Other Why do you believe what you believe?

Zombocalypse said:

It sounds cool.

The only problem I have with it is the idea of worshiping yourself. That seems a little arrogant to me. lol

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A lot of people who are satanists are ex-christians, and I think putting your needs first, taking responsibility for your actions whether they were bad or good, and acknowledging your ability to shape your life into what you want it to be is healthy and important. Compared to many religions which teach you to put others first even if it means not getting your needs met, or contributing all your good, hard work and accomplishments to god, and all your evil deeds to the devil's influence. Nothing's ever going to get done if you just pray about it instead of actually going out and doing it. You also don't take shit from anyone and stand up for yourself vs turning the other cheek.


There's also a difference between putting your wants over other's needs and putting your needs over other's wants. One is selfish and the other is having self-respect. Many people are taught that being a good person means putting other's wants over your own needs, which is psychologically unhealthy.

Being your own god and taking responsibility means owning up to your actions when you do bad and taking measures to better yourself. It's not just "I'm awesome and I can do whatever the fuck I want because fuck you."

I also find it interesting you've made a lot of threads about this topic but state you haven't done any thinking about religion or why you believe yours. Especially since you've been posting things like "why not just be a christian?" or otherwise suggesting your belief system to others and general evangelizing, telling people to google pascal's wager and etc.

If you haven't put much thought into why you believe or really considered your religion as a whole, and are simply just following it because you feel good about it (which is not wrong in itself) I don't think you should be advocating it to other people.

I wouldn't advocate my beliefs to other people without seriously thinking about them first, and seriously thinking about whether I think I should be convincing other people to follow them. I find it to just be in bad taste, personally. I don't tell people to join my religion currently, because I haven't gotten a chance to read it's main texts.

This isn't an attack on you, but I am really curious why you'd recommend a religion you haven't thought about to other people.

Not just you either, or even Christianity specifically, but I really think everyone should seriously think about their convictions every so often. Zombocalypse

I believe in what I believe in because it feels right, like it's a sense of assurance or like that sensation when you find out something you knew all along and confirmed it. It is akin to a pull inside like after you find out that a loved one is alright after an accident. Maybe it's that elusive faith that Christians speak of and I am feeling its effects. Not sure.

Also from a similar subject and another thread I have renounced my gnostic views. I'm simply a deist, nothing more. It is purely a gut feeling that there is a God, the creator of all things but may or may not have direct interest into our human affairs. I'm hesitant to sound like I'm siding with religion because there is a lot of things that transpire that mere science cannot explain and that we are spiritual beings still finding our place in this current existence.

I feel our existence is one big experiment or maybe we're just put here because God is bored. Who knows, right?

sathanas
Honestly, well spoken throughout all of your posts on this thread. I expected to read through this seeing a flame war; however, seeing well-constructed, civil conversation upon a religious topic was a certainly refreshing sight. Enough so I've decided to drop in my own personal beliefs/experiences.

Religion and I certainly never started off on quite the right track. I was forced into going to a Christian church for roughly the first twelve-fifteen years of my life (I forget at what point exactly I finally stood up for myself and made my disdain clear to my family) yet I would never say I believed at any point. Even as a younger child I would always look around at the congregation as if I was missing something. People were so immensely convinced in their conviction that their deity, their God, was the right one while every other human being throughout all of history that believed differently was wrong. I could never see the logic in it. Although, that's the entire point I suppose. It's all suppose to be faith, which I have immense issues with on several levels worth of detail that I won't get into. Moreover, growing up in an immensely religious small Southern town allowed me to experience first hand how often people use their religion as a means to defend or even justify their own frothing bigotry or hatred against those different from them.

Upbringing bias aside, I imagine even if I hadn't been forced into religion as a child and instead had been able to look into it at my own desire, then I would still consider myself Atheist. Simply speaking, I value more scientific reasoning, or that of what we can see/experience/explain, than any spiritual or faith based reasoning. I'm willing to give more credit to scientific Theories that attempt to explain the formation of the Universe (theories of course being used in the scientific form to describe a well-substantiated explanation) than any ancient religious scripture written by fallible humans that has been translated and possibly even changed throughout the course of its existence. Moreover, the very concepts of the scientific process allow for new evidence or discovered miscalculations to change our very understanding of any scientific law or theory. Religion certainly doesn't have that flexibility.

