GOD

[RCMerchant]

Also while it's certainly possible that all religions are equally false, it impossible that all religions are equally true. That is contrary to the simplest logic, and downright stupid.

For most of my life I felt a warring impulse to believe people were soul-less biological beings who were born and died, were reduced to our atoms (thinking this made me feel sophisticated), and our consciousness was lost, yet I also was moved to believe we lived many lives and there was some ultimate justice in our circumstances, whether we perceived it or not. I was comfortable thinking that and spent a lot of time contemplating a universe that worked that way, lifetime balancing lifetime, rebirth coming after death. I found some pathetic comfort in thinking maybe some of the pains I had in life had some reason behind them and weren't the result of random events colliding with other random events. Maybe, I thought, there was some sort of sane karma behind loving someone so completely and losing him so pointlessly, or my brothers dying when I was a child, or various things that came to pass in my own life, which, not to be self-pitying, has had its moments of sorrow and agony. (Not that I'd choose to be anyone else and I have much to be grateful for.)

Then oddly, even that solace went away, and I thought, wow, it's true, nothing has meaning, there is no plan to life, the dead are just gone, accidents are just accidents, chains of circumstances, there is no one at the helm, we are helpless and vulnerable and all too brief. Why not do whatever you want, since nothing matters? And what's odd is....for the longest time, especially when I was at my most grieving about sixteen years ago, I felt some peace in that. If nothing mattered then...nothing mattered.

That is how I felt for a long, long time.

Now, I have to tell you, if you can possibly believe otherwise, even if it turns out you're self-deluded and wrong and we all go to dust, and God is nothing but an imaginary friend, it makes for a more pleasant life to think that one day just maybe you'll meet your loved-ones again, and all the pains of this existence won't matter, everything will be okay. If you can possibly find a way to feel like that, you're doing yourself a favor.

Shrug. I know there's a lot that can be said against all this in counter-argument, but it's helped me.

Just laying my soul bare here.

Let it all hang out,baby. 

[AoTFan]

Feeling that we'll get to see our long-lost loved ones gives us a good feeling, I'll agree with that, ER.

Can I say I believe that? No.  But it's weird.  I also believe in ghosts and the paranormal.  And religious folk write that off.  "No such thing as ghosts." 

Not always.  Many of them write it off by saying if it's supernatural and ain't from God, it's the Devil (or his demons) trying to trick you.

Believe me, I could go into a lot of loooong posts on this subject.  

[HappyGilmore]

Feeling that we'll get to see our long-lost loved ones gives us a good feeling, I'll agree with that, ER.

Can I say I believe that? No.  But it's weird.  I also believe in ghosts and the paranormal.  And religious folk write that off.  "No such thing as ghosts." 

Not always.  Many of them write it off by saying if it's supernatural and ain't from God, it's the Devil (or his demons) trying to trick you.

Believe me, I could go into a lot of loooong posts on this subject.  

Please do.

It's all interesting to me.

[ER]

This talk of ghosts and religion reminds me, there is a church in Cincinnati, near the university, called Saint Monica-Saint George (oddly it has swastikas on the marble floor, they being some sort of Byzantine cross; the church pre-dates Nazisim by a healthy margin) and funnily enough I have spoken with three priests who pastored there, and every single one has said, "That church is haunted." In fact if you Bing'd/Googled the church there are probably stories about it being haunted.

I have a feeling many things might exist, ghosts, potentially other planes, perhaps spirits of the benign and malign sorts (Japanese kami, etc) the whole nine yards, and not mean one thing about whether there is a God or not, or have anything to do with human-created religion. I used to know a Rosecrucian (I may be misspelling that, holding a sleeping kid, typing one-handed and I'm not going to look up that spelling) who told me something I've remembered for years. There is no supernatural, only that within nature we do not understand.

[Allhallowsday]

[indianasmith]

Can I say that I like this a LOT better than the "Who should be President?" thread?

[Jim H]

This talk of ghosts and religion reminds me, there is a church in Cincinnati, near the university, called Saint Monica-Saint George (oddly it has swastikas on the marble floor, they being some sort of Byzantine cross; the church pre-dates Nazisim by a healthy margin) and funnily enough I have spoken with three priests who pastored there, and every single one has said, "That church is haunted." In fact if you Bing'd/Googled the church there are probably stories about it being haunted.

I have a feeling many things might exist, ghosts, potentially other planes, perhaps spirits of the benign and malign sorts (Japanese kami, etc) the whole nine yards, and not mean one thing about whether there is a God or not, or have anything to do with human-created religion. I used to know a Rosecrucian (I may be misspelling that, holding a sleeping kid, typing one-handed and I'm not going to look up that spelling) who told me something I've remembered for years. There is no supernatural, only that within nature we do not understand.

Reminds me...  The closest thing I've ever felt to a spiritual connection to a place or idea was actually at a tiny Shinto shrine stuck in the middle of Tokyo.  Nothing really happened, just the low key natural beauty and vibe of the place, the way it was literally in the middle of a gigantic sprawling metropolis but was somehow quiet, the clear respect the nearby denizens paid to it, the look and feel of the purification fountains, just being there...  Approached magic somehow.  

I'm a massive geek, enjoy history, am a heavy movie and TV watcher, collect old video games and play new ones, and yet in Tokyo, Japan the strongest connection I felt to anything was to a 200 year old empty shrine.  I think that speaks to something.  I'm just not entirely sure what.

[Mofo Rising]

Also while it's certainly possible that all religions are equally false, it impossible that all religions are equally true. That is contrary to the simplest logic, and downright stupid.

