What Religion are You and Why?

Neat! That's the first time I've ever seen Bertrand Russell or listened to him speak. Aside from hearing his name, I've never read anything by him either, so this was a pretty cool experience.

I also got a laugh out of his answer to the after life.

J.

I was raised Catholic but never really believed a word of it. You could say I was an athiest from around eight years old.

I was raised Baptist. I became completely disgusted with the lowest-common-denominator democratic nature of low-church protestantism, seriously considered joining the Orthodox church, and ended up completely losing faith in Christianity altogether. Now I'm a agnostic/pagan.

Hmm. I know Tasvir comes and goes... but as the only Muslim on the board, I'd actually be interested in hearing his thoughts on this.

I have known about Henotheism long before you ever mentioned it in TNZ. Christianity is a Henotheistic religion, just like Hinduism. Islam is monotheistic. Judaism is monotheistic. Christianity is Henotheistic.

The New World Encyclopedia HERE agrees with my usage. Whether you agree that it is or not, my usage is still acceptable, and I did not, as you say, butcher the word.

J.

Funny you say that, because that's completely opposite how I see my world.

You went from color to black and white?


J.

I went from color, to black and white, to technicolor.

How do the Christians here justify that God created the world like 5,000 years ago in just a few days? Carbon dating alone can prove the earth is over 5,000 years old. It can estimate it at being like 6 billion years old!

I never really thought of the justification behind creation.

I suppose I should ask Him if I ever meet Him.

So you went from color, to black and white, to color filtered and processed through a lens by artificial means? Because that's the only way that makes sense.

J.

Quite the contrary. He got it right. Gays are God's children too.

Carbon-14 is a Satanic deception, naturally.

How can one expect people 2,000 years ago to understand the Big Bang and evolution when most people today don't understand it?

The Bible is not a science book; it is a book that deals with the soul.

I'm an atheist, always have been. My parents tried taking me to church as an infant, but I cried, screamed, and generally made my distaste clear. Throughout early life, I never believed in any of the foolish rituals the people around me practiced, and indeed, I had no idea that there was such a word or idea defined as "atheism" until second grade. It was a mostly secular, vaguely Quaker school (we had a chaplain), and my teacher assigned us to write prayers thanking God, to be presented at chapel. I sat at my desk pretending to write (actually, doodles, of course) and when we were excused to recess, the teacher stopped me and told me that I had to stay in and write my prayer. For the first time, I clearly verbalised, "I don't believe in God," she told me that was called atheism, had me write about being thankful in a nonspecific secular way, and from then on, I became increasingly popular with the Christian kids, as evidenced by many fun times on the playground.

It has to be all or nothing?

Your cynicism is leaking through your over analysis.

I said black and white to color.
You then followed up that you were the opposite, so I said "color to black and white".
You then said "More like color to black and white to technicolor".
My response was to say what that meant, and you tell me I'm overanalyzing it? Which one of us picked up someone else's throwaway metaphor and insisted on redefining it?

J.

Most Christians do not believe in the young earth nonsense. The ones that do would not be worth asking that question to. You cannot change their minds, even if they are otherwise intelligent individuals.

I used to say I was "agnostic," but what I really meant was "atheist, but I don't want to fight about it."

Now I just say "atheist."

"Apatheist" is about the closest wording to describe how I feel. Was raised strictly Roman Catholic all through school. My mother's uncle even carried a statue of Mary from the Vatican around the world preaching and all that fun stuff too. Most of my family on both sides were, or still are, very devout catholics... And that's probably why I'm not.

They are all pretty damn horrible people in about every sense of that word. I've talked to all of them at one point or another of my questions about catholicism, and the one response that everyone always falls back on when they can't answer a question is "Faith." That's family, priests.... anyone. And after a certain point, I was finally confident in my own convictions enough to say "that's just not good enough for me anymore."

Then I took some time out to study some other belief structures, until I realized that it was religion in general that I didn't believe in anymore, or at least didn't care about at all. So apathetic agnostic is pretty damn close, but as time goes on I keep leaning more and more towards Atheist.

I cheer Henry Drummond on during Inherit the Wind.

I don't believe in the young Earth nonsense. I think the most important aspects of the Genesis account are that God created the heavens and the Earth and that Man is made of the dust of the Earth. All of the ingredients of life truly are found in the dust and are among the most common substances found in nature. It's the way they're put together that makes life special.

God save us all from religion.

But I like throwaway metaphors.

I know someone who calls himself an "Idontcareist." Apatheist has a much better ring to it.

Nonreligious, because none of them I've heard of make sense to me.

Athiest...because there is no god.