Are you religious or not

[unzipped]

raised Irish Catholic...but not... just the residual gilt...

 

[Drifterwood]

That's partly an effect of the ceiling mirror.
But yeah, it's, um ... it's big.

I find a bidet more convenient.

 

[Drifterwood]

IMy current spirituality fluctuates between a disbelief in anything and an odd, singular kind of paganism that believes that there are a variety of energies that affect us in unpredictable ways.

" and not once was God or any kind of spirituality ever mentioned, let alone discussed.

I am not sure that christianity has been very good at spirituality. The emphasis has been on believing, having faith, which is why atheists and agnostics are referred to in the negative self referal. It's strangely exclusive given the supposed tenets.

The spirit, holy or otherwise, is also a difficult area, because on one level this could, and has been taken to mean that there is more than one god, or at least that god is not singular., let alone any inconveniences relating to the divinity of angels and devils.

I wonder whether spirituality is no more than a facet of humanity. Religion, rather than faith, can simply be a method of behaviour that regiments that humanity.

 

[arkfarmbear]

I am a "closet" Christian. I grew up in a family that was and is very hard core Southern Baptist. I was "saved" and baptized when I was 15.
I have a strong belief in God and consider myself to be very spiritual.
My decision to be in the closet is because of the images we most often see of Christians.
They do not, in any way, resemble the Jesus I came to know.
Jesus' death was a result of him calling out and criticizing the religious leaders of his day. They were called Pharisees.
Over the years I've asked Christians to tell me what a Pharisee actually is. At least 75% don't know! When I point out that we have our own Pharisees today they fumble and bumble trying to respond but usually want to change the subject now!
I've especially had fun with this when preachers are standing on the street corners screaming about how angry God is and how he is going to reign down fire and brimstone.
A few of them have been in the Jerry Falwell or John Hagee category. They are big ol' tubs of lard.
I'm very skinny and I've warned them that since they are much larger, it would be reasonable to assume that more of it will hit them instead of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've also pointed out that their obesity is a clear example of their sin. They are "harming the temple". They then tell me how mean I am and I have a bias against fat people.
Nah, don't play that card on me. Won't take the bait!

 

[sbat]

From a statistical standpoint, the probability of RNA randomly developing into DNA producing a species with our congnitive and mechanical functionality is so absurdly small that some form of intelligent design as the cause of human life is more plausible than random evolution. Hell, look at us - in 200 years time, robots will probably be their own self-sustaining life forms, completely engineered via intelligent design. Who is to say we aren't some one else's 'robot'?

We don't really have anyway of knowing the source of that intelligent design. It very well could simply come from another life form from a distant planet. The Earth throughout its history has had encounters with other planets and a myriad of celestial bodies.

From a quantum mechanics perspective, perhaps we are figments of some collective imagination, manifesting ourselves physically through the mere belief in our concrete existence.

Maybe both of those ideas are (some version of the) truth. Who is to say that there isn't more than one way to describe being?

 

[maxcok]

i do not think this is a good post of all, you generalize and assume with no facts backing it up.

Facts? Who needs facts when have your own infallible truth?

It is not possible for you, nor for anyone else for that matter, to judge what people who seriously study this matter eventually decide to believe. It is equally ridiculous to make such generalized statements about atheist or any other group of people.
And it doesn't get any better by you judging over what another member is and believing you can tell him what he will find out to be one day.
This is ignorance.

Did you not know that the poster is in fact omniscient? :wink:

 

[maxcok]

Being religious does not necessitate either faith or belief.

Or vice versa.

This was a poor question as recognised by the original respondent who was sadly dismissed.

Indeed.

 

[B_Hung Jon]

I tend toward zen buddhism because I have a relative who's a zen monk and who I love a lot.

 

[polyglot4]

Interesting thread - thanks to Jason for telling me and others what we really think, sure sign of a theist! I HAVE studied he sacred texts of every major religion and read all of the western philosophers. My conclusion? A facinating history of human culture, but, no support of any kind for metaphysics.

 

[thetramp]

From a statistical standpoint, the probability of RNA randomly developing into DNA producing a species with our congnitive and mechanical functionality is so absurdly small that some form of intelligent design as the cause of human life is more plausible than random evolution. Hell, look at us - in 200 years time, robots will probably be their own self-sustaining life forms, completely engineered via intelligent design. Who is to say we aren't some one else's 'robot'?

