A Land Far Away

Just curious, with all the focus on religion lately (Presidential candidates, Jerry Falwell, etc) which of the following religions do you think is closest to reality and why?

(main US religions)

Roman Catholic
Baptist
Methodism
Episcopal Church
Lutheranism
Presbyterianism
Adventism
Evangelicalism
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Jehovah's Witnesses
United Church of Christ
Churches of Christ
Judaism
Islam
Buddhism
Athiesm

Other

Atheism.


I am not a die-hard athiest - if you ask me what I believe, my answer is that I believe I don't have the answers. I do not know what the truth is, nor will I ever, at least not until I am dead, and then, of course, its too late.

But ...

That being said, as a student of history, its easy to see the parade of religions that have accompanied human development and to see that one by one they have all fallen by the wayside. Once, the most advanced cultures on the planet worshipped a variety of Sun gods, like Ra. Now, those religions are gone and modern folks would think people who worshipped the Egyptian gods, or the Norse gods, or the Greek gods, or the Roman gods foolish for doing so.

In a two thousand years, it is very likely that human socieities will think those that worshipped the christian god, or Allah, are equally foolish and will see Christianity in the same light as we now view the Roman religion and its ilk. Hell, its quite possible in 2,000 years that the folks of the future, if they have religion, will worship someone like David Koresh - an outcast and cultist and kook of our time, but then, so was Jesus in his. Or maybe they will worship L.Ron Hubbard, who, though odd, was successful at developing a personal cult and following. Or maybe they will all be Mormon - Joseph Smith may turn out to be the modern day Mohammed - both had a talk with an angel and then created successful spin-off religions. Who knows?

This tells me none of the religions is "right." The religions are creations of men, not god or gods. And they are deeply flawed and as deeply wonderful as men, but they hold no great truth.

Indeed, the underlying defining struggle of our age is not Communism vs Capitalism, or Christianity vs. Islam, but religion vs. science and thus, superstition vs. reason.

Science, of course, is not infallible either - it took more than two centuries, but some of Isaac Newton's theories were proven incorrect. In time, even science-deities like Einstein may have their theories proven incorrect. And science does not provide the "why" - only the how, when, and where. For all its faults, however, science has an edge on religion in that it is based upon provable facts, while religion is its anti-thesis, relying on "faith."

And I believe in Occam's Razor - all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one. Here, the existence of an all-powerful omniscient being who created this enormous universe but concerns himself (note the gender) with the shortlived, warlike mamals who live on the crust of one particular small ball of molten metal is, to me, patently absurd. I think a simpler answer is that the universe simply is - there is no reason, there is no grand plan (though time may be an illusion, so there is "fate" of a sort in that as time may just be a trick of our perception and all things have "already happened"), there is no great supreme being listening to our prayers and casting judgment on us.

There is just energy and matter (and maybe not even that - matter could be, I suppose, just coalesced energy) and it exists and we exist. And so ultimately there is just light (energy) and darkness (the absence of light) and we, we humans, are just a chemical process that is self-aware and able to perceive 3 dimensions of the universe fully, and a 4th (time?) to a lesser degree, though our awareness and perception only last for the time it takes our chemical processes to run.

Is that what I believe? Well, like I said, I don't have the answers, but I don't really believe in the deity theories either because on their face they just don't make sense and they smack so heavily of wishful thinking ("if I do what god wants, um, I will get to live in paradise forever!" yeah, sure, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you).

So, of all the above named "religions" I suppose I think atheism is the closest, if we take atheism to mean a lack of a personal deity interested in our lives as most religions maintain exists.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Atheism.

As much as I would like to believe in a life after death and a higher power watching over us, I can't force myself into believing in what I see as an emotional crutch.

Not on your list, but Agnosticism. 'yes there is a god, but I don't know, so I will go about and learn and form my own conclusions'

Well I'd say I'm a protestant (lutheran) tinted agnosticist. I really don't know, so it would be a bit narrow-minded to say I believe for sure that "god" doesn't exist (atheism). Just like it's narrow-minded to say science excludes the idea of "god" - after all, god could very well have choosen that the sky's blue because the light gets reflected by the molecules in our atmosphere in a certain way that appears blue to our eyes. I like to keep my options and mind open, and hey - the "rational proof of god" by Pascal is pretty funny in that respect (even though it can of course be applied to any topic).

Or god could be just the idea of a universal force of good - after all, if one helps someone because he believes his religion compells him to, one could very much say it was god's work - for without that notion of "god", whether true or not, perhaps that person wouldn't have done it. Of course, I prefer it if people could just agree on humanism for its obvious advantages, instead of because they're being threatened with hell . Religion also could be just a set of ideas for basic governance - don't eat the pork while the pig plague is strong, don't take my stuff and I don't murder you.

