your religion?????

[Rhonda66 0]

No religion here - not Atheist either, just no religion. My parents didn't raise me with one and I wan't baptized. Same for my husband.......
Rhonda

[axe96bam 0]

not religious - just a skydiver.
Alex

[Skyrose7 0]

I think this says it best

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i've been closer to "god" at 12k looking out on the country side and taking it all in than ever in a church.....

Actually, I am between religions... I was raised catholic, liked it. I still believe in GOd, but I think I have a different concept of him/her than most catholics, though. I DON"T believe there is one ultimate religion that, in the end, turns out to be correct--and the rest of us are screwed?? I don't think so. I am in the process of writing my own creed that mixes up religions and some every day stuff. The basis of it being appreciating the life I was given (and living it to the fullest) and doing my best to be good to others. I think that is a better plan than going to church every sunday when I would rather be in the sky or in bed.
The mind is like a parachute--it works better when it is open. JUMP.

[Zennie 0]

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The basis of it being appreciating the life I was given (and living it to the fullest) and doing my best to be good to others.

The more you study the various religions of the world, you find that when they are distilled down to their core essence, "kindness" is pretty much the universal message. The rest is just dogmatic adornment.
"Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

[Sebazz1 2]

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"kindness" is pretty much the universal message

And Respect!! Respect Respect Respect.....
SEBAZZ.......

[GrumpySmurf 0]

Heh, I guess one could say, "There's no such thing as an Athiest on Jump Run"

[Haeloth 0]

I am an agnostic. Either god exists and is hiding damn well (a easy task for an allmighy entity), or he doesn't. The question is of little or no importance to me.
What do you need a church for anyway?
Why do you need this huge bureaucracy to get in touch with the divine creator? And all those rules, why can't you just make your own, your speculations should be at least as valid as those defined by a third century committee?
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

[BikerBabe 0]

Um, SpeedRacer read my mind. That's pretty much what I believe, except he stated it so much better than I ever could.
I was raised Episcopalian, was an atheist for a long time, and became a Christian only a few years ago. I don't have a denomination I'm tied to, right now I currently attend a Methodist church. I'm in the military, and each time I move, I look for a church that fits, be it Methodist, Nazarene, Church of Christ, whatever.
It's funny, I was sitting in my masters-level electromagnetics class the other day, and we were talking about the wave equation. The wave equation can be used to describe things from a vibrating string, to radio waves, to air flow over a canopy. They are all connected based on similar behavior. Anyway, as I was listening to the lecture, I couldn't help but see the power of the wave equation and think, "now, if that isn't evidence of God, then I don't know what is." I look at science as a means to discover God.
(yes, I'm a nerd, but you can't spell "geek" without EE)

[AggieDave 6]

I was raised in the Assembly of God churches, nice church, I just got tired of a lot of the BS from people who went to those churches.
As for right now, I guess I would say I'm a Christian, but I have my own beliefs that I base on my own convictions through a lot of personal study I did with the Bible a while back.
Churches don't appeal to me simply because of the people, I don't want to deal with them and their attitudes. That entire Uber-Christian mentality gets them no where. Anyways, I'd rather be at the DZ on Sunday. "Homer Simpson, smiling politely."

[jfields 0]