We don't really have anyway of knowing the source of that intelligent design. It very well could simply come from another life form from a distant planet. The Earth throughout its history has had encounters with other planets and a myriad of celestial bodies.

From a quantum mechanics perspective, perhaps we are figments of some collective imagination, manifesting ourselves physically through the mere belief in our concrete existence.

Maybe both of those ideas are (some version of the) truth. Who is to say that there isn't more than one way to describe being?

First of all we would need to define the word random more specific.
That term is often misused when it comes to evolution. But again a scientific debate over what evolution really is and what role random plays would be wrong here.
Second there is no reason to believe that some sort of intelligent design is of any higher statistical chance.

 

[Jason]

From a statistical standpoint, the probability of RNA randomly developing into DNA producing a species with our congnitive and mechanical functionality is so absurdly small that some form of intelligent design as the cause of human life is more plausible than random evolution.

Yes. Once life exists the theory of evolution provides a mechanism for its development. But the jump from RNA to DNA is so improbable that the chance scarcely exists.

If of course there is a yet unknown natural mechanism by which RNA can become DNA then it would be reasonable to expect that it has happened more than once. But so far the tree of life appears to go back to a single occasion when life came into existence.

This "argument from design" is a powerful argument for the existence of God. It is possible to question the vaidity of the argument (ie be an agnostic) but it seems to be impossible to prove it wrong (ie be an atheist). Thus atheist Bertrand Russell saw atheism as a form of agnosticism, effectively a theoretical extreme that can never truly be reached because it cannot be proved.

 

[Drifterwood]

This "argument from design" is a powerful argument for the existence of God.

Only because you don't know. If you knew, and there is a very cogent theory, then it would be an irrelevant argument.

 

[simbasa12]

What I mean is that this thread isn't for debate if god exists or not . It is simply a poll thread.

So much for that.....it's inevitable that it would turn into more than just a poll thread. I am not religious.

 

[B_lrgeggs]

It's funny. You can ask me all about the
penis. But religion....now you're
getting too personal.

 

[Smooth88]

Agnostic

 

[BiItalianBro]

Thirteen years (K-12) of Catholic school and five years of therapy...now i am spiritual

 

[avg_joe]

Born and raised as a Buddhist. Will always be a Buddhist.

 

[Bbucko]

I am not sure that christianity has been very good at spirituality. The emphasis has been on believing, having faith, which is why atheists and agnostics are referred to in the negative self referal. It's strangely exclusive given the supposed tenets.

The spirit, holy or otherwise, is also a difficult area, because on one level this could, and has been taken to mean that there is more than one god, or at least that god is not singular., let alone any inconveniences relating to the divinity of angels and devils.

I wonder whether spirituality is no more than a facet of humanity. Religion, rather than faith, can simply be a method of behaviour that regiments that humanity.

My understanding is that originally, anyways, Christianity was filled with such intense spirituality that it essentially required a "watering down" on several occasions so that its adherents could find ways of coping with and caring for the material world and their own bodies. I personally find it no accident that we refer to the period of Christian ascendancy and its eventual ubiquity in Europe and the near-east as The Dark Ages.

One cannot speak of anything like a singular "Christian faith" because it comes in so very many different flavors. The Orthodox and Catholic versions have saints and worship the (at least partial) divinity of Mary, which I've always seen as a dilution of monotheism and a capitulation of the early church to at least some of the articles of the then-prevalent Paganism. That must be my Protestant roots showing :redface:

Having been raised (as posted earlier) with limited if any real knowledge of anything like a big-picture view of actual dogma and other articles of faith, I wasn't really properly educated in what Christianity actually comprised: Hell was never clearly defined, baptism was a mere social ritual and somehow the mechanics of the Resurrection were never clearly explained. When I finally got around to mentally chewing on these rather tough pieces of meat (among others), I found that I simply couldn't bring myself to believe in any of it. I can't really justify belittling true believers because they obviously have some skill or capacity that I seem to lack. Much like being a non-versatile top, I sincerely wish that I could understand all the fuss but it's simply not physically possible for me.