Now... Jesus definetely is an impressive inspirational figure, so maybe he's not divine, but him saying "come and burden me with your doubt" - i.e. it's quite okay to not fanatically believe in the "truth" of god, but to come to your own conclusions and questions that don't automatically damn you to purgatory. But that's german protestantism for you - we even have this thing that Jesus said it's wrong to pray in public and rub symbols of your faith into other people's noses. Imho, that is -very- close to reality... which was one of your initial questions, Rick.

Well, that's it in a nutshell anyway...

Alara wrote:so it would be a bit narrow-minded to say I believe for sure that "god" doesn't exist (atheism).

This is incorrect. Atheism is a lack of belief in any gods, usually because of the distinct lack of evidence for any of them, not a positive statement that there are no gods. Some atheists certainly do say what you're claiming all atheists say, but it is a small subset of the whole.

On a related note, I think you forgot to mention the "Cathedral of Hope", which is based in Dallas, I think?

Grand Fromage wrote:

Alara wrote:so it would be a bit narrow-minded to say I believe for sure that "god" doesn't exist (atheism).

This is incorrect. Atheism is a lack of belief in any gods, usually because of the distinct lack of evidence for any of them, not a positive statement that there are no gods. Some atheists certainly do say what you're claiming all atheists say, but it is a small subset of the whole.

Yeah, I didn't clear it up. Atheism by and large isn't narrow-minded, but saying you're sure there isn't a god sure is... d'uh.

There's just a lot of stuff we can never really be sure about... I guess it's pretty scary .

Agnostic. I am positive that no all-good, loving of humanity deity or dieties exist (though I can concieve of a universe created for a god's personal amusement) but since certain blank spots in knowledge exist (what exists outside of the universe boundaries, before time etc) I am hesitant in saying that nothing that could fit the basic outlines of a deity or pantheon of such exist. I am as uncomfortable with the notion that the universe just IS as I am uncomfortable with the notion that god just IS, so I go with the notion that I don't know.

Though just to be safe I have built a life sized statue of Rasputin in my basement and periodically I will sacrfice goats to it just to be on the safe side.

The list:

Roman Catholic
Baptist
Methodism
Episcopal Church
Lutheranism
Presbyterianism
Adventism
Evangelicalism
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Jehovah's Witnesses
United Church of Christ
Churches of Christ
Judaism
Islam
Buddhism
Athiesm

But really, we can more or less re-write the list to be ...

Christian
Judaism
Islam
Buddhism
Athiesm

Of course, that leaves out the Hindu, the Ba'hai (who have a big temple here in SF), the various animists, etc. as well as Wicca which, I believe, is the fastest growing religion in the U.S., and Yazdism (Kurdish Yazidi) and lots of others. Of course, we could leave in the break down of Christian sects, but then we need to include Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox and then we should include all the subsets of Judaism and Isalm, like the Sunni and the Shia. And so on.

Nyar:

Agnostic. I am positive that no all-good, loving of humanity deity or dieties exist (though I can concieve of a universe created for a god's personal amusement) but since certain blank spots in knowledge exist (what exists outside of the universe boundaries, before time etc) I am hesitant in saying that nothing that could fit the basic outlines of a deity or pantheon of such exist. I am as uncomfortable with the notion that the universe just IS as I am uncomfortable with the notion that god just IS, so I go with the notion that I don't know.

Huh. Maybe I am agnostic and just never knew it. I'll leave the goats to you though.

Christian, protestant, though not what I would call fanatical Christian. I thought Falwell was a nut, so I can't be that out there. I'm not afraid to question what the church tells me. The Bible is a set of guidelines written by men, not the hand of god, and it has been edited by the catholic church, they've admitted that. Thus, I focus more on the spiritual side and less on the doctrine side.

Alara wrote:

Grand Fromage wrote:

Alara wrote:so it would be a bit narrow-minded to say I believe for sure that "god" doesn't exist (atheism).

This is incorrect. Atheism is a lack of belief in any gods, usually because of the distinct lack of evidence for any of them, not a positive statement that there are no gods. Some atheists certainly do say what you're claiming all atheists say, but it is a small subset of the whole.

Yeah, I didn't clear it up. Atheism by and large isn't narrow-minded, but saying you're sure there isn't a god sure is... d'uh.

Yes, these people that are certain there is no Santa Claus are totally whacked. I mean, anything is possible.

For me, I am certain God doesn't exist because I know where the idea came from, and those ancient ancestors of ours were pretty good at making stuff up.

Mulu wrote:Yes, these people that are certain there is no Santa Claus are totally whacked. I mean, anything is possible.

Well, I'm not going to waste my keyboard trying to explain to a mental welfare queen that keeping your options open about the origins and "purpose" of everything that is may be a different dimension than to believe in little elves and Rudolph. One can after all be quite easily disproved - that is, if you are willing to accept as evident that other things than your own consciousness can be real .