Thank you nocturnus. Like you, I am an open-minded person. I do not judge others as it is not my place to judge. I do agree with you about some things. The big bang, string theory or whatever is science's version of the real story. Many of us don't really know the answers of many questions that present themselves. And science nor nature or many things will give the answers to the questions we need answering. Many times, people will ask me "How did you become blind?", or "If you had a chance to get your sight back, would you?". But I, nor can any human figure the answers to many questions. Not like those above, but ones like "What happens when you die?", or "Where will this earth be in the future?". Those answers may not be answered to most people. Me myself I do not wish to share my beliefs simply that I choose not to. Although, I do agree somewhat with you nocturnus.

Hi.
i think from my topics you can see what i believe in.
arkmister i agree 100 persent.
people want me to get a job and go to college. i tryed college dropwed out and am trying to go back to another college but if i don't then i don't, if i do then i'll do a i.t. i.t.c. corse for a year and have fun. if i get a job then i do if not then i'm not going to try to hard. because it isn't really wearth it in the end, i have enough oney to pay my nan and grandad andenough for me to keap on the side, i think the expression is somethign like that.
ahaha rant over.

I think there's a verse in the bible that says something like "If he doesn't work, then don't let him eat" or something to that effect.
That said, "work" and "job" and "career" and "wealth" do not necessarily go hand in hand. Just doing upkeep on your livingspace and fighting the urge to spread suffering could qualify as work enough to be worth food in some cases.
The way working, wealth, and success are defined nowadays is... umm... messed up, to say the least.

That said, most of us are here because we play electronic games, which aren't quite food.

With any luck, in about four months I'll be qualified to teach French. I have absolutely no desire to teach French. If I had the willpower to work on my games and such every hour of the day, I might be able to avoid poverty on that... but now we're talking miracles.
I should take my lap harp and go busking.

hi.
i agree again. wow there is a lot we agree on. hmm this is funny because others don't seam to agree with me a lot. i havent seen people or herd of people comitting suwaside although i no it happens but i do no that there are lodes out there who are in really bad shape. i think the cuntrys i am talking about are called third world cuntrys. wich is kind of funny considdering we all in the same world. oh sure there might be more out there like more worlds and more planits and i belive there is but come on third world? hmm oh well rant over lol. oh wait no it isn't. see i want to help as many people as i can but people  a friend and my dad  tell me get a job but i ttold my friend the same thing i rote down here. or if i haven't then i will tell him lol and see what he says. anyway enough from me.

I am a witch who believes in the existence and application of magic and the presence of immanent deity in the world.  Now, if you don't unpack that statement quite carefully, you end up with a distorted impression of what I am saying.  One has to begin with some definitions.

Let us begin with the word magic, by which I do not mean the gosh-wow, special-effects-heavy phenomena of Harry Potter or Jim Butcher, (though I adore the latter's writing), but the simple ability to apply will and focus to change one's reality.  Whether one is simply making changes in one's point of view, or concretely changing the world actually doesn't really matter by my definition, especially as modern quantum physics makes the distinction much less strong than one might think.

Now, by deity, I mean something that many people here would recognize as akin to The Force, an energy field that surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together.  By immanent, i mean that deity exists everywhere, within me and you and every person, creature, thing, place in existence, rather than being separate from our world as the transcendant spiritualities of the Abrahamic faiths.

Do I care if you share my world view?  No, not really, though if you have questions, check out http://www.wiggage.com/feri or http://www.lilithslantern.com for some idea of the tradition i follow.