I'd also consider myself a moral nihilist. The reasoning behind it likely ties into my lack of religious belief and more scientific/logic driven mind. I'd go into more detail, but I feel as if I've already gone into more than enough detail for probably a one-off post on a random religious thread. Regardless, believe whatever you like. The only time a problem arises in my mind is when one individual's beliefs infringe upon another's as to harm or detriment them.

sathanas said:

I also find it interesting you've made a lot of threads about this topic but state you haven't done any thinking about religion or why you believe yours. Especially since you've been posting things like "why not just be a christian?" or otherwise suggesting your belief system to others and general evangelizing, telling people to google pascal's wager and etc.

If you haven't put much thought into why you believe or really considered your religion as a whole, and are simply just following it because you feel good about it (which is not wrong in itself) I don't think you should be advocating it to other people.

I wouldn't advocate my beliefs to other people without seriously thinking about them first, and seriously thinking about whether I think I should be convincing other people to follow them. I find it to just be in bad taste, personally. I don't tell people to join my religion currently, because I haven't gotten a chance to read it's main texts.

This isn't an attack on you, but I am really curious why you'd recommend a religion you haven't thought about to other people.

Not just you either, or even Christianity specifically, but I really think everyone should seriously think about their convictions every so often. Zombocalypse

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I'm gonna be honest with you, Sathanas...

I have no good intentions on matters of converting others into Christianity. I'm too selfish for that shit.

The reason why I tend to try to convert others to Christianity is because I'm bored and crave for a good challenge.

Back in the days, I used to play strategy games like the Total War series and Civilization 5. I also used to play MMORPGs like Lord of the Rings Online and the original FF14. When I played MMOs, I took on the challenge of running guilds. I was very Machiavellian with the way I did things. It was intoxicating. It was "my own brand of heroin", as Edward from the Twilight saga once said. I lived and breathed the games that I played. When I stopped playing them, I had to find another way to entertain myself.

Initially, I intended to try to convert everyone who posted in this thread into Christianity. But I paused for a moment, and realized that it's not really worth the effort because I'm far too busy with real life stuff and I risk a flame war...

So there's that. I certainly wish you wouldn't think less of me, now knowing my true intentions. I simply thought, "Well, I need to entertain myself. But it has to at least be a worthier hobby than just playing Skyrim and Dark Souls."

Recently, I prayed. I asked God to reveal to me what my purpose in life is. He answered me through a dream. And now I'm busy fulfilling that purpose. There's a lot to be done. I have a lot of training and researching to do. I can't waste my time doing trivial things like converting people to Christianity over the internet, or whatever.

However, I always have time for a good discussion. I genuinely enjoy philosophizing and arguing. I guess you could say it's an aptitude of mine, especially considering how I once dreamed of becoming a lawyer.

Well, that's certainly more curious that you'd consider yourself both Machiavellian and Christian. The Christians I know would argue that you're "not a real christian" or that it's incompatible. Personally I'd disagree, as long as the religion is based on more than just a philosophy.

I do think it's good you're finding a better use of your time because, regardless of your intentions or reasoning behind it, I do still find evangelizing in bad taste and think people should be allowed to come to their own conclusions about their beliefs. It feels especially dishonest that you'd try to convert people for fun and not because you think it would genuinely help or benefit them, and it makes any argument or claim you make hold less meaning. Basically, I can't take it seriously anymore, and I wouldn't be surprised if no one else who reads this does either.

I'm not the type of person to think all and any type of manipulation is evil or wrong, but religion is personal to many people and like I've stated before, certain aspects of Christianity can be toxic.

