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Your reasons for being Religious/Atheist etc?


The Infidel Guy

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What are your reasons for being religious (belief in a god, deity, being)?

If you were a "born again" religious person what made you choose the path of religion again?

What personal experience (if any) made you believe in god?

Why are you an Atheist? Reasons?

Peace

T.I.G

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What are your reasons for being religious (belief in a god, deity, being)?

If you were a "born again" religious person what made you choose the path of religion again?

What personal experience (if any) made you believe in god?

Why are you an Atheist? Reasons?

Peace

T.I.G

After years of studying the psychology of belief and also the philosophy of religious experience I feel that religion and the need for religion in some people can be explained through a series of investigations into the working of the human mind. I am a atheist and many on here would say that is also faith based. But I disagree since the evidence for the psychological explanations of belief far outway the evidence for the existance of a god as these are all religious texts produced by the human hand guided by the human mind.

Edited by Dante's Inferno
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My family is roman catholic from Colombia so I grew up with a lot religion around me, I can tell you ever since I was a little kid I never really believed in any of it, my father grew up with monks in Medellin Colombia so he was exposed to it even more than I was. He came to the US when he was about 19 and went to college and for the first time studied evolution which was never taught or talked about in Colombia. When I was about eight he taught me some basic things about evolution and ever since then everything made sense!

I also giggle when people think the world is 6000 years old!

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I beleive Jesus came to the earth to show us how to live life. I beleive everything happens for a reason. I also beleive we are like a one day year old baby when it comes to really understanding what god is or what he want for us.

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I believe in 'something' and call it God. Real ? I don't know. there is no proof God exists. hope ? probably. maybe that something is what ever energy makes everything up. who knows ? no one does.

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I can't be an atheist until cosmological science gives me even the slightest reason to show how something can come from nothing.

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What are your reasons for being religious (belief in a god, deity, being)?

If you were a "born again" religious person what made you choose the path of religion again?

What personal experience (if any) made you believe in god?

Why are you an Atheist? Reasons?

Peace

T.I.G

I think I may have already posted my experiences somewhere else lol :P

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I can't be an atheist until cosmological science gives me even the slightest reason to show how something can come from nothing.

Are you Agnostic?

Nevertheless, unsolved mysteries do not prove god's existence. Just because there are things in the world that go on unresolved does not mean we can just add god into the equation.

As humans we are evolving, and know doubt the question may be answered in the not to distant future, but till then we cannot just assign god to the creation of all.

Peace

T.I.G

Edited by The Infidel Guy
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i went to church when i was younger. i never really felt like i believed like everyone else there. i think, nay, believe that when some people reach a certain age, they question more and the status quo does not really jive with the answers they get. also, one of the main distancers for me was when i went to an assembly of god service with my uncle. i agreed to go with him because he had cancer, got saved and asked me and other family members to go. well, i was the only one who was unfamiliar with assembly of god. the preacher was up there and knew i was new there. he made eye contact wtih me often as he shouted that baptists can sing thier little songs, but they are going to hell. methodist? HELL! catholic? BURN baby! almost in exactly the way you all are hearing that in your heads now is how he sounded. hellfire and brimstone. i wanted to stand up, declare shenanogins and leave. im no religious person, not even then. but i was greatly offended by the ignorance and hate towards the same religion but diff. denomination. that dudes face still pi**es me off to just picture mentally. rawr!

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I'm not really an Atheist but I'm not religious either. For me all things are one and part of a bigger whole but that it has a consciousness because we have consciousness. I use the word God to describe that but in all honesty it is not a God at all.

What set me thinking this way was that I have evidence that magick works, I've asked the cosmic for money and got it straight away, and I explored the path of atheism and found it illogical for then.. who would I ask for things if not some kind of God? How can I ask the cosmos for anything and have it given to me? I have evidence for myself that if I ask for it I get it, whether its knowledge or money or a job or something, I do get it and when it happens I can feel it happening, like riding a wave, or communication and a connection. In order for this to work I need to believe that I am asking for it, otherwise I can't think of a way into the cosmic - there may be a scientific or non-theist way to do this but it doesn't work for me. Therefore I have concluded that the cosmic consciousness is capable of intelligent thought, communication and manipulation, that cause and effect can be engineered and sometimes are not just random results. That if I ask for money, a series of events will take place enabling me to get that money.