I find analyzing the bible can get very interesting, since it's 1) so big, 2) come through so many languages and translaters, 3) full of self-references that make for one heck of a maze, 4) almost never makes anything clear, and admits that it's intentional in a few places... basically, it's a huge puzzle that puts forward spiritual ideas. The side-effect of all of these things is that absolutely no one can agree on what it means (historically, a lot of concepts that we associate with christianity aren't found in written interpretations until at least the third or fourth centuries, and the new testament was written mostly in the first and second centuries.).
Modern popular christianity in the west has been filtered through Greco-Roman culture, Bizentine culture, germanic culture, celtic cultures, etc, etc, etc. The original books were mostly written in hebrew, Greek and some aramaic, but the church stuck mostly to Latin for quite a while. It turns out that translation is not an exact science, and by the time people started translating it into vernacular there were already several different sects, and the beliefs of each is reflected in how they translate certain things (the King James version talks about everlasting punishment, eternal life, and forever and evers; the Watchtower version (Jihova's Witnesses, isn't it?) makes it sound like eternal life Vs annihilation, etc).
So, what do I believe? Heck if I know. For now, the bible is the only religious text I'm putting that much research into. Pick a denomination that uses it as their religious text, though, and I'll probably find something they believe that I don't see in there. I really don't want to go around throwing that into people's faces, though.

I will, however, agree with tward on this: scaring people into being good with threats of eternal torment does not make good people, it just makes people that are behaved well when they think God is looking. Or for some people, when they think someone who will remind them about hell is looking.
One can easily obey every law, be it in a religious book or in local lawbooks, and still be a jerk.

At Arq: You did just get promoted to moderator. Sounds like a form of work to me. .
Not the kind that our culture makes a big deal about, but that kind always seemed somehow broken anyway.
If all of these French courses weren't making me very sick of French, I might like how it sounds like it's done in France a bit better. Of course, we'll need to wait another twenty years or so to see if the system can sustain itself.
But, yeah. I think working something you don't care about because "need money > need job" is a flawed concept. For society to function, we do need a lot of people doing a lot of work, and a lot of them probably don't care for that work. But it's the functional part that's important, not the having a job part.
I don't think I have any abilities that would fill any particularly necessary part of how things work, but there are a few things I want to do (mostly the creative stuff), there are enough people I think who would appreciate that. If I get in a do-or-die financial situation, hopefully I've gotten enough people to appreciate my stuff by then that they'll show it in the form of a get out of death free card. If not, sucks to be me.

I think the big issue is that religion gets into multiple topics; there's the philosophical, way-of-life aspect; there's the institutionalized "rules rules and more rules" stuff; there's the stories attached to it and their numerous interpretations; then there's all of the rituals and practices that people take part in.

At least, everything I've read related to Buddhism is very clear about the cycle of rebirth. I have no idea where the "death = going to heaven or hell" thing came from (the Lazarus parable, maybe? Or maybe adapted from Greek / Egyptian religions?).

I do find the general approach of western skeptics of Christianity toward Buddhism to be interesting, seeing as Buddhism has had its share of schisms, conflicting mythologies and interpretations. Buddhists seem to be generally less militaristic and kill-happy over it, though, which probably helps a lot.

Funnily enough, a lot of the lifestyle suggestions posed by the Buddha are very similar to those presented by Jesus. They differ on a few big points (Jesus always talking about how God is the only way to get out of death, while Buddha treats divinities as just another phase of the cycle of rebirth), but when it comes to how people should live, I think Jesus and Buddha would get along pretty well. So how in the world things wound up the way they did is pretty interesting.

There is one big issue with theistic religion, though, that being people who communicate with deities and try to convince people of it.
If God meant for everyone to believe a certain way right now, he'd either magic it into being, or would do something pretty hard to deny. So if nothing else, we can agree that if there is an all-powerful deity, it's either content with things as they are, or is way more patient than anything with a finite lifespan.