Bill,
I can see your perspective. You did a great job of articulating your beliefs.
I believe in things I can't see, but for me, personally, there must be some logical chain that links the invisible to the tangible. I believe in helium, because I can fill a balloon with it and watch it float (or make myself talk funny), not because I can see it. I believe in subatomic particles, because there are ways to show their existence, however difficult. Almost all of human knowledge is extrapolation of our experience. What is beyond the logical extension of what is known to be real is where I see religion.
What I don't personally understand is the need to "fill in the blanks" with god, or religion. I'll be the first person to admit there are lots of things I don't know. Some of them, nobody knows. I am intellectually okay with a void in our knowledge. I do not see a need to attribute the rest to something supreme. Merely accepting that my knowledge is finite is sufficient.
Perhaps my "infinite question mark" is some people's god. I don't know. Maybe I am just anthropocentric, but I don't see a reason to ascribe superhuman motives, thoughts, biases and actions to the unknown. It is just that, unknown. I agree with you that we will never know everything. "Progress" will just continue pushing the uknown further and further from everyday life.
As an example, if someone were to ask me, "Justin, why would any woman ever date Clay or Skreamer" I wouldn't reply with "Only God knows." I'd say, "I have no idea. There is no rational explanation for it." I agree that religion has done a lot to inspire art and culture, but it is tempered by the negative effects of the fanatacism it creates. If we could have the art, languages and history of religion without the war, hatred and suffering, perhaps I'd be more tolerant of religion. As I said to someone in a PM, I have issues with religion, but not with religious people, unless I become the target of their prostelytizing, insults or violence.
Each person sees things in their own way, according to their own beliefs. As long as they don't infringe on my rights, I really don't much care what they are.
Justin

[Sebazz1 2]

Of all the folks in here that said athiest.......Do you see any dark clouds forming outside your window?? Just wanted to know before I spoke my mind.
Actually I do believe my dead relatives can see me when I touch myself so I guess I do believe in life after death......
SEBAZZ.......

[SkySurfSnow 0]

My Kharma just ran over your Dogma

[Skyrose7 0]

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"kindness" is pretty much the universal message

I know, I guess I didn't say that right. What I meant is being true about it. YOu are right, most religions have that as their message, but I get so sick of seeing people being fake about it. It is like they are doing it because they have to, not because they want to. Or, some will go back to their cliches and talk about people who aren't as "kind" as they are. I am not trying to sound bitter toward them, but I guess there was just a lot of fake people that were trying to buy their way into heaven--and frankly, my family didn't have enough money. Not the church I want to be in.
The mind is like a parachute--it works better when it is open. JUMP.

[jfields 0]

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Of all the folks in here that said athiest.......Do you see any dark clouds forming outside your window?? Just wanted to know before I spoke my mind.

Clear and sunny so far.
I had a really fun conversation with an (airborne) Army chaplain one time at Ft. Bragg when we were sitting around doing the inevitable Army "hurry-up and wait". We were discussing the existence of God. It was very polite and pleasant. It ended up with him stating, "Well, you're only the second paratrooper I've ever met that didn't pray to something before they jumped."
Justin

[dove 0]

My dad is Jewish and my mother was raised Presbyterian. They brought us up with an open mind and freedom to choose. My oldest brother is Jewish, sister is Methodist, other brother is Catholic and I have my own little relationship to God. I think of myself as very spiritual and have a strong belief, but don't feel the need to partake in any organized religion.
dove

[Iflyme 0]

I'm an atheist. I do not believe this universe was created by a being. However, I agree with Bill when he said the greatest mistake is to deny others their beliefs by claiming our way is the one and only. We really don't know. I do believe that we are not alone in this universe, and that perhaps there is, or has been in the past, other intelligence out there. But this does not imply the existance of a "divine creator". Compared to simple single-celled organisms, we ourselves must seem "god-like". Perhaps there is a species whose intelligence dwarfs ours, making us appear to them as the single-celled organisms appear to us... who knows??? But a "God" in the religious sense? Nah...
"There's nothing new under the sun"

[QuickDraw 0]

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not religious - just a skydiver.

Amen.
..Billions of people living out their lives..Oblivious..

[Zennie 0]

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I'm an atheist.

I'm gonna be a pain-in-the-ass agnostic and just note that it's impossible to prove the non-existence of a deity (come to think of it, I don't think you can prove a negative, period). Of course, no one has proved the existence of one to me either, but you must have "faith" in the deity's nonexistence to be a true atheist.
If that's the case, no prob, I have an atheist friend who say's just that "I can't prove that God doesn't exist, but I have faith that He/She doesn't exist". It's just a matter of semantics to me.
I'm neither a Theist nor an Atheist. I just dunno.
"Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

[billvon 3,072]

