what religion?

Bagira · Post by **Bagira** » 25 Mar 2006 21:17

8 years old is still a bit young. Hell, teens make pretty bad decisions.../poke pregnancies.

A kid of 8 years of age still has no idea what he's getting himself into. I'm wondering. Are there cases where the child refuses to be baptised? If he does so, then what does the family do? Do they just leave him home to play video games while they go to church for a few hours?

dp · Post by dp » 25 Mar 2006 21:41

I'm sure the kid's family doesn't influence or pressure him/her at all.

JoFa · Post by **JoFa** » 25 Mar 2006 21:44

Haha that's a different subject. Yes, some parents will force their children, but I have never met an 8 year old in the church who didn't want to get baptized (the younger kids get free candy every week and sing silly songs for like an hour).

sniikeri · Post by **sniikeri** » 26 Mar 2006 08:02

Christian > Protestant > Evangelical Lutheran like about 80+% of the Finns.

I don't sign all the statements but in general I find the message - pay regard to the other people etc - good. I'd say I've got my own thoughts about these things but even I am not always sure what they exactly are.

I actually think my belief is a mixture of Evangelical Lutheran religion and agnostism. I don't really make thoughts if there's a God or not, what/who started the birth of the universe and so on, but a lot of my views sure are influenced a lot by the Christian views on ethic and moral. I think this goes for many of other people too?
I don't argue my opinions saying "because the Holy Bible says so", more on the law and utilitarism. Although I don't always do the way that would be the best for me or the society, I try to avoid doing things that are harmful for me and the society.
In my opinion religion should be a personal matter; with this I don't mean that everyone should hide in closet when they want to pray. In "my world" one could pray when one feels like praying.

So I guess my thoughts base on Evangelical Lutheran religion, utilitarism, individualism and fair capitalism spiced with the care of the environment. And footbag of course.

Torn · Post by **Torn** » 26 Mar 2006 17:28

I used to be Catholic but I never really liked it...Now that I'm old enough to search for reasons etc. myself I decided that I'm not at all Catholic. I'm an Atheist...

But if I HAD to choose a religion it would certainly be Buddhism because I think that they are the only ones who are not fighting against other religions and claiming to be the only real religion etc. (just crap like "We believe in the only god and real god there is, our religion is the only one blablablabla")

I personally dislike all the popular monotheistic religions (Catholicism, Islamism etc.) because they all are distributing hate among the world population. That's my opinion if you don't like it - I don't care

Best wishes

Julian

logan · Post by **logan** » 27 Mar 2006 14:28

I cannot live my life believing there is no God. Nor could I live my life not really caring, just getting by. Where do you draw the lines? Why do you share? there's no one up there looking at you, just be selfish. Why do you get married? Morals don't really matter, just sleep with the girl your whole life with no respect for her or vow that you love her. why are you nice to people? it's a lot easier to just not talk to them. get real. how are you gonna feel when your 80 and your laying on your death bed, not knowing where you will go when you die? probalby like a giant piece of poo. I cannot tell you guys how important faith is.

Peace.

Logan

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 27 Mar 2006 14:54

Logan man, not to dissect you or anything, but I had responses to all of your questions here. I hope you don't take this is a personal attack or an attack on your beliefs. I just want to show you what I think.

logan wrote:I cannot live my life believing there is no God. Nor could I live my life not really caring, just getting by. Where do you draw the lines? Why do you share? there's no one up there looking at you, just be selfish.

For the sake of sharing on its own. Not because someone is watching. I don't have to believe in God to understand that sharing is the right thing to do. If you're only sharing because if you don't then god will get mad at you, I think that's a terrible reason. Share because it's the right thing to do. Share because it's the best thing for the greater good.

logan wrote:Why do you get married? Morals don't really matter, just sleep with the girl your whole life with no respect for her or vow that you love her.

You don't need to get married to show someone that you love them and respect them. They'll know by the way that you treat them, by the way that you talk to them. There are plenty of people out there who are married who don't love and respect each other. I don't think it's a fair metric of love and respect.

logan wrote:why are you nice to people? it's a lot easier to just not talk to them.

For the sake of being nice to them. I would want just the same from them. I don't have to believe that Jesus was the son of god to understand that the golden rule was a really good idea.

logan wrote:get real. how are you gonna feel when your 80 and your laying on your death bed, not knowing where you will go when you die? probalby like a giant piece of poo.

I'll feel quite peaceful. Times up. I did the best that I could. It was great while it lasted. I left it a better place than I found it. That's quite satisfactory. Everything has to end some time.

logan wrote:I cannot tell you guys how important faith is.

I don't think you can either. Our beliefs are completely different and that's cool. Just wanted to show you a different perspective.

full nelson · Post by **full nelson** » 27 Mar 2006 15:05

logan wrote:I cannot live my life believing there is no God. Nor could I live my life not really caring, just getting by. Where do you draw the lines? Why do you share? there's no one up there looking at you, just be selfish. Why do you get married? Morals don't really matter, just sleep with the girl your whole life with no respect for her or vow that you love her. why are you nice to people? it's a lot easier to just not talk to them. get real. how are you gonna feel when your 80 and your laying on your death bed, not knowing where you will go when you die? probalby like a giant piece of poo. I cannot tell you guys how important faith is.

You're doing a better job of converting us to assholes than christians by your reasoning.

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 27 Mar 2006 15:30

logan wrote:I cannot tell you guys how important faith is.

Peace.

Logan

I have faith that Ottawa will win the stanley cup this year.
You can argue my faith but I still believe.

