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A profession of faith
Freejack
Jake the Not-so-Wise
in Zocalo v2.0
I'm curious as to what faith/religion/belief systems we have on this board, so I'd like to start a thread where people declare and discuss their beliefs. Here's what you should post:
[b]Your faith:[/b] (Christian, Buddhist, Muslim etc)
[b]Your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] (Methodist/Sunni/Orthodox)
[b]A description of your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] (Provide a link to your group if you'd like)
[b]A quick overview of how you came to your faith:[/b][i] (especially if you were not born into it)[/i] <-- I realize this can be pretty personal, do not feel that you have to share this.
[b]The only guideline -->[/b] Feel free to ask questions, but do not debate the validity or specific tenants of anyone's belief system, if you'd like to do that, start a different thread.
If you’re like me, you'll find a discussion of different religious points of view as educating and uplifting.
Jake
[b]Your faith:[/b] (Christian, Buddhist, Muslim etc)
[b]Your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] (Methodist/Sunni/Orthodox)
[b]A description of your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] (Provide a link to your group if you'd like)
[b]A quick overview of how you came to your faith:[/b][i] (especially if you were not born into it)[/i] <-- I realize this can be pretty personal, do not feel that you have to share this.
[b]The only guideline -->[/b] Feel free to ask questions, but do not debate the validity or specific tenants of anyone's belief system, if you'd like to do that, start a different thread.
If you’re like me, you'll find a discussion of different religious points of view as educating and uplifting.
Jake
Comments
Denomination: Presbyterian, ARP. Meaning the only way to Heaven is to believe in Christ. Nothing more needed, nothing less with suffice.
[url]http://www.arpsynod.org/believe.html[/url]
How I came to this: Well, born into a Christain family, as well as personal study.
Oh, and Freejack. you didn't answer your own questions. ;)
Now while I don't have any concrete beliefs about how everything works, I have plenty and plenty of theories. It's actually one of my favorite pastimes after I've smoked a bit of the chiba, thinking up theories like that.
What I think about life and fate. I think life is what we make of it. Sure, there are circumstances into which we're born, but I think perseverance and deciding to make your little corner of the world as good as you can make it for yourself and others is what we're here for. We can have a shitty one and then just decide to give up on making it better because we're beaten down and don't want to get up for another potential beating again. But if we give up, what's the point in even being around?
As far as other people's beliefs are concerned, if others respect mine, I respect theirs. If they piss on mine I reserve the right to piss right back. I won't tell people that my beliefs are any more valid than theirs, or that they're plain wrong. But if someone tries to push theirs onto me, I'll either just not give a shit or then just knock some teeth out.
Edit: I dont have any problems with religions, its when the Fundies start going around trying to convert people and shit, or start fighting and killing over Religion, is what realy pisses me off... I dont care what religion some one is.
Faith: Christian
Denomination: United Church of Christ
UCC is the evolution of the combination of the old German Evangelical (not to be confused with the overused term “evangelical Christians”) and Congregational churches (which traces its roots back to the Pilgrims and Puritans). Believing in many of the basic tenets of the Christian faith (namely Christ died on the cross for our sins), on the surface the UCC church seems not unlike the Catholic Church in its worship and ceremony, but doctrinally this organization is one of the more progressive and liberal Protestant denominations. UCC churches tend to be very ecumenical, often working with local Jewish and Muslim groups on civic and community projects. Steps are taken to include people of all faiths, rather than be exclusionary for those who do not believe in like manner. Women clergy are very common, as some gay and lesbian clergy.
[url]http://www.ucc.org/aboutus/whatis.htm[/url]
How I came to my faith: I was born into a Christian home, with my parents belonging to Disciples of Christ church (another fairly progressive Christian denomination). Actually, while I was in college my mother was ordained as a D.o.C. minister. For quite a few years I did not go to church, nor was I terribly interested in religion in more than an academic sense. Within the past year my wife and I began to look for a church to attend and found a UCC church we liked. The church was extremely friendly, welcoming and open while at the same time, being intelligent and reasoned, which was what we were looking for. Also, UCC church was a big part of the strong German heritage that was present on my dad side.