>I do believe that we are not alone in this universe, and that perhaps there is, or
>has been in the past, other intelligence out there. But this does not imply the
> existance of a "divine creator".
I don't think you need to postulate a divine creator to postulate a god. I think it's possible to believe in a god that did not create everything, even may be a byproduct of the way the universe _was_ created - god as the Planck constant, god as the gravitational constant. If either one of those constants were off just a little bit, stars would never have formed - even matter could not exist as we understand it. Why are those seeminly arbitrary constants fine-tuned so we can exist? Isn't a system of unchangeable, all-powerful, universal physical laws that exist for no good reason, that created the universe as we know it, and that allow life to begin, pretty close to some definitions of god?
>But a "God" in the religious sense? Nah...
There are lots of religions. Personally, I think the buddhist view of god is closest to mine. John Noss, in trying to define how buddhists see god, came up with this explanation, which I like a lot:
"There is no sovereign Person in the heavens holding all together in unity, there is only the ultimate impersonal unity of being itself, whose peace enfolds the individual self when it ceases to call itself 'I' and dissolves in featureless purity . . . as a drop of spray is merged in its mother sea."
(I should note that there are totally non-theistic sects of buddhism as well as some slightly theistic versions, and I lean towards the more theistic versions.)
-bill von

[ChromeBoy 0]

Thanks Bill. Getting the dictionary and Thesaurus out to understand that.

[favaks 0]

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whose peace enfolds the individual self when it ceases to call itself 'I'

It is the concept of "I" that makes the world go around.

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(I should note that there are totally non-theistic sects of buddhism as well as some slightly theistic versions, and I lean towards the more theistic versions.)

I lean toward the more non-theistic sects.
I like the quote a alot! favaks

[billvon 3,072]

>I believe in things I can't see, but for me, personally, there must be some logical
> chain that links the invisible to the tangible. I believe in helium, because I can fill
> a balloon with it and watch it float (or make myself talk funny), not because I can
> see it. I believe in subatomic particles, because there are ways to show their
> existence, however difficult. Almost all of human knowledge is extrapolation of
> our experience. What is beyond the logical extension of what is known to be
> real is where I see religion.
Well, that would make much of particle physics religion, since there are a great many things we're still guessing at. It's all a question of what to have faith in - the imagination of a scientist, or the teachings of a prophet. I tend to lean towards the scientist, myself, but there's often things to be learned on both sides.
I sort of liken this division - science vs religion - to the equally deep division between eastern medicine and western medicine. I used to not believe in all that stuff. But after I went out with a shiatsu instructor for two years, and she did some amazing things with very non-western medicine (fixed my torn ACL, for one) I started to believe. Her methods made no sense objectively - she worked on my back and left knee to fix my right knee, because that's where my qi was. She could put me to sleep in about five minutes by working on my back, and make muscle groups suddenly weak through massage.
I've talked to a great many western doctors who poo-poo all that, who don't believe that acupuncture could possibly work for anaesthesia, for example. I liken western and eastern doctors to the blind men in the room with the elephant, each seeing only the part they can touch. "The elephant is like a snake!" says the man touching the trunk; "the elephant is like a sheet!" says the man touching his ear. Like eastern and western doctors, each man is right. Like those doctors, their failure is not in that they are wrong, it's that they don't see the whole picture.
I think the division between science and religion is similar. I have no doubt that the universe will turn out to be stranger than we comprehend, and that it will consistently refuse to conform to our expectations. At the same time, we will discover that we _are_ part of the universe, that even our observations of it affect the path we take in the future. To choose a good path we're going to need both the scientist and the prophet.
-bill von

[billvon 3,072]

