Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:29 pm Post subject: Your religion
I believe a lot of things, but not in a supreme being or persons who can do supernatural things. I like lots of things of Buddhism, like meditation. I like some things of other religions as well. In this way I've created my own path
What do you believe or what is your religion?
(note: I hope this will not become a discussion about what religion is best! Nor do I want this thread to become a religion bashing contest.) _________________ My site:http://www.AntonKemmeren.com
I believe in Christianity as set out in the Confession of Augsburg of 1530.
(Pluss the Virgin Mary and some saints, but please don't tell the Protestant inquisition!) _________________ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Christian Protestant (Dutch Reformed, minus the Calvinism) _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty
Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Simple as that.
At the same time, I also believe that other faiths are not necessarily inferior or superior. I do not believe that a man who is not baptised would be condemned to eternity in hell. I do not believe that entry to heaven is based solely on belief - in fact, it is good work which would get a person past the pearly white gates of St Peter.
I am very sympathetic towards certain Buddhist tenets such as their emphasis on having a pure body and mind as well as respect for all forms of life. There are many schools of thought in Buddhism and I am generally more favourably disposed towards the Mahayana school (Greater Vehicle) as opposed to Theradava (Lesser Vehicle).
Akoni, do you believe in the supernatural? Or do you dismiss ghostly apparitions as nothing more than a figment of a wild and untamed imagination? _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
Akoni, do you believe in the supernatural? Or do you dismiss ghostly apparitions as nothing more than a figment of a wild and untamed imagination?
I do believe in the supernatural. Upto a certain point. For example I've seen some good examples of reincarnation that were very real, a woman who had never been to a certain town in the UK and had never seen how it looked in the past, but could describe how it was to live there and how it looked a couple of hundred years ago. The people in the town had never seen her or had never heard of her and to prove it they researched the local archives and found that she was indeed telling the right things. Ghosts and the like are fascinating, and I do believe there's more to it than meets the eye, but I always look at those kind of things with a little - in my opinion - healthy skepticism.
I'm very interested in cultures and the many different religions and tend to take the things I really like and try them. I was raised as a Catholic, I was Baptised etc. but I very soon noticed I didn't like that religion at all and since then I've chosen the path I'm on now. This is what got me interested in all languages as well.
As you might have read; I Freedive. Buddhist rituals are a very good way to relax and get into a mental state of controlling your body with your mind. This is absolutely a must for a Freediver. If I don't perform a routine I developed before I dive, the dive will be bad. I can now make dives of over 3 minutes without surfacing and I can hold my breath for almost 5 minutes. Other cultures have methods of relaxation as well and I'm currently searching for more information about any method of relaxation. Any hints/tips? _________________ My site:http://www.AntonKemmeren.com
I'm a Unitarian — basically 'Reformed' taken to the ultimate extreme.
Essentially, I believe in God. I make no distinction between the Father and the Holy Spirit, and I tend to take the view that God is either all or is at least in all. I believe that Jesus was fully human, and was one of many sons of God, but was not the Son of God, and was not uniquely God himself.
I do not place any emphasis on life after death — I consider one's conduct during life to be far more important. I do not believe that it is necessary to hold any specific beliefs either; I believe that people should use their reason and experience to determine for themselves what they think is 'true'. As Unitarians, we are guided by the principles of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance, by which we attempt to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person — regardless of ethnicity, nationality, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or anything else like that.
I like to see myself as somewhat puritanical — so for me, that's plainly decorated chapels, calm traditional hymns, periods of meditative silence, long intellectual sermons, congregationalist structure, no excessive consumption of alcohol, no gambling, no over-indulgence, no over-extravagance, no excessive display of wealth, and self-denial in the cause of greater joy (to quote a well-used Unitarian hymn). Not all Unitarians are like this though, but many are, especially in Britain (less so in the United States and Germany, I think).
The Flaming Chalice — the symbol of Unitarianism:
We light a chalice at the start of all our services, and we blow it out at the end.
