A question of faith.

[Charney]

Born as a Catholic, taught to believe what I want. I'm choose catholicism since Jesus and the cult of Saints is cool

But I warped it to update for modern times. I do respect the Pope but won't follow him blindly.

Also I choose to believe since we need to explain who created the cosmic egg that blew up and gave birth to the universe. For me, God explains it.
I also believe God was the greatest physicist ever and he created the laws of physics.

And I know of all the abuse the Caholic church did in the past but it's like all institutions of powers, they get corrupt.

[Once the Forum]

Atheist, no belief in any form of supernaturalism.

[Pacal]

I'm a Catholic but understand that many of the things that the Church does are only man- made rules that have nothing to do with the Almighty. I consider myself Catholic because the basic tenet of the religion is that Faith and Good Works together lead to salvation whereas the Protestant sects are formed from Martin Luther's belief that Faith alone can save a person. I have to include the Good Works because I can't belive that good people would be punished for not believing in the "correct" thing.

[Shadowsworn]

I've been a Roman Catholic from birth up until about a year ago, since when I've been an agnostic, though I do believe in the supernatural, at least some of it.

[Malken/Ezekiel]

Me, I'm complicated as well. Born and raised a protestant in the Norwegian State Church, I usually choose to label myself a christian. Still, I have a lot of Unitarian views as well, and a bit of this and that. I consider myself a religious person, although I'm still somewhat sceptical towards the more "esoteric" religions and views. Not sure whether this is just ingrained conservatism or healthy sceptisism. And when it gets down to it, even ordinary life is pretty complex stuff. How can we then hope to understand something that is more than humanity?

[Jakob]

As many other in Italy, I was baptized at birth in the Catholic Christian Church, but only because my parents were harassed by all the four of my grandparents .

I was taught to beleive in what I saw fit and right in respect of the others, and always to KNOW before judging.
I read the Bible, the Gospels, the Coran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Atharvaveda, the Capital (as anti-religious it is, it becomes a religious book in my opinion)...

At last I made up my mind studying Spinoza and the Gaia Theory, and I became, at last, a Pantheist.
I beleive in a "Higher Mind", but I see it inside every single living being. From my vision comes total respect for everything living.

Oh, I also strongly beleive in the Native Australians' theory of our life as someone else's dream.
Dreams create worlds. We all DO create worlds while RPing, don't we?.

[Jonathan Winters]

Wow! I just need to say that there is so much respect here! It is usually so easy for people to fly off the handle when speaking about religion (or politics).

Here are my two-cents...

I was born a catholic.
...
Actually that mas my parents' fault I guess... I was even a altar boy for a while. Man this goes back, like, 20 years! Oy!

I have drifted away from the church, the institution that is. But that would be another thread altogether! I am against so many of the institutions' ideas at the moment it's not even funny:
- Against abortion even if a woman is raped...
- Let's just use Africa to illustrate this one, against protection VS AIDS...
- Against gay weddings (and gays in general)...
... The list goes on...

I also drifted away from spiritual life through the years. Not sure why.
I guess I couldn't recognize myself in there.

I think that all religions have it right and wrong at the same time.
If there was one true god, wouldn't s/he be the same for everyone and there would be no religious wars?

I like to think that there is something after this life.. What? I don't know. Maybe just answers. The meaning of life. Some kind of understanding that would ease everything...

Also, being exposed to certain events in the past few years has honestly convinced me that there is no god. And if there is, there is no way god could justify why some stuff goes down in this world. It might be sad, but that is how I feel.

That being said, I still believe in humankind. And I respect other people's beliefs!

I hope I did not offend anybody!

Patrick

[jamesravenwing]

I am a Christian. Denomination doesn't really mean much to me. I suppose you could summarise my beliefs by saying that I take the Bible as being the truth (ie: Bible says the earth was created in seven days, ergo the earth was created in seven days). Simple, but effective.