And another thing!
>Compared to simple single-celled organisms, we ourselves must seem "god-like".
This reminded me of a friend's story. It sorta demonstrates the division between religion and science (and, in some cases, reason) in some people's minds.
She was hiking into K2, and was above the village of Skardu. There she saw a man cleaning goat's intestines in one of the little streams that fed into the village.
"Uh, maybe you shouldn't do that," she said to the old Pakistani man.
"Why not?"
"Well, that makes the water dirty, and people have to drink that water." The man looked at her like she was crazy - the water was gray with glacial silt.
She tried again. "Microbes. There are microbes in the goat's intestines that can make people sick."
The man thought about that for a minute. "Microbes? That's science, right?"
"Right!" Heidi said, happy that he finally understood.
"Science your religion, not mine," he said, and went back to cleaning the goat's guts in the river.
A year later, she was on a bus trying to get through a roadblock. There was a lot of anti-American sentiment (this was just before Bin Laden put a $10,000 bounty on any American's life) and the soldiers at the roadblock were screaming at their military liason officer, and violence looked like it was about to ensue. She decided to go out and talk to them.
"I wouldn't, Heidi," one of the other members said. "Even if they know you're a woman, they might still hurt you. You look pretty American."
She thought about it, grabbed a pillow, and stuck it under her robes (a shalwar kameez, the traditional woman's garment in Pakistan.) "They won't hit a pregnant woman!" she said and marched out.
Outside, everyone paused at the sight of this tiny pregnant woman who came out of the bus and started negotiating for passage. It actually seemed to worked - everyone seemed momentarily stunned. She got back on the bus. One of the soldiers asked a question. Their liason officer got back on the bus with a worried look on his face.
"They don't believe you," he said.
"What don't they believe?" she asked.
"They don't believe a pregnant woman is the team leader. They don't believe you're really going to try to climb K2 while you're pregnant."
"Oh." She thought for a second. "Tell them it's my religion."
-bill von

[Iflyme 0]

Well, Bill -- I think we've discovered your weakness -- or strenght! I for one appreciate your willingness to express yourself so eloquently in this forum!

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even matter could not exist as we understand it.

I would say that "we" (perhaps better put - "our top minds") don't have a great understanding of matter ... the universe contains more matter than that which is baryonic ... we have such little knowledge of what the universe contains...

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I don't think you need to postulate a divine creator to postulate a god. I think it's possible to believe in a god that did not create everything,

Well as I am an atheist, I don't believe... but my limited understanding of the concept of "god" is that "god" did create everything ... if you believe in a "god" that did not create the universe -- well now the concept of "god" (as I know it) becomes rather nebulous... how do you define the difference between "god" the creator, and a lifeform more intellegent than humans? As we can manipulate the laws of nature, or the physics of our part of the universe, for our own comfort -- do we not qualify as "god"?
"There's nothing new under the sun"

[billvon 3,072]

>I would say that "we" (perhaps better put - "our top minds") don't have a great
>understanding of matter ... the universe contains more matter than that which is
> baryonic ... we have such little knowledge of what the universe contains...
Well, right. But if the ratios between the forces were different, or the Planck Constant were off a little, we couldn't have people or planets, and that would be a bummer. I agree we might still have dark matter, and vacuum energy, or whatever the missing mass du jour is, but we wouldn't have life as we know it. True, we might have a completely different kind of life, but we wouldn't be around to see it.
> but my limited understanding of the concept of "god" is that "god" did create
> everything ... if you believe in a "god" that did not create the universe -- well now
> the concept of "god" (as I know it) becomes rather nebulous...
Plenty of religions had god sort of relegated to a bit player, not the grand creator. Norse, Greek, Egyptian and Roman religions all had this really complicated set of gods and goddesses who, from their mythology, often seemed as befuddled as men when it came to how the universe was created. Norse mythology holds that since time began there was a world of fire and ice - the gods just made it more interesting, created man and such. Egyptian religion has a similar belief, that the world was around forever, but for a long time it was all water. Finally it began to recede, and land appeared. Then Geb, the "Great Cackler", laid an egg (he was a goose) and it became the sun. (I'm not making this up.)
So there are plenty of gods around of all forms, from the Christian old white guy who created everything, sees all and can do anything (but generally chooses to not do too much) to Dionysus, a bit player who is just in charge of vegetation and wines, to the Buddhist god, which is less a sovereign corporeal god and more a result of a belief in his existence, to a goose that lays a sun. Take your pick.
-bill von