I'm catholic : i don't believe everything what the catholic religion include & also I believe other things not catholic, - so probably I have a bit mixed religious views. I believe that people who lived their souls live forever but in the wind and in the nature & you can feel this I think. The priest told me, that when someone you love has died, they will live forever in your heart. I suppose it's not important exaclty where you think are they but that you sense it, but definitly only when this is good and not scary.
i knwo *for sure* that God can listen your prayers and react because of soemthing magic what happened some years ago, but never there's guarantee and it will not often occur. I often can't undertsnad his plans and find it intolerable when there's cruelty to vulnerable, innocent people so this is an enigma. But, then there are saints like Saint Francis and the person who was buried in Paris today who dedicate their live for help those people.
but I think my morals, values or ethics (whatever you call it / them ) would be my own, not connected with religion. I think religion it can be misused for brainwash the poeple and control them, so it's better you will think about this things and decide your own belief.
None. I'm one of the very few Americans I've met who was raised entirely without religious instruction.
That's interesting, actually, because it has made me wonder how many people there are in England who have been raised entirely without any religious instruction. As you probably know, most people here do not practice any religious faith. But for some reason, it's still technically the law for all schools here to provide a daily act of worship (although parents can choose to withdraw their children from this if they wish). In reality, however, most schools (especially secondary schools) do not actually bother with this, and no-one really seems to care. But at my primary school, which was government-run and wasn't a Church school in any way, we had what was essentially a service of Christian worship every day, where we sang Christian hymns and all had to bow our heads for Christian prayers. Although the school included a wide variety of religious backgrounds, the only person who didn't participate in it was a Jehovah's Witness.
I sometimes wonder what religion I was 'raised' as. My father is an atheist and my mother is not hugely religious, although she was raised as a Methodist. I was baptised in the Church of England as a baby, and we attended our local parish church for about a year when I was very young because my mother wanted me to get a place in the local Church of England school — it didn't work though. I realised I was a Unitarian about three years ago; I think my parents realised the same thing at the same time.
But at my primary school, which was government-run and wasn't a Church school in any way, we had what was essentially a service of Christian worship every day, where we sang Christian hymns and all had to bow our heads for Christian prayers.
I think that's common in most English primary schools. We had that, as do most primary schools in my area.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:52 am Post subject:
What I meant by being raised entirely without religious instructions is that my family never went to church, and we were not told anything about any religious or supreme being. We weren't even told that there was no such thing.
Naturally, I heard about such things from people outside my family, and when I was in kindergarten, they still had us say grace before our milk-and-graham-cracker snack -- then it became against the law.
I know it sounds odd, but I never say grace in public. I think religious observance of all forms should strictly be confined to the private domains of home and church.
I went through a stage in life when I deliberately wanted to be an iconoclast. I became scornful of religions in general although I guess I was just mocking them to be revolutionary on hindsight. I'd deliberately say things to exasperate my otherwise indulgent parents such as dismissing certain rituals as nothing more than mere superstitions.
I never went through a baptism of fire or any sort of miraculous experience that reversed my views. I simply mellowed down and realised that maybe, to be part of the Establishment nowadays is in a way iconoclastic. Besides, I am fully convinced that the supernatural exists. Too many unexplained incidents have happened and if religion is not just about entry to heaven or acting as a moral compass, it is at least a talisman or a protection against evil spirits.
I know it sounds barmy, but there are some things in life which are too surreal for words. Even the Government does not really play with fire even if its position is officially atheist: night trainings are banned in the military because the casualty incidence rate on Thursday nights has always been unusually high.
To those who have no religion, what'd you do if you were driving along a deserted road one night and you distinctly see a women dressed in flowing white robes standing on the side of the road? I once witnessed such an apparition; I blinked my eye and she later disappeared!
I am hence convinced of a God whose primary duty is to keep evil at bay. _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
Atheist -- born and raised. Guess that makes two of us, Deborah.
My mother's agnostic and my dad's an ex-Catholic, so between the two of them, we never, ever went to church. When I was 5, my neighbors were utterly appalled about that (this was in Virginia -- go figure) so they asked to take me to church and my parents allowed it -- they had nothing against my having the experience -- and I went for a little while. But even at that age I was like, "You really believe this junk? You can't be serious!"