... grinding is a very great way of describing it.
Contributing to society is great. Doing something dull and pointless that drains at least a third of your life just to avoid being devoured by the machine... not so much.
Heck, I wouldn't mind doing construction work if I could see well enough. It's one of the jobs popular thought of as low on the ladder, but it's something where your work actually has tangible results. Meanwhile we have those office jobs that require all the modern technology and such... but mostly involve spreadsheets and cost analysis and sales pipelines (I still don't know what that term means...) and earnings and stuff with no apparent tangible value (heck, one could get into a job like that without even knowing what the company actually does). If I could ever come to grips with Linux, I'd probably qualify for a job like that, but I think I'd much prefer wandering the streets with a harp. Or at least using my computer powers for tangible results (like games. ).
But, eh, utilities, housing and food probably cost more than what the government pays me each month. So it's either rely on others or find a way to deal with that. And for goodness's sake stay aaway from lones and credit whenever possible, because debt is a ravenous beast.

CAE_Jones, that's precisely why when one studies history you have to study the religious views of the culture because it influences everything else that culture does. Politics, art, laws, education, sense of identity, you name it all usually has its roots in their religious beliefs.

For example, in 1776 when the Revolutionary War began with Great Britain 85% of the 13 colonies were devout Puritans. So its not too surprising that Christianity spread wildly through the United States over the 19th century, and we would print "In God We Trust" on our money, and say "One Nation Under God"   in the national Pledge of Allegiance. Those are simply public examples of our Christian origins, and were put their by the early founders of our country that grew up in a large Christian society.

Its probably most evident in the way public officials like the President is sworn into office. Every President from George Washington to Obama have been sworn in by placing his hand on a King James bible. Needless to say it would probably be seen as heretical if a President was of a different religion and wanted to be sworn in using a Koran or some other holy book. It is a tradition created by devout Christians who probably didn't seriously consider  the fact not everyone running for public office would share their religious beliefs.

Never-the-less my point being if someone down the road wants to understand American culture they would have to first consider the people who first settled this country and created our laws, education system,  and spread their values onto their children. Even today we can see evidence of this because in the 2000 elections the Republican party made sweeping victories on a God, gays, and guns campaign. They marketed their political agenda along a right wing Cristian theme and won. Even though Puritanism is long gone Americans in general still by and large stick to their core beliefs, and hold sway over American life in a number of ways.

I also agree Christian skeptics of Buddhism is interesting. I think a lot of it comes down to a lack of desire to really study anything but their own beliefs in anything other than a superficial way. Yes, there are aspects of Christianity and Buddhism that differ such as cosmology etc, but Jesus and Buddha would agree on plenty of other topics. Both apparently independently said that we should treat others as we would like to be treated, and that we should live simply. We should not spend our lives trying to get wealthy, and both chose to abandon any kind of personal wealth themselves. The moral principles they taught were similar, and in many ways aren't as far a part as some skeptics would have us believe.

However, as to the issue of deities and theistic religion there is always the counter argument to if God wanted us to believe he would do such and such. Usually, the Christian argument to that line of reasoning is that we have free will, and it is up to us to decide rather than God doing something to prove his existence in a direct and undeniable way. That is a clever way of dodging the question I think, because it is based on the opinion God doesn't need to prove anything to us.

Of course, John Calvin didn't believe in free will, but his answer to that question is no less compelling. Basically, what he said is that God saves who he wants and damns the rest. That is an over simplification, but he didn't believe God was trying to save everyone. Therefore he doesn't need to prove anything to someone who isn't going to be saved anyway if I follow his logic. Kind of hard to argue against that point when there are people who swear up and down they absolutely know God exists, and people like myself are skeptical because I don't find anything that proves or disproves their claims.

There is a danger in discussing religion from a rational perspective.  The idea of religion, of an invisible, intangible being or beings that influence/control/inhabit our world, or rather the idea of believing in this being/these beings is inherently irrational.  No matter how a person of faith seeks to use rational arguments to persuade or explain his world view, in the end there is always an unprovable premise, that God (the gods) exist.

I say this as a person of faith.  I cannot prove that what I have experienced is what I think it is.  There are experiences I've had that I am unable to communicate to anyone who is not me and was not there.  To acknowledge this is to abandon any sense of universal experience or rightness; what works for me is unique and would work less well for any other individual.