Jake
Jake
[i]Christainity[/i]
[b]Denomination:[/b]
[i]Non-Denominational, although I hold to the Fundimentalist view (Jesus is the messiah and everything he claimed to be, not the FANATICAL interpretation that the media has defined this word by...).[/i]
[b]How I came to this:[/b]
[i]Brought to it by my mother (Lutheran origins), reinforced by my wife (from Baptist origins), grown by personal study, experience, and revelation.
My personal take is that many of the Fundimental denominations as well as the Catholics hold fast to facets of the Fundimental Truth of the Bible, and that interpretations of scripture are what is fallible, not the writings themselves, and this is why there is so much comflict and infighting amoung the believers.[/i]
I could go into more, but I'll let the next person state theirs... ;)
[B]Mudane and Simmonds: I want to know your reasons you are atheist. Just saying you are defeats the purpose of the thread, to find out why people believe what they do.
Jake [/B][/QUOTE]
Kind of hard to explain. Other then I dont believe in any kind of God(s). To me people just use God(s) to explain things they dont understand with out researching the matter. Or they use God(s) to wish for things. To me everthing is just apart of Nature, It just happens, we have found out how things work in nature, and we can control these things aswell with technoloagy and such.. I mite sound a bit like a Buddhist or somthing.
Edit: I also dont like people bitching at me how I should live my life and if I dont fallow their way I will goto hell or some bullshit like that, or Knocking on my door and trying to get me to join their religion or I'm going to hell.
I dont know if i'm making scense or not.
In regaurds to using God as an excuse for not studying the matter, well...I can't only think of one way to put it, and I'm afraid that is bluntly.
Your dead wrong.
I've studied it, half the science instructors at my college, all infinately more knowledgeable then I in sciences/biology have studied it, VERY throughly, and they reached the same conclusion. The more they studied their respective areas of science, the more certain they were that there was a God.
My biology instructor for example, (If you go to his class, you WILL hear stories from his life...LOL) He's been disecting and observing every form of life he can get his hands onto, and all of that led him to look for God, because he came to the conclusion evolution simply couldn't work.
That said, my Biology instructor absolutly loves Darwin, for one major reason:
Darwin split the scientific community down the middle, one side trying to prove creationism, the other trying to prove evolution. The result? LOTS of new data and information on everything, and as long as one or the other is not proven, there will continue to be more and more info brought forth...
As for the latter half of your reply (After the edit)...heh, THAT I can understand compleatly.
...and I got entirely to long winded didn't I?
[b]Your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] Presbyterian
[b]A description of your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] Moderately conservative Protestant denomination.
[b]A quick overview of how you came to your faith:[/b] I was born into it; going to the church a half-mile from my house was simply always a part of my life from very early on. That church, the First Armenian Presbyterian Church in Fresno, has a very strong Armenian background, as the name implies. Now, my family has absolutely no Armenian blood in it whatsoever; none of us speak more than a few words of the language, and we certainly don't look Armenian, but nearly all the rest of the church is Armenian. The church has two sermons per service: one in Armenian, and one in English. Those members of the congregation that understand both languages get to hear two different messages; the rest of us just kinda twiddle our thumbs (or, better yet, read some scripture) until the comprehensible message comes. I find this highly amusing.
Being born into a given denomination or religion isn't enough. At some point, each person must make a decision as to what he believes and why. For me, that came somewhere around middle school. Evolution just didn't seem like it should be capable of making changes in species that were both minute and worthwhile, and preserving those changes across the entire species. For that to work, I reasoned, there must be a design behind it. And, of course, if evolution is completely farcical, then there must [i]also[/i] be a design. Simply put, I don't see that the universe could exist if there weren't some conscious thought that set it in motion.
It wasn't difficult to go from there to deciding that I really did believe what I'd been taught to believe, and my understanding is much more thorough and detailed now than it was then. In order for there to be free will, the soul must exist. I believe in free will; therefore, we must be more than just chunks of meat.