I'll give you an example - I was pretty broke one week and I asked the cosmic for some money to tide me over. So I was at work, and I looked on the floor, at first I couldn't see anything, but then it was almost as if £30 just appeared there. Naturally I handed it in to my boss but then a few weeks later as no one had claimed this money it was given back to me.

Nobody had dropped it or lost it or anything. I mean ... surely you'd want your £30 if you'd lost it?

Another time I had been fined £60 because of a stupid mistake and I did the same thing.. asked the cosmic for money. Well lo and behold the very next day I had £1,400 in my bank account - there was a series of events attached to that but the timing was amazing.

Another time I desperately needed £25 for something important. I spent my last £1 on a lottery scratch card and won exactly £25.

Another time I wanted to join a gym but the fee was £10 and I didn't have that, so again I bought a lottery scratch card and won £10.

I used to have to pay £40 every three months for something, and it would often leave me broke, except for every three months I would win £50 or more on the lottery scratch cards.. JUST when I needed it.

Whenever I need money, it is provided, and it never fails. Sure I haven't won the jackpot yet but I haven't ruled that out - I have a feeling it will be one day when I am ready - but I have only ever asked for what I need.. not for what I want.

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I deny Objectively existing God, and this makes me a formal Atheist at least until I see this Objective God myself. The same time I do not deny Subjective God, as I had my personal experience of encountering it (or "him"). This personal experience proved to me that God of religions does not exist, but I cannot use my personal experiences as an objective proof in support of Atheism, so I wait till someone proves to me the opposite. I allow that most of people meet God at least once per life, but this event would take place in their Subjective Reality and cannot be used as a proof of God. In general I can state that we need to live presuming there is no God at all, while our moral choices we can verify versus what our Subjective God told us, not with some books, telling about Subjective Gods of other, mostly dead people. I also deny any possibility of Hell and Heavens, as to admit them I need first to see Objective God, one thing at a time.

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Are you Agnostic?

Nevertheless, unsolved mysteries do not prove god's existence. Just because there are things in the world that go on unresolved does not mean we can just add god into the equation.

As humans we are evolving, and know doubt the question may be answered in the not to distant future, but till then we cannot just assign god to the creation of all.

Peace

T.I.G

I am Agnostic, Shane Claiborne-ish Christian, and Taoist. I am not sure that will make sense to you because judging from you other posts I have a hunch you still think all this philosophy and spirituality stuff is black and white, right and wrong, good and bad. Not the case at all, my man. Paradox is the engine that runs the universe.

I have been very aware of the fact that unsolved mysteries do not prove God's existence. I'm not a caveman :) However, the problem atheists face with respect to the cosmological argument is a logical problem. You can get on your knees and smile up at progress all you want, but logic is never changed by time. Time may tell us more and more about the complexity of the universe, but it will never tell us how 0+0=1. That is about as sure as I am of anything.

So, I am agnostic because I don't know if Christ was divine or if he even existed. I am Christian of sorts because I think Christ existed and he was possibly divine (not to mention the badass morality that Christianity teaches on its purest level--even if it is all a hoax with respect to its origins, it still offers some revolutionary and creative ways to live a healthy life). I am Taoist because the principles of the Tao are undeniable in my experience in this life...

Edited by Aemeth
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I can't be an atheist until cosmological science gives me even the slightest reason to show how something can come from nothing.

Unfortunately for you this thinking must rule out god aswell. Agnostic i take it ?