For most of my life I felt a warring impulse to believe people were soul-less biological beings who were born and died, were reduced to our atoms (thinking this made me feel sophisticated), and our consciousness was lost, yet I also was moved to believe we lived many lives and there was some ultimate justice in our circumstances, whether we perceived it or not. I was comfortable thinking that and spent a lot of time contemplating a universe that worked that way, lifetime balancing lifetime, rebirth coming after death. I found some pathetic comfort in thinking maybe some of the pains I had in life had some reason behind them and weren't the result of random events colliding with other random events. Maybe, I thought, there was some sort of sane karma behind loving someone so completely and losing him so pointlessly, or my brothers dying when I was a child, or various things that came to pass in my own life, which, not to be self-pitying, has had its moments of sorrow and agony. (Not that I'd choose to be anyone else and I have much to be grateful for.)

Then oddly, even that solace went away, and I thought, wow, it's true, nothing has meaning, there is no plan to life, the dead are just gone, accidents are just accidents, chains of circumstances, there is no one at the helm, we are helpless and vulnerable and all too brief. Why not do whatever you want, since nothing matters? And what's odd is....for the longest time, especially when I was at my most grieving about sixteen years ago, I felt some peace in that. If nothing mattered then...nothing mattered.

That is how I felt for a long, long time.

Now, I have to tell you, if you can possibly believe otherwise, even if it turns out you're self-deluded and wrong and we all go to dust, and God is nothing but an imaginary friend, it makes for a more pleasant life to think that one day just maybe you'll meet your loved-ones again, and all the pains of this existence won't matter, everything will be okay. If you can possibly find a way to feel like that, you're doing yourself a favor.

Shrug. I know there's a lot that can be said against all this in counter-argument, but it's helped me.

Just laying my soul bare here.

See, I agree with this. Pronoia is a useful skill for your personal life, just maybe not for making things better. This is powerful, and probably useful, just maybe not true.

Now, I count myself as agnostic. Not because I believe there is a God and any of the major religions have a handle on it. I choose agnostic because I think it's kind of a meaningless, unprovable hypothesis. That might seem harsh, but the religion I grew up with, Christianity, makes it a central tenet. Yes, I do know all about the mystery of faith and basic science. So I can't say I'm an atheist, but I will say that I think all major religions are full of beans. Fun, the way stuff works.

So that's what I believe, but I'm not some militant. You believe that, I don't. Almost all of my friends and family believe that, you are not a minority. In fact, I am, it's a conversational topic I avoid.

If we got right down to it, I'm interested in the pronoia aspects. Placebos work, and that's weird as hell.

[Trevor]

Despite all my issues - sexual abuse as a child and also as an adolescent, abandonment, hurt, anger, etc - I do believe that there is a higher power.

[Trevor]

Feeling that we'll get to see our long-lost loved ones gives us a good feeling 

Agreed: I would really like to give Dad a hug again.

[Newt]

Some people find recreational drugs give them a good feeling and help them get through the pains of this existence.  

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx

I find that what Mofo Rising said mostly applies for me, too.  There is something more, it is unproveable, belief takes faith and religions per se for all the good they may do, have a lot to answer for as well.  Live and let live - which is pretty much the message of the church I grew up in (The United Church of Canada: originally an amalgam of Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian).  And it is a conversational topic that I generally try to avoid.

[Trevor]

I find that what Mofo Rising said mostly applies for me, too.  There is something more, it is unproveable, belief takes faith and religions per se for all the good they may do, have a lot to answer for as well.  Live and let live - which is pretty much the message of the church I grew up in (The United Church of Canada: originally an amalgam of Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian).  And it is a conversational topic that I generally try to avoid.

 

[HappyGilmore]

I've had way more supernatural experiences than I'd care to.  What's it all mean? I dunno.  But if I can believe that, I can't NOT believe in God but I'm willing not to.  I dunno.

We can't prove the existence of either.   

[Derf]

I consider mself to be a devout Christian. By some measures, I am conservative,  while by others, I am fairly liberal. On the subject of ghosts, I find it interesting when really conservative Christians deny their existence. If someone believes that everything in the Bible is a true account, then the existence of ghosts and communing with the dead is undeniable: in I Samuel, Saul gets a medium in En-Dor to call the ghost of Samuel, and she does it. It isn't a demon or the devil; it is the spirit of Samuel, who then proceeds to tell Saul he is going to die. Therefore, according to the biblical account, it is possible to communicate with the dead. God says we shouldn't,  but it is apparently possible.

As for the viability of the world's major religions, I would agree that none have it fully right. However, Christianity in its purest form seems to me to do it best, even if you consider God ultimately unknowable. The tenets of Christianity call for loving your fellow man and taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves. I am unaware of any other religion that calls for this quite as stridently. I know that doesn't necessarily make Christianity true, but the doctrines, along with a long list of historical accounts, has convinced me that it is. At the very least, the philosophy of Christianity sets an example of a better, more peaceful and more beneficial way to live. Some say that you don't need a god to live that way, and there is some truth to that. But I am personally convinced that God exists and that he has been interacting with mankind from the beginning. He cannot be proven definitively to exist through scientific means, and I think in many ways,  that is a good thing. The whole idea of free will (which I know is another can of worms altogether) depends on God's mysteriousness. I would love to be able to convince everyone to join with me in my faith, but I am not naive enough to think that will ever happen. In the end, I can only say that I am doing my best to act on what I am convinced is true, and that I am living my life trying to be the best I can be, both for myself and for those around me.

[indianasmith]

Nicely said, Derf!