I had a similar reasoning experience, but mine was more in regards to the way the universe seems to be constantly decaying in the overall picture from some point in the past. The creation of new things in the Universe relies upon the death, recombination of, and loss of other things already in existence. This implies a starting organization of material and forces that decay can act upon.
Looking at the Universe that we can see and measure from our feeble vantage point, the size and complication (and yet simplistic at the same time) of the universe had to be from design, and not by chance.
I realize that that also sounds like faith, but then, even science is a faith. It is a belief system based upon facts that are interpreted a certain way.
Truth exists on both sides in my opinion... ;)
[B]Simmonds:
In regaurds to using God as an excuse for not studying the matter, well...I can't only think of one way to put it, and I'm afraid that is bluntly.
Your dead wrong.
[/B][/QUOTE]
A#, while I somewhat agree with your point, lets hold off challenging anyone's beliefs until everyone can get their thoughts out on the table. I really don't want this to degrade into a debate thread just yet. I find it intensely facinating to see how people view their faiths.
And yes even Atheism is a faith, since it requires the belief that God does not exist. A belief that cannot be proven nor disproven.
Jake
[b]Your faith:[/b]
None
[b]Your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b]
n/a
[b]A description of your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b]
n/a
[b]A quick overview of how you came to your faith:[/b]
Nothing that I have read/experienced/been told/felt has given me the slightest indication that any supreme being is running this show, quite the opposite in fact.
Things happen, not because someone wills it but because of cause and effect.
(BTW the existence or not of a supreme being is completely irrelevant to the theory of evolution and it shouldn't be used as ammunition in the eternal debate of "is there a god". Think about it, the world changes, we see that all the time, if we (all life on the planet not just humans) are created things then a deity would want us to adapt to changing environments and circumstances and therefore would build in that adaptability, if there is no deity then we have to adapt all by ourselves, either way we exist as a result of an accumulation of influences down through time)
[B]My biology instructor for example, (If you go to his class, you WILL hear stories from his life...LOL) He's been disecting and observing every form of life he can get his hands onto, and all of that led him to look for God, because he came to the conclusion evolution simply couldn't work. [/B][/QUOTE]
I'd just like to make one minor point here, because I was thinking about it earlier today and I think it helps conceptualize evolution a bit because, if you ask me, evolution and God are probably two of the most difficult things to for a person to wrap his or her brain around.
Imagine you are standing in Alaska. Cold, snowy Alaskan tundra. You begin walking south. You keep walking until, eventually, you reach the Amazon rain forest.
These are two of the most different places on the planet. One is cold, barren wasteland, and the other is moist, warm forest, filled to the bursting with life. And to get from the one place to the other, you passed through pine forests, grasslands, mountains, desserts, and other radically different environments.
And yet, from one step to the next, there seemed to be no difference. You could go ten thousand steps, for that matter, without realizing you were moving from tundra to scrub to forest. The change was so gradual, over such a long period, you could hardly notice it coming until it arrived.
Now, replace "Alaska" with "single-celled microorganisms", "Amazon rain forest" with "humans", and "steps" with "years".
There's evolution, in a nutshell. The fantastically gradual transformation from tundra to rain forest.
----
Oh, and not to seem like I'm just bumping in to be a jerk.
[b]Your faith:[/b] Christian
[b]Your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] Roman Catholic
[b]A description of your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] Traditionally believed to be founded by Jesus' apostle Simon Peter some two thousand years ago, Roman Catholicism is currently the largest Christian denomination on the planet, with approximately a billion adherents. The head of the Church is the Pope, who traditionally wears a big, ostentatious hat that actually seems quite subdued in comparison to the headgear of his predecessors a few hundred years ago. The current Pope is John Paul II, and you've probably seen him on TV at some point. My favorite Pope was probably John XXIII, but that's getting a bit afield.
[b]A quick overview of how you came to your faith:[/b] I was born into it. Over the years, it has seemed a good enough fit for me, though occasionally some reactionary bozo Bishop has to go write a dissertation on why women were meant to scrub floors and bear children or something of the kind. That honks me off, but nothing has yet pushed me to renounce my denomination.
Argh!!