I don't believe in anything supernatural -- not ghosts, not premonitions, not out-of-body experiences, none of that -- nor do I have a "spiritual side", which often surprises people, who are used to the concept of not having any organized religion, but still expect everyone to be "spiritual" in some sense. I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, personally! Guess I'm deficient in that area.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject:
Uriel wrote:
When I was 5, my neighbors were utterly appalled about that (this was in Virginia -- go figure)...
Virginia, eh? Was it in Jerry Falwell country?
Quote:
...so they asked to take me to church and my parents allowed it -- they had nothing against my having the experience -- and I went for a little while.
When I was 6, my father's aunt sent me a book of bible stories -- each bible story was on the left-hand page and had a corresponding modern version illustrating the principles on the right-hand page. I wasn't kept from reading it, nor did my mother comment on it (other than rolling her eyes when she saw it).
Quote:
I don't believe in anything supernatural -- not ghosts, not premonitions, not out-of-body experiences, none of that -- nor do I have a "spiritual side", which often surprises people, who are used to the concept of not having any organized religion, but still expect everyone to be "spiritual" in some sense. I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, personally! Guess I'm deficient in that area.
Yeah, I also seem to be lacking a spiritual side. Once in college I had the lead part in a modern dance that had a religious/spiritual theme. After the performance, the choreographer told me I must have a spiritual nature, somewhere deep inside me, to have been able to perform the part so convincingly. I was surprised, and had to inform her that I -- like John Lovitz's Master Thespian on Saturday Night Live -- had merely been Acting!
loic wrote:
To those who have no religion, what'd you do if you were driving along a deserted road one night and you distinctly see a women dressed in flowing white robes standing on the side of the road? I once witnessed such an apparition; I blinked my eye and she later disappeared!
I wouldn't feel the need to attribute unexplained phenomena to the existence of a supreme being. And looking at a beautiful sunset doesn't make me believe in one, either.
But at my primary school, which was government-run and wasn't a Church school in any way, we had what was essentially a service of Christian worship every day, where we sang Christian hymns and all had to bow our heads for Christian prayers.
I think that's common in most English primary schools. We had that, as do most primary schools in my area.
It's common in all South African schools (primary and high), but restricted to hall meeting on Monday/Friday mornings. Religious studies is a non-examination subject in all schools (two half hour periods a week devoted to it). Attendance is not compulsory. _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
I don't believe in anything supernatural -- not ghosts, not premonitions, not out-of-body experiences, none of that -- nor do I have a "spiritual side", which often surprises people, who are used to the concept of not having any organized religion, but still expect everyone to be "spiritual" in some sense. I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, personally! Guess I'm deficient in that area.
I feel the same way. Once in awhile, the wife will drag me to church and I'll sit there just amazed how so many people have such strong convictions of faith and devotion to God, while I feel absolutely nothing. It's not that I purposely shun religion or spiritually, I just don't feel any connection to a higher power or the spiritual or supernatural realm.
As for apparitions and other phenomena -- the brain is good at playing tricks on you. Look at dreams. Ask any dementia patient or schizophrenic.
This is the anomaly of the view of " normal " people : always it's this conclusions / judgements :
1. a " normal "person see a spirit, ghost, person who the other people in the room don't see --> this is the supernatural, reincarnation etc
2. a person with schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, etc see the *same* like in number 1, then they have visual halluciantion and of course it's because they're crazy.
So it's evident that there's much what must become discovered and learned for understand this. I've nearly never had visual hallucination / apparition but my friend does have: sometimes he can see a grey figure. Because he's bipolar they say it's hallucination but it's absolutly *not* possible know this for sure because it can be an evil spirit. There don't exist some tests for the supernatural only conjecture.
That's an interesting point, Pauline. People are always talking about seeing spirits and ghosts, yet when it comes to a schizophrenic person talking about this kind of thing, they're 'crazy'. Perhaps all sightings of spirits and ghosts are in fact, just hallucinations; an overactive mind playing tricks on us.
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