All this being said, I have come to the conclusion that reason, or rational thinking has been artificially elevated to a place of dominance that ill serves us.  Like any other tool, it has its place.  In certain settings, such as scientific inquiry it is uniquely fitted to the tasks it is used for.  But to seek to apply logic to situations where logic isn't the right tool does a disservice to everyone involved.  It is the flaw, the difference between talking about religion and living a religious life.  It's rather like sex, until you've had a lot of it, you really can't fathom what it's like, and it doesn't matter how many books you've read with that quaint "explicit descriptions of sex" tag appended to the annotation.  Same same with violence.  Same same with religion.  There are things that have to be personally experienced to be understood.

Now where does all this connect to the previous discussion?  On the matter of Free Will, I choose, (with no objective proof possible) to act as though I have free will, that is, that I am the agent of my own fate.  I also hold the paradoxical view that I am not the sole agent of my fate, that my fate is wound round that of everyone with whom I come in contact, and that their choices affect me in ways over which I have no control.  So, I believe in gods.  I do not serve gods, except insofar as one serves partners in a relationship of equals.  What they "do" affects me in the choices with which I am presented, but does not force me to choose.  Remember the Irish hunger strikers?  (If not, there's an excellent book called Biting at the Grave which tells their story.)  Bobby Sands indeed willed himself to starve to death in service of his cause.  I assume he made a cost calculation and decided that the continuance of his life was worth less by the inherently irrational criteria he weighed such things on than the impact of his death as protest.  Whether you or I might disagree with his judgment doesn't change the fact of his exercise of free will within the limits created by the choices of others, of the British government to perpetuate its rule over Northern Ireland, of his jailers to attempt to enforce the breaking of the wills of IRA prisoners, of his own compatriots, who viewed the hunger strike as an ancient and honorable form of protest.

It is important to note that the atheist who attempts to justify his unbelief by stating the absence of proof is also engaging in the end in non-rational thinking, since absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence.  In saying this, I am not seeking to change his mind; his unbelief does not harm me, as my belief does not harm him, unless either of us seeks to change the external world to validate our beliefs.  As a member of a minority religion that is viewed with suspicion at best by many members of the Christian overculture, I live with the realities of these impositions every day.  It's something the atheist and I have in common.

A note on history, one should be careful ascribing a deep Christianity to the founders.  There was an excellent piece in. . . was it Salon or Mother Jones, reminding us that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Paine would have been politically unelectable in today's world of mouthed faith.  Each of them made statements to counter the mythology that has been built around them concerning their religiosity.  The famous Washington, Valley Forge praying in the snow incident, never happened apparently.  This country is a Christian nation because of a consciously planned political effort by Christians from the Puritans to Pat Robertson to make it so, to make our country the "City on the Hill."  Many of the excesses of today's government come out of this fundamental subversion of the Founders' model, from Dominionist foreign policy to the simple inability to agree that contraception should be universally available and free as a public good, to the systematic denigration of women.  We preach tolerance but only in the abstract.  And anyway, there's a world of difference between tolerance and acceptance.  I often wonder what Jesus actually thought about the issue of many paths, one mountain, whether the insistence upon One True Way is his or an artifact of the early church seeking to establish its power in a formerly hostile world.

Hi everyone.
i want to ask one thing before i get into my rant and i don't want to afend any christians.
i have been told that most churches say that sex is bad and that mastabation is also bad.
but what about having sex for plesure and mastabating for plessure. i mean i just don't se how it is bad?
anyway start of what i believe in.

this might take a bit of time so i would recomend getting some popcorn and a drink or 2.

also i am sorry for any bad spelling.