It's so hard not to argue when one always does! LOL Let me know when we're open for debate man! :D :D :D
While I don't believe in a "heavenly body", I don't think science currently offers all of the answers. To be perfectly honest, I don't know what happens when you die, nor do I [b]want[/b] to know. Its like reading the last couple of pages of a mystery novel to see who did it, and then reading from page 1. Takes all of the fun out of it IMO. Some things aren't meant to be answered, and should remain so until the right time has arrived.
That being said, I'm very tolerant of other people's beliefs upto a point. When bigotry or "conversion" comes into play, I start to bring out both barrells. I don't care what you worship, or don't worship. As long as you're nice to me, and respect my beliefs, we'll get alone just fine. If you try to convert me, or start preaching bigotry, lets just say I won't be so nice.
Your denomination/sect/tradition: Church of Christ
A description of your denomination/sect/tradition: Believe that all people are fatally flawed, but the Creator of the universe sacrificed His own Son, Jesus Christ, to bring us back to Him. There is no central ruling body, and all teachings are based on the Bible only (not human creed) holding the Bible to be divinely inspired. Broad spectrum from higly conservative to liberal.
A quick overview of how you came to your faith: I was born into a Christian family, but was baptized at thirteen by my own choice, and I've been learning daily what that decision to have a personal savior and Lord actually means.
Attending the [url=http://www.nscoc.org/]Northside Church of Christ[/url] in San Antonio.
One the case of evolution vs creation, or even religion vs science, I am continually amazed how people on the both sides are unwilling to admit compatibility with the other, especially those who believe in creation, they latch on to that as the main pillar of their beliefs as if their entire faith depends on it, but I digress.
I my view the two sides work beautifully together. Religion explains the who and why, science explains the how and when. No matter how good science is, it will never be able to find a origin to all things. It may be able to describe the 1/100,000,000th of a second after the origin, but it will never find "the beginning. Religion on the other had cannot explain how things work. It may be able to help answer what our purpose here is, but it will not give us the reason why our heart beats.
To quote Albert Einstien:
[i]Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. [/i]
Jake
i personally cant see how religion and science can be compatible, eg. how god can make something and yet how it can be evolved from something else.
a quick summary of my beliefs is that i dont believe in god (obviously). but i do believe that there are [I]beings[/I] out there far older and more powerful than we are. G'Kar's example with the ant is a perfect example of my viewpoint. if any being sufficiently advanced comes into contact with a sufficiently less advanced being, then the lesser creature would percieve the more advanced one to at least possess magical abilities.
now im not suggesting that jesus was an alien, but it would fit. nothing out there (at least that ive seen) could persuade me otherwise. but like any good scientist, i will at least leave that possibility open, but only because my own beliefs demand that i must.
hope that made sense!
I don't believe God said, "Let there be planets" and instantly there were planets, I believe that God is the construct on which all that exists is based. The laws that govern our universe, the materials from which it was born, the impetus to bring it all into being are of God.
If you think about it, pursuit of science is at its core, the search for God. It’s the search for beginnings, looking for an origin, trying to find the smallest subset, or the largest construct. It’s trying to define the laws and processes that govern and allow our existence as humans.
As I said before, no matter how deep into the core of an atom it looks, or how far back into the birth of the universe it travels, science will never be able to find "the" origin, but will be able to explain the moment/step/level after that origin.
ShadowDancer, Even if we were put on earth by aliens, and there is enough evidence floating around to at least give the hypothesis a thought, what were the aliens’ origins? How did they come into being, what had to happen for there existence to take place? It may explain our immediate origin, but it no better explains the universe or the laws that govern it.
Jake
I was raised Unitarian, and converted to the United Church at about age 10. My biggest reason for switching was that the United church had a better choir...a rather trivial thing to base your faith on.
Since then I've thought about what I believe and have faith in and I've come to the conclusion that I don't think I can be Christian, though I believe in many parts of it... I've read the New Testement (and parts of the Old), I think Jesus was an amazing human being, and definately someone I'd follow the teachings of (along with the teachings of others...), but when it comes to believing he redeemed the sins of the world...I hit a block.
