What is your religious denomination?

[Vapor]

We've got a vast spread of political ideologies on this forum, let's see how diverse our religious beliefs are. I'm sure this has been done in the past, but...meh.

This isn't intended as a catalyst for theological debates, but if that's where it leads...y'all have fun.

I, personally, am an agnostic because A. I realized that the Christian stories I was raised with made no more sense than the Norse and Greek "Mythologies" and B. I don't feel like humanity is capable of understanding whatever supernatural force, if any, exists; if we can't stop killing each other, how can we expect to understand the nature of the universe? And C. almost all religions teach peace, yet they seem incapable of co-existing, and therefore, I have a problem with organized religion.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

agnostic and have been since I was about 10.

I accept the potential for gods to exist,

 

[brothern]

Former ECLA Lutheran. I became an atheist on August 25th, 2012 after a few months of waffling.

 

[X Factor]

Non-denominational Christian. The older I get the more convinced I am that God is real.

 

[digsbe]

Raised Baptist, became an Atheist, and converted to being a non-denominational Evangelical Christian.

 

[X Factor]

Raised Baptist, became an Atheist, and converted to being a non-denominational Evangelical Christian.

That's cool, Digs. Evangelicals get a bad rap sometimes, but in my experience they're the nicest people. I think they give more to charity than anyone else, too.

 

[Jetboogieman]

Jedi..........................

 

[digsbe]

That's cool, Digs. Evangelicals get a bad rap sometimes, but in my experience they're the nicest people. I think they give more to charity than anyone else, too.

From what I've noticed people give Evangelicals a bad rap over our mainstream views on social issues or the notion that we are sheeples to Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum.

 

[Your Star]

Christian I guess, it's weird, I just have a hard time believing in most of the Bible. I mean, I love the good stuff, the love thy neighbor stuff, and do unto others, and Jesus is pretty awesome, but everything else just seems like crap written by people 2,000 years ago in 3 different ancient languages that has been edited so many times that it's hard to keep up. It just seems pointless to taken any of it seriously.

 

[finebead]

I said christian, really lapsed catholic. Molestation of little boys and coverup by the bishops really turned me off. Sometimes now I verge on atheist. I wonder how life was started from "no life", which leaves me open to god. I wonder how single cells of life could become more complex and create fish, mammals, and an organism as amazing as a man, without a plan, without some intelligence behind it. It frankly seems like as big a stretch as accepting that there is a god. I have a hard time accepting that a human is an accident of evolution. That position seems rather absurd. The forces of nature can create some beautiful landscapes, but most of that is destroying what came before it; there was a plateau and then a glacier cut out the center and now we have beautiful mountains and valleys. That does not seem like the kind of force that could build a human being.

Humans can't build a plane without years of planning, but we think a machine as complex with thinking capability of man is an accident? This does not seem right.

 

[Serenity]

Lapsed Catholic.

 

[brothern]

I said christian, really lapsed catholic. Molestation of little boys and coverup by the bishops really turned me off. Sometimes now I verge on atheist. I wonder how life was started from "no life", which leaves me open to god. I wonder how single cells of life could become more complex and create fish, mammals, and an organism as amazing as a man, without a plan, without some intelligence behind it. It frankly seems like as big a stretch as accepting that there is no god. I have a hard time accepting that a human is an accident of evolution. That position seems rather absurd. The forces of nature can create some beautiful landscapes, but most of that is destroying what came before it; there was a plateau and then a glacier cut of the center and now we have beautiful mountains and valleys. That does not seem like the kind of force that could build a human being.

Humans can't build a plane without years of planning, but we think a machine as complex with thinking capability of man is an accident? This does not seem right.

You assume that humans were the intending goal or that it was a "planned" process -- that's not how evolution works. Evolution is simply the process by which living organisms respond to the changes in the environment, or put another way, how the environment shapes a population's genetic pool. Think of it like rolling various types of six-sided, eight-sided, twelve-sided, etc. dice. Every time you roll the dice and a number larger than 6 shows up, the dice is cracked in two by the die's natural predator - the hammer - because large numbers are more visible to the hammer. Before long, all the twelve-sided dice go extinct. But on the OTHER side of the world (Australia), a different predator causes all the small rolling dice to die off. You then have two different populations, and hey, maybe one of the populations randomly births a colored die which survives, and the other population is forced by the environment to grow smaller in size. Pretty soon, the big die can't reproduce with the small die **, and once that happens, two different species emerge. There's absolutely no intelligence, design or pre-planning behind it. Just the environment forcing changes in animals.

** Like, for example, evolution is why tigers and lions can reproduce to have non-fertile "Ligers" as offspring. Lions and tigers had a common ancestor. But since one lived in India and the other Africa, they were exposed to different environments which cause them to diverge into two different species.

 

[finebead]

You assume that humans were the intending goal or that it was a "planned" process -- that's not how evolution works. Evolution is simply the process by which living organisms respond to the changes in the environment, or put another way, how the environment shapes a population's genetic pool. Think of it like rolling various types of six-sided, eight-sided, twelve-sided, etc. dice. Every time you roll the dice and a number larger than 6 shows up, the dice is cracked in two by the die's natural predator - the hammer - because large numbers are more visible to the hammer. Before long, all the twelve-sided dice go extinct. But on the OTHER side of the world (Australia), a different predator causes all the small rolling dice to die off. You then have two different populations, and hey, maybe one of the populations randomly births a colored die which survives, and the other population is forced by the environment to grow smaller in size. Pretty soon, the big die can't reproduce with the small die **, and once that happens, two different species emerge. There's absolutely no intelligence, design or pre-planning behind it. Just the environment forcing changes in animals.