Also not trying to be offensive but before you go telling anyone you know personally about your hobby, it does come off as kind of 2edgy4me.

sathanas said:

Well, that's certainly more curious that you'd consider yourself both Machiavellian and Christian. The Christians I know would argue that you're "not a real christian" or that it's incompatible. Personally I'd disagree, as long as the religion is based on more than just a philosophy.

I do think it's good you're finding a better use of your time because, regardless of your intentions or reasoning behind it, I do still find evangelizing in bad taste and think people should be allowed to come to their own conclusions about their beliefs. It feels especially dishonest that you'd try to convert people for fun and not because you think it would genuinely help or benefit them, and it makes any argument or claim you make hold less meaning. Basically, I can't take it seriously anymore, and I wouldn't be surprised if no one else who reads this does either.

I'm not the type of person to think all and any type of manipulation is evil or wrong, but religion is personal to many people and like I've stated before, certain aspects of Christianity can be toxic.

Also not trying to be offensive but before you go telling anyone you know personally about your hobby, it does come off as kind of 2edgy4me.

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What exactly is toxic about Christianity?

I have yet to find an aspect of Christianity that is toxic. But if we are to discuss this, please try to exclude things like the inquisition or shit like that. That's not real Christianity.

Being a Christian is relatively simple. I'm not saying it's easy, but it very very simple. The two cardinal commandments of Jesus is to love God and love others. And His sermon on the mount is incredibly straightforward. He doesn't play around with words. The message is clear.

sathanas said:

I'm not the type of person to think all and any type of manipulation is evil or wrong, but religion is personal to many people and like I've stated before, certain aspects of Christianity can be toxic.

Also not trying to be offensive but before you go telling anyone you know personally about your hobby, it does come off as kind of 2edgy4me.

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The religion itself may not inherently be toxic but it is the idiot humans who claim to be Christians who will do and say things in the name of Christianity can make it seem toxic. Like the so-called Christians from the Westboro Baptist Church is a prime example and they set them up as atheists' go-to political punching bag.

Religion is personal but ALL of them have a tendency to go beyond personal to a means to an end of a more political persuasion. Just like atheism.

I am an agnostic. I honestly believe there isn't really any proof to support there being a omnipresent entity. But at the same time, there really isn't too much to disprove the presence of such a being. It kind of always catched me in a certain loop, somethings gotta creat something, doesn't it? Then what created the thing at the beginning? Maybe it's just me, but I can't seem to comprehend it. Just hard to get my head around. So, I'll just stick to trying to be a well-meaning person and maybe some day, an answer will come to me.

Syress said:

I am an agnostic. I honestly believe there isn't really any proof to support there being a omnipresent entity. But at the same time, there really isn't too much to disprove the presence of such a being. It kind of always catched me in a certain loop, somethings gotta creat something, doesn't it? Then what created the thing at the beginning? Maybe it's just me, but I can't seem to comprehend it. Just hard to get my head around. So, I'll just stick to trying to be a well-meaning person and maybe some day, an answer will come to me.

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One thing I can say about agnostics they keep an open mind about it and I find this trait very refreshing.

I am agnostic.

I used to be a hardcore atheist in my younger years, but I was just following blindly then. It was not until I started questioning who God was and why they did what they did to people and the world.

I have to say, I started out as one of those fedora tipping asshole atheists when I first turned away from Christianity, but no worries for this thread! I grew out of that shit.

Anyways, I personally can find good and bad things about all religions. Honestly Leviticus was the final push to make me no longer want to be Christian, even though Mosaic law is no longer what the religion strictly follows.

Now, I don't mind religious people at all. I think most are good people. Like all large groups there are those over the top psychos (and I do not count things like Scientology as religions because they are not religions, they are cults).

Theist or Atheist I recommend everyone study multiple religious texts purely because they are interesting and insightful, whether you believe in the religion or not.

I believe in science.

No, I'm talking modern times, but I also find the argument to be "that's not real Christianity" to be lacking perspective. There's many different denominations of Christianity and many Christians have told me "they're not real Christians" about other Christians. Whether or not someone is a Christian doesn't boil down to them sharing the exact same morals, experience, and understanding of the religion as you do.