I find I simply cannot believe in original sin. It goes against my being. I can't accept the idea that human beings are fundamentally flawed. Especially the idea that they're flawed because they're curious and ambitious, of all things. It just...the scientist and exporer in me objects to the concept of ignorant bliss. More knowledge cannot hurt me. I'd eat the apple, and I don't think I need someone to redeem me for it.
Original sin is central to Christianity (as well as Judaism). So though I greatly admire large aspects of Christianity, I guess...I'm agnostic? I guess...
Oh, and FreeJack: I love that Einstein quote, it's my favourite. Elegant, and meaningful.
[B]If you think about it, pursuit of science is at its core, the search for God. It’s the search for beginnings, looking for an origin, trying to find the smallest subset, or the largest construct. It’s trying to define the laws and processes that govern and allow our existence as humans.
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ShadowDancer, Even if we were put on earth by aliens, and there is enough evidence floating around to at least give the hypothesis a thought, what were the aliens’ origins? How did they come into being, what had to happen for there existence to take place? It may explain our immediate origin, but it no better explains the universe or the laws that govern it.
Jake [/B][/QUOTE]
sorry jake, but i cant agree that the search for beginnings is a search for God. supose that the universe is infinite, then accordingly anything that made the aliens must have been made by something else, which was made by something else, and on, and on, and on....
for me, i find the best way to think of this is that we are just a small part of a grand circle of life. accordingly there can be no beginning (and no God), but there can be no end either. i suppose you could think this means that it could only be something thats divinely inspired/created, but (from my thinking anyway) would requrire a second 'tier' to the circle, and i dont think its likely to exist. but again i wont rule this out, especially since a parallel can be drawn here with the theories of multiple universes, the interesection of some of these which are thought to have maybe created our universe.
on a slightly different track here: suppose for a minute there [I]is[/I] as God. is there anything to say that he/she/it cant also believe in a god? i mean, what if our universe is just like a giant laboratory to god? what if he/she/it has a real life(tm):) but that really just goes back to my G'Kar analogy, even to massively powerful beings, there must be other levels above them, so isnt it conciveable that those levels may be populated?
food for thought anyway
How did I come to that?
At school (this was public school btw) we were taught about Christianity (and only Christianity), it was pretty much combined with everything and I felt that was wrong. I knew that other religions existed but we wern't taught about them, I thought we should have been and then given the chance to follow whatever we decided to follow or not. So I guess I did kind of rebel against what we were being taught because I knew there was more out there.
I am not criticize anyone elses beliefs, this is just how I came to my understanding of things. My appologies if I have offended anyone.
Worf
[b]Your faith:[/b] Athiest, Agnostic, Foundationalist
[b]Your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] N/A
[b]A description of your denomination/sect/tradition:[/b] (Provide a link to your group if you'd like)
[b]A quick overview of how you came to your faith:[/b] As a scientist I understand that the lack of evidence for something is evidence agaist it, however I know that I don't know what I don't know, which brings me to my agnostic side. Then I also know that there is so much going on in the universe that I do not understand, much less the whole of the human race, so i use Foundationalism (see babylon 5 ;) ). I consider it more of a meta theory than a faith or religion, because if we find what i believe in to be false I have no problems shifting my views to match newer and better models of the world.
One thing for sure is that, I don't like people forcing you to believe what they believe, or those that rule out other religions. If you believe in one religion, that's fine. It doesn't necessary mean that you have to say that all other religions are bad or nonsense, nor that if people don't get convinced or don't believe in yours then they wouldn't be "saved". Also hate those who'd use their religious believe to attack people. When I was in secondary school, in one Religious Education class, there's this debate with topic "would homosexuals be saved by God" or something (not trying to get into the debate of if homosexuals are "acceptable" here). It was a hot debate, and I liked it until the end, when the teacher made the conclusion that "homosexuals won't be saved". What really bothered me was, I mean, who was he to make that conclusion? Kind of corny I know, but I believe that you wouldn't know if all these gods do exist, or if everything's just a series of science until the end, or even then we still may not know. Not sure if what I said make any sense at all, but hey I tried my best to make sense and express what I think already :)