessons that count."

So Omnism is really just open to an infinite amount of possibilities. For me, I've always thought, why not just believe in everything? Now that I've found a religion that essentially believes in all religions to a certain extent, I am just ecstatic that I can give a label to what I believe. Just throwing in my two cents over here. And cookies to you if you read the whole thing!

[WillowPuma]

I don't have anything against religion. But i'm not very good at explaining myself. So if I sound like i'm attacking or being biased, then I am extremely sorry, and I don't mean to offend. Please PM me if you felt offended?

What I think, about religion (I am not religious) is, well, first of all, that I sort of... Understand where it's coming from.
It's kind of scary to think that for now, we're the smartest things in our universe/lives, and that we control the stuff we do. If something happens, it might be our fault. There's no one that's really watching us and caring about us... And its really really scary.
The thing is, I have had so many let-downs in my life, that I can't really afford, to myself, to believe in something that might not be real.

For me, its like part of growing up. Going to church, or praying, will probably not help me. I have to help myself, and if someone is up there, then, hopefully, I can get somewhere without them needing to worry about me too much.

If you haven't noticed, i'm very pessimistic. Though i'm trying very hard not to be.

[Taxi]

I don't have anything against religion. But i'm not very good at explaining myself. So if I sound like i'm attacking or being biased, then I am extremely sorry, and I don't mean to offend. Please PM me if you felt offended?

What I think, about religion (I am not religious) is, well, first of all, that I sort of... Understand where it's coming from.
It's kind of scary to think that for now, we're the smartest things in our universe/lives, and that we control the stuff we do. If something happens, it might be our fault. There's no one that's really watching us and caring about us... And its really really scary.
The thing is, I have had so many let-downs in my life, that I can't really afford, to myself, to believe in something that might not be real.

For me, its like part of growing up. Going to church, or praying, will probably not help me. I have to help myself, and if someone is up there, then, hopefully, I can get somewhere without them needing to worry about me too much.

If you haven't noticed, i'm very pessimistic. Though i'm trying very hard not to be.

I totally get what you're saying with the many let-downs, but I feel like that's where religion can help. I always avoid watching the news because of all the depressing/horrible things we or nature cause, and sometimes I'd get all angry like "if so many of us put our faith in a higher power, why are these things happening?" It's like the world let us down with its cruality. But I've come to recognize that you know, regardless of what we do, horrible things happen and while having faith can't prevent these things from happening, it can get us through them. I'm still pretty skeptical towards organized religion because of its controversial history, but I believe having faith in a higher power can help bring hope and get us through the more difficult moments of life.