You can try to boil down the basics of Christianity down to "god loves you and wants you to love others" but there's specific teachings that are shared across denominations that I'd consider unhealthy, and are in the bible.

First is that you are a guilty, worthless sinner who's technically unworthy of God's love by their own right and deserving only of hell. Worthlessness is literally part of the dogma. Being taught this can lead, unsurprisingly, to a bad self-image or low self-esteem. How many times have you seen Christians talk about how undeserving they are of anything good that comes their way? It's good to be thankful, learned self-depreciating not so much. Other people have guilt complexes and anxiety over sinning, trying to be perfect and constantly asking for forgiveness.

Jesus died to save you, but save you from what? The threat of eternal hellfire seems to be a constant in the reasons why people who would otherwise leave the religion stay. Many people have serious anxiety and intrusive thoughts about going to hell, even after they willingly leave Christianity.

I mentioned earlier, but many people are taught to put other's wants over their own needs in order to be more humble and jesus-like. There are Christians I grew up with/around (as I was raised one myself) who are basically doormats now because they've only been taught to consider what everyone else wants, and they literally can't speak their mind even if it's the smallest thing like "I actually don't really want to go to that restaurant". Instead you have to go off of their body language and other clues. They genuinely think saying so would be selfish.

There's also the issue of the people in the religion itself. Heavy judgment from peers at church, bigotry excused with the bible, etc. Children are actively taught things that harm their critical thinking skills (e.g, everyone who disagrees is just being used by satan to attempt to influence you to sin, atheists are evil, basically how to never question your religion and dismiss anything that contradicts your pre-existing worldview, etc)

And the Westboro Baptist church are still Christians, even if you disagree with them. Fundamentalists and people who think dinosaurs weren't real and pokemon is witchcraft are still Christians, even if you don't agree with them.

This is only touching the surface, but if you're interested in how Christianity can harm in modern times, a fair amount of people who have left fundamentalist Christianity (which is the most common type you'll encounter if you ever actually go to church) have been harmed, leading to study of something called religious trauma syndrome which you can google if you'd like. The ex-christian subreddit is also a nice place to go to get some perspective and aside from some jokes you can read about a lot of people's specific issues with their past beliefs and their interactions with people who still believe.

I don't dislike Christians as a group, the religion as a whole, or any religion really. But I think you should at least be able to acknowledge the bad parts of your own religion and its followers. I mean hell, most of the satanists I've met are massive assholes, and I can certainly see which parts of the teachings could possibly lead to that, and I can understand why a lot of people simply wouldn't be a good match for it.

sathanas

That's a long post. I'll answer it bit by bit.



No, I'm talking modern times, but I also find the argument to be "that's not real Christianity" to be lacking perspective. There's many different denominations of Christianity and many Christians have told me "they're not real Christians" about other Christians. Whether or not someone is a Christian doesn't boil down to them sharing the exact same morals, experience, and understanding of the religion as you do.

Christianity and the churches are an incredibly complex thing. God had never come down to us and told us "Hey boys and girls, Catholicism is the true church." Or Protestantism. Or Jehovah's Witnessism. Or Mormonism. Or whatever. This makes it hard to classify people as true Christians from the surface. Outwardly, they may show signs of being Christians, but they could be spiritually dead.

Christianity is not just a religion. It is a relationship with God. Few people, myself included, understand this in a very deep way. We have a relationship with God, and we can clearly see God's role in our day-to-day lives. THAT is true Christianity. It's about your body being the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is God's essence. Jesus warned us not to pray loudly and boast about our faith. He told us pray to God in silence. This implies that God is ever-present and that God is personal and is active in our lives. THAT is true Christianity. It's not about church attendance or donating to charities. It is a lifelong pursuit of Him that made us in His image.

I would argue that unless you have a personal relationship with God, you are not a true Christian.

So yes. There is such a thing as fake Christians. It's just that they're hard to spot.