What I do know is what I've experienced: I have flatlined twice in my life, which is to say that I needed to be resuscitated twice after having a heart failure. The first time this happened, it was a random and accidental response to an injection I received at an STD clinic after having caught the clap at 20, the second time was 22 years later when a bout of severe bronchial pneumonia kept my temperature above 105 for several hours; I was later told that I needed to be revived twice. Each time this happened in a medical environment, luckily

The first experience remains completely vivid in my mind, the second is less so (more dream-like, really) but can be confirmed by my sister who knew I was present and to whom I later described what I remembered having seen and done with complete accuracy in every detail. In each case some part of me, the singularity that I am and call my soul left my body; the first time I just hovered above my body on the ceiling and watched as they revived me. The second time I seem to have gone from a hospital ICU in Connecticut to my sister's workplace in north-eastern Massachusetts and paid her a visit, though I'd never physically been to her office before.

I could see and hear everything but could not feel anything. There were no tunnels and no bright lights or dead loved ones: just me without a body.

I understand that these experiences can be explained as hallucinations or as my brain reacting in some other fashion to a sudden and profound trauma. But there were details in each cases that can only be explained as my having seen something that was physically impossible for me to have at that time. I should also make it clear that, as near as I can tell (and I've given this a tremendous amount of thought), these two incidents helped to shape my spirituality and not the other way around; if they were based on any preconceived expectations, I'd have had a more traditional NDE. Neither of these experiences fits any model I've seen or heard described (certainly nothing when I was 20, during the first one).

As to this whole discussion of Creationism (by any other name, it remains the same): I'll not touch it with a ten-foot pole, thanks.

 

[Gillette]

But the jump from RNA to DNA is so improbable that the chance scarcely exists.

Wait, what?

Cancer, where cell division goes haywire to the detriment of the organism occurs every bloody day either due to external factors (carcinogens) or a single chance replication error yet you think the change of a single pyrimidine is highly improbable?

Come on.

If of course there is a yet unknown natural mechanism by which RNA can become DNA then it would be reasonable to expect that it has happened more than once. But so far the tree of life appears to go back to a single occasion when life came into existence.

"Appears" being the key word. It's not likely that we'll find fossilized DNA and even less likely that if we did we'd be able to type it to see if it was a completely different from the life cycle we originated from.

In 2006 there were 16,969 new species discovered. 16,969 species discovered in 2006

Out of several articles the most conservative guess at extinction rates was 6 species per day (2190/year), highest was 150 per day for 54,750 per year. All of which appears to be due to humankind stripping those species of their resources and habitat. How many Species Are Going Extinct? - JREF Forum

Now these are fully developed/evolved species being discovered and going extint. I'll bet that none of us could name three of either category from the last year off the top of our heads. At any rate, my point is that these are fully developed species whereas RNA becoming DNA isn't even a complete cell.
For all that we know this process is happening still as we speak.

Let's say that it happens at the same rate as new species discovery (46.5 times a day)

Questions
a) What are the odds that a scientist will be looking at one of the right 47 microscopic places on the entire globe when it happens and be able to identify what they are seeing?
b) What are the odds that it will survive long enough to become a full cell let alone survive long enough to be discovered and recognized as an organism? (remember our origin only had to survive it's environment, anything new will have to survive it's environment AND competing organisms)
c) What are the odds anything will be left behind to know it had ever happened?

Answers
a) Slim.
b) Slim.
c) Nil.

Just because it "appears" that our life's origin was the only one doesn't make it so. The Whos existed whether Horton heard them or not.

Lack of proof for one possibility does not automatically lend credence to the other. I would have expected a thinking man to grasp that.

 

[Jason]

Just because it "appears" that our life's origin was the only one doesn't make it so. The Whos existed whether Horton heard them or not.

Lack of proof for one possibility does not automatically lend credence to the other. I would have expected a thinking man to grasp that.

How many species are there on earth? I'm not heading off to Google - lets just say a lot. And so far every one of them (that we've looked at) is a member of a single tree of life. Now we might find the one exception tomorrow, but so far it seems that life on earth started just once.

That life started just once through a unique event is a reasonable hypothesis. It might of course come to be proved wrong, but so far it is not possible to prove it wrong. This one argument makes the existence of God possible - this one argument is sufficient to invalidate atheism. (and there are of course others).