Anyway, im Atheist for one major reason;

I was never endoctrinated, or merged with any religion as a child. My parents are agnostic and atheist and didnt want to force beliefs on me. Since then i have never seen, experienced or heard of anything which makes a god necessary. Yes we have unexplained scientific questions but religion explains next to nothing about the natural world. And seems to not want to try. As I grew older i looked more closely at religion, read some various texts and spoke to many faithists all of whom pushed me further from it with dogma, un-proveable wild stories, unfounded "facts" and desperate peraching.

I also foudn amind blowing irony upon reading and investigating religious texts. Old monotheistic and ibrahimic religions are violent, oppresive immoral and in some places utterly disgusting.

Quite simply ? Religion offers me nothing. It actually muddy's the waters of exploration, stands in the way of progress, persecutes and twists personal freedom and morality and does a visciously poor job of explaining the nature of life and the universe.

Also, i very quickly realised as a child, if i asked where the world and universe came from. religious people came up with an answer (GOD) which seemed to indescribably comfort and satisfy them. Yet even as a boy, i realised their answer was more complicated than the original question. Religious people see the universe asso complicated and wonderful that something had to have made it. Well that something must be at least as complicated, in which case no-one has actually answered anything.

So, there you have it. Dissolusionment, vague answers, blind faithwith a lack of evidence and the weak arguments from faithist obliterated my religious chances in one gigantic supernova-esque swipe.

I despise the idea that the universe was simply created by a consciousness. It destroys the wonder, beauty and magic of the cosmos and compresses it to a cheap trick.

Edited by Spankster
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Unfortunately for you this thinking must rule out god aswell. Agnostic i take it ?

Anyway, im Atheist for one major reason;

I was never endoctrinated, or merged with any religion as a child. My parents are agnostic and atheist and didnt want to force beliefs on me. Since then i have never seen, experienced or heard of anything which makes a god necessary. Yes we have unexplained scientific questions but religion explains next to nothing about the natural world. And seems to not want to try. As I grew older i looked more closely at religion, read some various texts and spoke to many faithists all of whom pushed me further from it with dogma, un-proveable wild stories, unfounded "facts" and desperate peraching.

I also foudn amind blowing irony upon reading and investigating religious texts. Old monotheistic and ibrahimic religions are violent, oppresive immoral and in some places utterly disgusting.

Quite simply ? Religion offers me nothing. It actually muddy's the waters of exploration, stands in the way of progress, persecutes and twists personal freedom and morality and does a visciously poor job of explaining the nature of life and the universe.

Also, i very quickly realised as a child, if i asked where the world and universe came from. religious people came up with an answer (GOD) which seemed to indescribably comfort and satisfy them. Yet even as a boy, i realised their answer was more complicated than the original question. Religious people see the universe asso complicated and wonderful that something had to have made it. Well that something must be at least as complicated, in which case no-one has actually answered anything.

So, there you have it. Dissolusionment, vague answers, blind faithwith a lack of evidence and the weak arguments from faithist obliterated my religious chances in one gigantic supernova-esque swipe.

I despise the idea that the universe was simply created by a consciousness. It destroys the wonder, beauty and magic of the cosmos and compresses it to a cheap trick.

Well said... :tu:

Peace

T.I.G

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What do you mean Godsnmbr1 ?

Your willingly not denouncing god and behaving yoruself just incase he exists ? LOL.

I guess thats one way to beat teh system huh ?

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What do you mean Godsnmbr1 ?

Your willingly not denouncing god and behaving yoruself just incase he exists ? LOL.

I guess thats one way to beat teh system huh ?

Yeah, that's not quite what I meant. A living universe is by far the most likely situation, so it's the one I choose to believe in. And yes, I have had quite a few personal experiences that reinforce that belief but, as everyone around here is so quick to point out, personal experiences aren't reliable! Or so they say...

And btw, I wouldn't exactly say I'm behaving myself. I try to help when I can but I'm a far cry from innocent. My arrogance tends to reinforce my belief in my own interpretation of morality.

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A living universe

Hey Godsnmbr1, what did you mean by that sorry ? Not heard that terminology before.