You can try to boil down the basics of Christianity down to "god loves you and wants you to love others" but there's specific teachings that are shared across denominations that I'd consider unhealthy, and are in the bible.

Such as?



First is that you are a guilty, worthless sinner who's technically unworthy of God's love by their own right and deserving only of hell. Worthlessness is literally part of the dogma. Being taught this can lead, unsurprisingly, to a bad self-image or low self-esteem. How many times have you seen Christians talk about how undeserving they are of anything good that comes their way? It's good to be thankful, learned self-depreciating not so much. Other people have guilt complexes and anxiety over sinning, trying to be perfect and constantly asking for forgiveness.

If a person has a guilt complex, it means that he or she has a disorder. This is regardless of his or her religious beliefs.

A healthy-minded individual would not suffer from a bad self-image or low self-esteem if he or she believes himself or herself to be, as Jesus called it, "poor in spirit", as opposed to what you labeled as "worthless". Instead, he would be humbled, which is a very healthy thing.



Jesus died to save you, but save you from what? The threat of eternal hellfire seems to be a constant in the reasons why people who would otherwise leave the religion stay. Many people have serious anxiety and intrusive thoughts about going to hell, even after they willingly leave Christianity.

The doctrine of hell is a messy affair. On one hand, you have people saying that there is no such thing as a literal hell where people get tortured for eternity. On the other, you have people who are sure of their convictions that the unsaved would be in a lake of fire and sulfur for all eternity.

I don't have a stance on this issue yet. I haven't done sufficient research for it. Therefore, I have no comment on that one. But I will say one thing... The threat of hell is a necessary evil. It is a means to an end. If it keeps people from abandoning Christ, then so be it.



I mentioned earlier, but many people are taught to put other's wants over their own needs in order to be more humble and jesus-like. There are Christians I grew up with/around (as I was raised one myself) who are basically doormats now because they've only been taught to consider what everyone else wants, and they literally can't speak their mind even if it's the smallest thing like "I actually don't really want to go to that restaurant". Instead you have to go off of their body language and other clues. They genuinely think saying so would be selfish.

I see your point, but I also want you to see mine as well. Most of the Christians I know were very confident and very assertive. They don't take shit from anyone and can even be violent if they have to. I used to have this best friend who was a hardcore Christian involve me in a fist fight against four men. Two against four. We won. The point is, he was a violent man AND a Christian all the same.



There's also the issue of the people in the religion itself. Heavy judgment from peers at church, bigotry excused with the bible, etc. Children are actively taught things that harm their critical thinking skills (e.g, everyone who disagrees is just being used by satan to attempt to influence you to sin, atheists are evil, basically how to never question your religion and dismiss anything that contradicts your pre-existing worldview, etc)

Certain restrictions need to be applied in order for a person not to get caught up in the tangles of a sinful life. For children, it is hard for them to grasp abstract concepts such as piety, love, and righteousness. Therefore, we have to simplify things for them.

A good example of this is my former English teacher back in elementary school. She flat out told us that if we sin enough, we'll die of a heart attack. We believed her, and were kept from being full-blown sinners. Of course, we now all think she was silly, but at that time, it was a useful lie. I'm grateful she did that.



And the Westboro Baptist church are still Christians, even if you disagree with them. Fundamentalists and people who think dinosaurs weren't real and pokemon is witchcraft are still Christians, even if you don't agree with them.

Like I said, true Christianity is more a relationship with God than a religion.



This is only touching the surface, but if you're interested in how Christianity can harm in modern times, a fair amount of people who have left fundamentalist Christianity (which is the most common type you'll encounter if you ever actually go to church) have been harmed, leading to study of something called religious trauma syndrome which you can google if you'd like. The ex-christian subreddit is also a nice place to go to get some perspective and aside from some jokes you can read about a lot of people's specific issues with their past beliefs and their interactions with people who still believe.

I'll look into those. Thanks.