Mostly I believe that love is the prime directive. It is mankind's duty to love all other human beings.

PS: I am pleasantly surprised that this discussion has devolved into mud-slinging. My respect to everyone on this board for their mature approach.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I may have said already, but I was baptised a Mormon when I was 8 but grew away from the religion when I was about 10, my entire family did in fact. I have also shared brief interests in the Pentacostel (sp?) and Evangelical faiths for a short time, but they rubbed me the wrong way.

The only religion that agreed with me was witchcrat, not Wicca, but actual Witchcraft. I also find it annoying when young Wiccans try to talk fown about Witches and that we are living in the past. Fortunately their number is few, they they always seem to say the most in internet chat rooms, lol. I avoid pagan (I hate that word) chat rooms because of the flaming that goes on in them, especially when you try to say something intelligent and people who have no idea (usually newbs who have read 1 book and think they know the entire religion after a few weeks) do nothing but throw profanity in your face

Yep, I agree totally with my religion, just not with some of the practitioners, though I suppose many of us could agree with that, no matter our faith. My religion teaches to respect the decisions, wishes and beliefs of others, even if you see them as wrong yourself. Thay way I see it though, if someone thinks something is right for them (and so long as it is hurting no one or sacrificing small animals in their basements, poor animals ) then it is fine with me

[Jasper]

Im a full Extropian. We bealve that there is no thing as free will and everything that has happened since the begining of time is just the results of eons of cause and effects.
EX: If you ate breakfast this morning it was not your choice. Light entered your eyes telling your brain that coffie and toast were avalable. Nurons in your brain repsonded that your body needs caffine atoms and wheet protiens . The reson the toast and coffie where there is because the plants grew and where harvested by someone else. Everything is linked.

What started it all into motion? We don't know and unless the Creator put into motion for us to know we never will.

[Cole Deschain]

I'm a devout Agnostic.

For me, to presume to understand the forces that created the universe is to embrace hubris on a colossal scale.

I essentially admit that I'll never understand it all, and more to the point, I'm not going to try.

This means I do believe in the supernatural, because it makes as much sense as anything else. My family has had experiences with ghosts, I've seen some pretty wild stuff out in the woods, and as far as I know, nobody can explain it in a way that makes any sense to me.

I believe in some sort of life beyond death, because of the aforementioned ghost experiences within my family.

That's about it.

[Bob the Efreet]

I'm mostly Taoist, although I have a tendency to draw from this, that, and every once in a while the other thing. I tend not to believe in deity, mostly because I refuse to believe in the abilities most people tend to attribute to their gods.

[Charlatan]

I'm a devout nothing. I have no faith in anything. Which is frustrating, since I feel a strong need to believe in something, but simply cannot bring myself to do it. I can't look through any religious doctinal stuff without eventually tossing it away with disgust, thinking "Who came up with this bullshit?". I am strongly drawn to the more mystical/occult side of things, and also Eastern style mysticsm, but only glanced at them briefly. Reading about a voodoo-like ritual or something similar gives me a frissom that nothing in the Bible ever did. I would dearly love to actually witness some obviously supernatural event so that I could see that there was in fact more to the universe. The idea of death and mortality scares the hell out of me. I can't really wrap my mind around concepts like Oblivion, Heaven or Hell. If I could have one wish, I would probably wish to know the Truth about things (the second, depending on the results of the first, would most likely be for immortality. "No afterlife? In that case...."). I can't take things on faith, I want all the facts I can possibly get, I want things I can see and feel.

[alhoon]

I am a Christian.
Mostly I believe that love is the prime directive. It is mankind's duty to love all other human beings.

I'm an Orthodox Christian and I also believe that love is the prime directive.
I don't know about 2 in 3 religions you mention. Sorry about that.

[Whisper]

Hmm, Maximillian pretty much said it for me too. Christian Orthodox with a few twists and turns here and there I guess. One of them is that I am extremely skeptical about confession...