Religion: What it means to you

Originally Posted by LordsSword

My God is into freedom & equality for everybody. My religion means freedom for all people no matter what their position.

Ahahahahahaha.

How can you ever write that and keep a straight face? Your God is the basis for the Catholic religion, which was fine with Nazi Germany and the slave trade. Your god puts women behind men in terms of rights. Your god says you can't have sex with multiple people. You can't have sex before marriage. You can't eat this, you can't eat that, you can't work on Sundays, you can't worship other gods. So I guess what you mean is he's into freedom so long as it's freedom to follow HIS rules, and equality so long as you're not a woman, wherein you can be stoned for doing anything other than serving your husband faithfully. But hey, way to be so fucking pigheaded as to not be able to read the book you preach.

Freedom and equality? Then explain Sodom, you putz.

Originally Posted by LordsSword

Where is the basis for an atheist or agnostic to serve in their community?

How about the postconventional morality that some enlightened people come to develop, and can seemingly never be understood by idiots like you? Forgive us for our capacity of abstract reasoning, which frees us from needing a book to tell us what's right and wrong.

WHO DARES TO SPEAK ON MY BEHALF?

Originally Posted by Nine Inch Black Dildo

Where is the basis for an atheist or agnostic to serve in their community?

Believe it or not, alot of people that go out and do something for their community aren't actually religious.

The whole point of serving one's community is to help people for the good of the world, not to run back to their imaginary parental figure and say "LOOK WHAT I DID" and grin, expecting some sort of reward like a demented manchild. And yes, the supposition of "eternal salvation" counts toward an expected reward. Nothing you say can deter from the actual selfishness involved.

And the real kicker is that there's no stipulations!
You can get ACTUAL help from atheists without becoming one!

LORDSWORD I DEMAND YOU KILL YOUR MOTHER AS A TESTAMENT TO YOUR FAITH IN ME.

I guess I'm going to have to give a little backstory before I describe the role religion plays in my life.

I'm a practitioner of Santeria, a syncretic religion that combines Spiritism, the Yoruba religion from western Africa, and Roman Catholicism. The religion came about in its modern-day form after slaves were brought over to Cuba and forced to convert to Catholicism by the Europeans who held them. Instead of surrendering their belief system as a whole, they adopted the Catholic saint names to their own spiritual deities that guide various tenets of people's lives, and the world as a whole. For example, the deity Eleggua is represented by Saint Anthony, while Babalu Aye is associated with Saint Lazarus. By performing their ceremonies on the corresponding saint days of the calendar and disguising them as celebrations of these corresponding saints, the slaves were able to perform their religion without suffering persecution by the Spaniards that took hold of the island. A large part of this religion involves the Ifa divination system, a system that is remarkably similar to the Chinese I Ching. Ifa priests, called Babalawos, give readings to individuals, giving advice to them about how they should solve the problems in their life. There are also various other rituals, such as spiritual cleansing and sacrifices (which are typically fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Sometimes we also sacrifice animals, however, they are done so in a humane manner and are usually eaten afterward.) The religion spread to the US by many Cuban immigrants and possesses a fairly active base within most major US cities and parts of Europe. To this day, most people who practice the religion in secrecy, because of its history as an underground religion, as well as the fear people possess of things they are unfamiliar with. The media's negative portrayal of any African religion, doesn't seem to help with that either.

Now that the backstory is out of the way, religion is a very personal thing to me. I'll participate in rituals when they are called for, request to have a reading when I feel my life needs a check up, and I view prayer as a form of meditation, doing myself more good than anything else simply because it gives me some time to contemplate my actions in a day. Aside from that, to people I have never told of my religious leanings, it is assumed that I am a pretty strong agnostic.

I'm a skeptic at heart, and it has taken me a long time to really identify myself as anything. If I were not raised in the way I was and seen the things I have within my own family, I probably would not believe in what I do at all. This religion was never imposed on me by anyone in my family. Even my dad, who is a babalawo, has always told me that what I believe is my own business and he'll be with me 100% any path I choose. I do not impose my religion on anyone, it's just not the type of religion that calls for evangelism. I also refrain from such imposition because it is something I do not appreciate myself.

I honestly don't see the clash between science and religion that most people talk about. Despite the myths about the scientific community that are present, scientists are just as varied in religious beliefs as the general populace. I daresay, the motivation many scientists have to explore the world around them is to learn about the glory of the world around us, to those who possess faith in a creator, it wouldn't be too absurd to extend that to an appreciation of God's works.

As an aside, Theology is a very interesting subject. I absolutely love studying the history of religions. If I didn't take the route of studying Computer Science in college, I probably would have majored in Theology or Philosophy in some college that had a good program in it. I have a copy of the Bible, Bhagavad-Gita, and various texts on Buddhism lying around that I really enjoy perusing. Studying what people believe in their own lives really opens your eyes to the world around you.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Your God is the basis for the Catholic religion, which was fine with Nazi Germany and the slave trade.

Deni, for someone who condemn highschool philosophy, you should be more careful with what you say about such complex issues.

Slavery and the Catholic Church

http://www.traces-cl.com/apr2001/pio.htm

I just read Sass's post that started the thread and then skipped ahead to here. Looks like shit-flinging is inevitable for topics like these. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm agnostic. God might exist, might not. Yet while I'm not sure whether God exists, I'm pretty sure religion--be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc--at best scratches the surface of the truth, and at worst makes it harder to discover the truth.

To sum it up in words, I base my beliefs upon own spiritual experiences through meditation, introspection, and other experiences through observation of daily life and various aspects of it. I don't follow a particular religion, but I'm very open minded to religion/philosophy and I like to try out different methods used to gain "spiritual peace"/spiritual experiences or whatever. My view on things are pretty different from what general people may think, but I like it this way. This is just summing it up briefly, I could go more into detail, but I won't take them with you guys at this time as it is late and I'm too tired for this. I might some other day.