** Like, for example, evolution is why tigers and lions can reproduce to have non-fertile "Ligers" as offspring. Lions and tigers had a common ancestor. But since one lived in India and the other Africa, they were exposed to different environments which cause them to diverge into two different species.

I am happy you have an idea in your head how evolution "might work". Where are those rules written down? Why are there not many more animal species? I understand the "theory of natural selection" and its a nice theory. I don't think it explains everything about life.

 

[DDD]

I, just like Dardanians in the ancient times, hold pagan beliefs, but construct the symbols with my own meaning. Who is the other fellow pagan believer?

 

[DDD]

I am happy you have an idea in your head how evolution "might work". Where are those rules written down? Why are there not many more animal species? I understand the "theory of natural selection" and its a nice theory. I don't think it explains everything about life.

Contrary to religion, where rules must be written somewhere by using human made symbols and medium, nature may neither respect nor recognize written human rules. It is we that do that by observation, analysis, data gathering, if a scientist. Or base statements on stories if a religious person. No rules in physics, but you throw an apple up it does seems to fall down. We could write that then as a law/rule.

There are more animal specials coming up. New ones for we have not covered all animals yet. All of us are evolving together. Sadly though this takes longer than life time. You would need thousands of years of observation in order to believe it.

What does it not explains?

 

[Pagan]

Raised devout Christian. started questioning In my 20's. In my late 30's started researching heavily the origins of most of the religions. I say I'm Agnostic for I'm not arrogant to claim I know for a fact.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the “Mormon” church. I was raised in this religion, and my family goes back for several generations in this religion. I've occasionally drifted off into agnosticism, and/or looked into a few other religions, but keep returning to this one.

 

[Ray410]

This isn't intended as a catalyst for theological debates, but if that's where it leads...y'all have fun!

Don't start slobbering in anticipation of another endless homosexual/atheist platform to attack the faith of others, that you lack.

 

[brothern]

I am happy you have an idea in your head how evolution "might work". Where are those rules written down? Why are there not many more animal species? I understand the "theory of natural selection" and its a nice theory. I don't think it explains everything about life.

I did not know that the rules of the physical world were written down somewhere. You probably should have told that to Copernicus, Newton, Darwin or Einstein if you had the chance. It would have saved us a lot of time looking for evidence concerning the natural worlds and figuring out how it all works.

Disease. Destruction of environments. Small populations. Stronger competing species, and/or predators. Extinction.

What does it not explains?

Evolution does not explain the origin of life. It explains how life has been created, shaped and molded but says nothing of how it all began. That's why the Catholic Church and other non-fundamentalist religions have come to align their beliefs with scientific fact. They still have an escape hatch in the 'origin of life'. Fundamentalists, however, are forced to deny scientific fact primarily because it annihilates the belief that humans were created in God's image and which causes all sorts of issues with strict literalist interpretations of Holy Books. The bones and reminents of other sentient hominid species like Neatherthals, homo erectus, homo habilis also do that as well, but you can shove those into museums and pretend they don't exist.

 

[Redress]

I am a pure atheist. I have seen no evidence of any god, and as I get older I see even more how a god is not needed to explain anything. When the supernatural isn't needed to explain things, it only makes sense to me to believe in natural explanations that do have evidence.

 

[Fisher]

Zen Christian I suppose am I.

 

[Adagio]

We've got a vast spread of political ideologies on this forum, let's see how diverse our religious beliefs are. I'm sure this has been done in the past, but...meh.

This isn't intended as a catalyst for theological debates, but if that's where it leads...y'all have fun.

I, personally, am an agnostic because A. I realized that the Christian stories I was raised with made no more sense than the Norse and Greek "Mythologies" and B. I don't feel like humanity is capable of understanding whatever supernatural force, if any, exists; if we can't stop killing each other, how can we expect to understand the nature of the universe? And C. almost all religions teach peace, yet they seem incapable of co-existing, and therefore, I have a problem with organized religion.

I have no religious affiliation at all. I would probably list atheist, but it's not a religion.

 

[DDD]

Evolution does not explain the origin of life. It explains how life has been created, shaped and molded but says nothing of how it all began. That's why the Catholic Church and other non-fundamentalist religions have come to align their beliefs with scientific fact. They still have an escape hatch in the 'origin of life'. Fundamentalists, however, are forced to deny scientific fact primarily because it annihilates the belief that humans were created in God's image and which causes all sorts of issues with strict literalist interpretations of Holy Books. The bones and reminents of other sentient hominid species like Neatherthals, homo erectus, homo habilis also do that as well, but you can shove those into museums and pretend they don't exist.

Yes, Evolution does not stretches all the way to the Big Bang. I thought the question was meant with a more worldly focus. Getting back here though, on ground, evolution explains so much as to even stretch to human behavior, perception, cognition, etc. It is a special branch in psychology named Evolutionary Psychology:

Evolutionary Psychology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[spud_meister]

I'm an atheist. It's simpler.

 

[Dragonfly]

I voted Agnostic.

I was raised protestant/Presbyterian - went to a Quaker-ish middle and high school.
(funny side note - I was introduced to marijuana by a friend on a church retreat/camping trip)

I completely enjoy, and identify a lot with Taoism now.