i want to say first off that my family arent' the reijus type. oh they believe in a afterlife but they don't go to church. but if you ask them they will say they are christian.
now here is what i believe.
first i believe that there is a god-gods meaning more than one.
but, now don't get angrey with me but i believe praying isn't as good as people think it is.
i mean do the gods nead are prers?
i don't think so. i think praying aspeshaly now is not pointless but it doesn't hold as much strenth as it used to.
sorry if that doesn't make sence.
i also believe in a thing called chi or chee. wich is basicly life energy wich we all have. we are able to feel this energy if we relax and queirt are mind.

also i believe i was an empaph. haha i know i didn't spell that rite. what that word means  is you can feel other peoples amotions like happyness sadness anger. etc.
i didn't know about this chi or che  an till i was 12 but when i found out about it. it amazed me. but there was a kind of problem.
i was talking to a friend who had told me about this energy now i didn't know what to believe at that time. oh i thought there was a god out there but i didn't think that was the end of the story. i thought there was more. so i spoke to this friend who told me about chi or chee. i remember fealing it for the first time. wow it was amazing. if you can, amajjon you are just sitting there relaxing not thinking of anything. just putting your hands out like you were about to pray. so your hands are a little apart. now when you slash i did this, nothing happened for a while. so i thought i had done something "rong" but after a while i was able to feel a salt of possing in the middle of my hands. i thought this was strange but amazing at the same time. so i desided to keap at it. so for about a month i would keap doing this relaxing praying position  and the energy or che would come quicker. now people might say but that's all in your head but i don't think it is.
anyway back to the story.
i had come home from school and thought i would do some relaxing again.
just to feel the chee or chi.
when i did relax, i kid you not, i could see a light, now i no what most of you are thinking. yeah rite sure you did and you walked into it riiite? well yeah i did lol and it was the best feeling ever. i was serrounded buy this che or chi energy but only for about a minute and then it was gone. but its afterwoods about nearly hmm nine in the afternoon that shocked me.
i was relaxing again. (wow i relax a lot don't i?) when i suddenly felt cold and scared for some reason now i don't know why that was but anyway. i was scared and i herd a voice in my head. now your going to probubly say "something along the lines of he's crazy. first energy that can wwarm you, now he is hering voices in his head. and i wouldn't blame you in the slitest. but i swair to yu i herd this voice and it said. "fear me" now after that inside, or outside of my head, i can't remember i asked "why?" as soon as i did zap! my energy was weaker than it had ever been and my body was shaking crazaly.
after that and now i find it hard to "feel" chi or chee. and i can no longer sence others amotion. oh sure i can feel the chi or che in my hands but that is all mostly.
now you might still say yeah but brad it is all in your mind. and you can think that if you want but i don't think it was and here is more prouf for me at least.
i and a friend was talking to a girl on skype and she said that a ghost was hounting her flat or apartment. now after hering this voice in my head i thought ok yeah ghosts exsist deffenetly. i'd read up on people who had seen and herd them. i had listened to e v p's of ghosts. yeah some of them might have been fake but i can't be sure of that.
anyway this guy had died in his flat or apartment from cancer aparently. so we spoke about this to the woman and suddenly a lighter. (she must have smoked) fell on the flore and kind of "flue" across the room and we herd it. yeah but that might be her frowing it or something. ok, ok maybe but there is no way she could have done what happened next.
i herd a voice. lol and no this time it wasn't in my head. it clearly said "get out! leave!" i told my friend and he said he herd the same thing. i asked him what the voice said and he said the same thing as i rote down. i asked her if she had herd it but hse said she did but i don't really believe she did.
she was a kind of shady chariture. if you know what i mean. a stupid woman who messes around with peoples lives. but unforchanutly for me at least when she said she herd it she sounded scared so if she did here it. then good! anyway back to what i believe.
i also believe that this che or chi is all around us. it is in everything.
i believe we have a soul. i belive we can astral project. i believe in loosid dreaming and anything to do with the spirit i will listen to and see what i think of it.
thanks for reading.
that is my looong post over and done with.
please reply with what you think.
i don't think you will do this but you can call me crazy if you want smile.