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I'm antitheist. I don't care whether god exists or not, but think the effect religion has on civilisation and faith has on the individual is detrimental to say the least. It is inherently, intrinsically anti-progress, and frankly makes clever people say stupid things. "Moderate" faith is by far the worst. It perpetuates the taboo on criticism, which extends therefore to the rest of religion, no matter how fundamentalist. It also makes the moronic idea that you can have a "holy book" and decide which bits to follow and which bits to conveniently ignore, something which is actually pretty cowardly.

As for why I'm like this, I'm not entirely sure. Had a Quaker upbringing, but learnt at an early age that true discovery lies in science which is more wonderful than any tawdry, unimaginative "holy" book, and if you have a god, keep him to yourself. My methodist preacher grandfather taught me all of those things.

Edited by Emma_Acid
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"Moderate" faith is by far the worst. It perpetuates the taboo on criticism, which extends therefore to the rest of religion, no matter how fundamentalist. It also makes the moronic idea that you can have a "holy book" and decide which bits to follow and which bits to conveniently ignore, something which is actually pretty cowardly.

*claps hands*

I agree Emma. hey, have you read a book by British biologist Richard Dawkins called "The God Dellusion" ?

I think someone of your opinion would find thie book liberating and complementary. Seriously, please read this book if you havnt already, it hits on and expands upon some of the points you made there.

Good post.

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*claps hands*

I agree Emma. hey, have you read a book by British biologist Richard Dawkins called "The God Dellusion" ?

I think someone of your opinion would find thie book liberating and complementary. Seriously, please read this book if you havnt already, it hits on and expands upon some of the points you made there.

Good post.

I have yeah. Not for a while though. I have a lot of respect for Dawkins, he's a bit of a hero of mine, but sometimes wish he'd stick to biology. He can be pretty reactionary. Cheers for the comments anyway! :D

Edited by Emma_Acid
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*claps hands*

I agree Emma. hey, have you read a book by British biologist Richard Dawkins called "The God Dellusion" ?

I think someone of your opinion would find thie book liberating and complementary. Seriously, please read this book if you havnt already, it hits on and expands upon some of the points you made there.

Good post.

The God Delusion is an amazing book..... have read it....gee lost count....

I recommend anyone to read that.

Peace

T.I.G

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I have yeah. Not for a while though. I have a lot of respect for Dawkins, he's a bit of a hero of mine, but sometimes wish he'd stick to biology. He can be pretty reactionary. Cheers for the comments anyway! :D

I wouldnt say i wish he'd stick to biology. I would agree that he is too reactionary though, however he's a calm, reserved little mouse in comparison to the reactionary attitudes of most religious groups in the face of critisism.

But yeah, good book, brave man.

Cheers.

Spanky.

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The following summarises my position:

1. A personal God, being a God with which it is possible to have a personal relationship, by definition, must interact with reality.

2. In every scientific study ever, no evidence of this interaction has been found - even in cases where it would implicity be found, such as studies on the effectiveness of prayer.

3. Therefore, the necessary evidence required in order for a personal God to exist is missing.

If an impersonal God exists - then so be it. Attempting to interact with it, in any way, is impossible by definition.

On the other hand, I believe there is more to this Universe than any of us will ever know. I find the concept of karma appealing, as I deeply wish that some form of universal justice existed. Having pondered quantum physics for some time, I also find the concept of a force that pervades everything appealing.

In addition, with my background in software design, I find myself drawn to the idea that the Universe is merely a computer simulation.

I label myself an Athiest for convenience, mostly. It's much easier than having to explain that I'm mostly Athiest with really lax Buddhist / Jedi / Hacker tendancies.

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The God Delusion is an amazing book..... have read it....gee lost count....

I recommend anyone to read that.

Peace

T.I.G

Im with Infidel here, I think "The God Dellusion" or a similair book giving an educated look the possible lack of a god should be read by all, especially religious people.

I also believe the book, or a similair text should be studied in schools. Its only fair that every human being is given a proper educated right to decide their beliefs as individuals.

Oh, and nice post Tiggs, liked the last bit LOL.

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