Agnostic

logan · Post by **logan** » 27 Mar 2006 15:31

my bad full nelson, didn't mean to offend you or anything, but I do feel very strong about faith. i dont take it as a personal attack at all ben. later dudes.

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 27 Mar 2006 16:08

I'll definitely agree that if the only thing keeping you from being a bad person (which is obviously open to a wide variety of interpretation) is God or the fear of his anger/hell, then it doesn't seem like you're being "moral" at all. God wants people to love each other and treat each other with respect. People who don't believe in God don't have less love in their hearts, we might just give all of it to people instead of to people and God.

Atheism... is interesting to hear people talk about lately. I've encountered a few Agnostics who are ex-Atheists.

Especially in teen years, a lot of people seem to "convert" to Atheism. I knew a fair number of Atheists when I was in high school. But there is a big difference between someone who truly feels that there is no personified cosmological being or afterlife and someone who is rebelling against what their parents/society have been feeding them for their entire life. It reminds me of women who are "bisexual" because they are trying to be attractive to men vs. women who are genuinely attracted to women as well as men. I feel like this is a big hindrance for non-Atheists who are trying to understand the beliefs that Atheists have. There are SO many people who consider themselves Atheists but then realize that they have been Agnostic for a while.

If you're getting your information on Atheism or any religion from someone who doesn't truly believe what they're saying, you're going to get a skewed view of a religion/belief system.

And here's something really annoying to me: Another misconception that seems to be common about Atheism is that we hate God. Nope, I don't can't hate God if I don't believe that he exists. Same thing for the common misconception that Pagans worship the devil --- you can't worship something you don't believe exists.

Edit: That was going to be a one sentence post. Whoops.

Guest_2 · Post by **Guest_2** » 27 Mar 2006 16:26

Pagans don't worship the devil

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 27 Mar 2006 17:18

What I originally said:

Moxie wrote:And here's something really annoying to me: Another misconception that seems to be common about Atheism is that Atheists hate God. Nope, I don't can't hate God if I don't believe that he exists. Same thing for Pagans who worship the devil: you can't worship something you don't believe exists.

You are correct. It was poorly written, I'll change it. But I was making the comparison between atheists hating god and pagans worshiping the devil. It doesn't work, it doesn't make sense, and the people who accuse either group of doing either thing are showing great ignorance.

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 27 Mar 2006 17:35

Alot of people get wrapped up in the idea of god personified. I think it's a totally different argument when considering if any sort of force or power or anything that we can't understand is the result of all of us sitting here questioning things. Religion as a whole may not be that off, they go off track when trying to explain the supernatural in terms that people can understand. Most religions are still shrouded in mysteries, in fact christians glorify the mysteries of their faith. I don't think any religion is the ultimate answer book, it's just too complex of an issue for a humans brain to fully understand.

Larson · Post by **Larson** » 28 Mar 2006 09:51

agreed.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 28 Mar 2006 22:28

christian - pentecostal.

carl winslow · Post by **carl winslow** » 28 Mar 2006 23:50

If you go back and look at the history of Buddhism and buddhist sects you will see that wars were faught in the name of buddhism just llike they were in other religions. Different buddhist sects used to battle each other all the time.
All religions have messed up elements and pretty good elements...

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 29 Mar 2006 00:17

logan wrote:I cannot live my life believing there is no God. Nor could I live my life not really caring, just getting by. Where do you draw the lines? Why do you share? there's no one up there looking at you, just be selfish. Why do you get married? Morals don't really matter, just sleep with the girl your whole life with no respect for her or vow that you love her. why are you nice to people? it's a lot easier to just not talk to them. get real. how are you gonna feel when your 80 and your laying on your death bed, not knowing where you will go when you die? probalby like a giant piece of poo. I cannot tell you guys how important faith is.

Peace.

Logan

Just in regard to this comment:

What is the difference between somebody who behaves in a certain manner so that a good thing will happen to them (they go to heaven) and somebody who behaves in a certain manner so that good things will happen to them (an athiest who doesn't share).

One of the things I hate about some interpretations of christianity is that people are nice for completely selfish reasons. I tend to believe that people should be nice regardless of what they'll get out of it.

logan · Post by **logan** » 29 Mar 2006 13:33

i apologoze if i came across too strong. i didn't mean to sound like one of those people praying on streets telling people they will go to hell if they don't become Christian. I am definately not one of those type (and im willing to bet no other Catholic is). I think cause i was raised with religion I have never really been able to see life without it, so seeing you guyses different points of view is kinda weird to me, but, charity is one of the most important facets of my religion, so I guess i should have thought of that before i posted originally. again, my apologies.
cheers

Lackey82 · Post by **Lackey82** » 29 Mar 2006 17:19

Logan, I totally respect that you are not out here to make anyone else feel like their views are wrong, while at the same time expressing your own faith without equivocation. More to you, I hope it helps you!

Myself... I used to play guitar in a pentecostal worship band, but slowly started growing away from certain aspects of devotional life that I could not come to terms with... the last straw was one day in pre-performance prayer, when we were in a circle, heads down, silent. I was thinking this: "This isn't right for me. It's not where I have to be. It's stifling. I don't even know these people, let alone share in their beliefs. I don't believe this at all" That's when the band leader, the leader, looks up at me, and says: "I can feel your connection with God tonight, and it feels really good to see your faith growing!"

I almost laughed. And told them later that I wasn't right for the position or the church. And man... I'll never forget that... how can God be speaking to this man if he mistakes inward blasphemy for spiritual connection?