I don't dislike Christians as a group, the religion as a whole, or any religion really. But I think you should at least be able to acknowledge the bad parts of your own religion and its followers. I mean hell, most of the satanists I've met are massive assholes, and I can certainly see which parts of the teachings could possibly lead to that, and I can understand why a lot of people simply wouldn't be a good match for it.

Good point.

From my experience, most people do think they have a personal relationship with god? The whole "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship with god" is something I told people when I was younger. I've heard it from fundamentalists and people who think pokemon is witchcraft as well.

And your argument is assuming god is real and therefore can have a personal relationship with people. I don't believe in god anymore, so I really can't agree with that. "Spiritually alive" and "spiritually dead" are useless terms to me. Even if he is real, many different kinds of people still claim to be the only real Christians and to have their own bonafide Christ-relationship.

"Such as?"

Well, I proceeded to give you examples.

You can't deny that being taught you're worthless and guilty of sin doesn't have anything to do with then believing your worthlessness, or having problems with it.

I'd say hellfire isn't necessary. Shouldn't people be able to love their god without having that fear constantly in the back of their mind? If this was a human telling another person to love them or suffer torture, it would be emotional abuse. I'm glad you said a necessary evil, because you can at least recognize it's not a good or positive thing. If the only thing keeping you in a religion is fear, there's something wrong there. And then what about the personal relationship with god? If people who are in it out of fear are only in it because of fear, then they probably don't have a personal relationship with god anyways.

Some Christians are able to have a balance between humbleness and standing up for themselves. I can recognize that. I also see the types of people I've described. Most of my friends were girls, so maybe it has to do with the differences in expectations put on Christian girls vs Christian men. I wouldn't deny that what I described never happens and that Christianity doesn't have anything to do with it, or at least exasperating it.

Frankly, children are not stupid. Maybe you wouldn't be able to explain things the same way as you could to adults, but many christian children are never taught critical thinking skills, and they never get to learn them as adults. If teaching them these skills would end up in none of them staying christians, well....
Encouraging them to think for themselves and about their beliefs critically is a positive thing. You can be critical of any religion and still be a member, and you'll probably have an even better understanding of your religion than people who never question anything they're told.

Children develop empathy and a sense of justice pretty quickly. They can understand what's right and what's wrong, and having to use fear to teach them is not good. I'd say that your teacher was in the wrong and should not have said that, instead explaining at least why god dislikes sin, how your actions can hurt other people. Something along the lines of "you feel bad and it hurts when you get punched. Sally feels that way too when you punch her" or "God doesn't like it when we hurt other people" works just as fine. Of course, being told you'd have a heart attack isn't as big a deal as say being hit as punishment for lying, but I think most people would agree using fear to control children is sketchy at best.

sathanas

I have yet to read the entirety of your post. I'll look for a time to read it all and maybe respond. But thanks for being here.

I'm an Atheist because as I got older, I found that there was too much evidence to dictate that there was a god. I read the bible, it just didn't make sense. I attended church, left me with more questions than answers. I just can't follow the blind faith thing, the whole "I feel it" sensation. Those were things that I just couldn't get my brain around. Then there''s the philosophy one life, if you don't follow his laws, you're condemned to eternal damnation. From believing in something else, to just mixing fabrics. And it doesn't matter if you're a fundamentalist, or just a "Only on holidays" church goer, you believe that if you're not 'insert religion here', you're going to hell. If you do not believe this, then you're throwing a good bit of your belief away. Here's another thing that's upsetting, when religious people say they are tolerant, "Oh, it's okay, I respect your beliefs and you're a good person, but you're still going to be tortured forever.", that makes your whole "I'm tolerant" claim null and void. As for the evidence part, I was always curious about space, not science in general. I wanted to know why we couldn't go faster than the speed if light. I thought, "Man, that makes meeting aliens that much harder" and was bummed out. I got my first computer and did some research on my own and found out. Didn't solve the fact that I was mad, but I had answers. My grandfather is a devout christian, and when I was helping him with some yard work, I asked him, "Why can't god let us go faster than the speed of light.", he said, "Why don't you ask him when you meet him." and he said it in a more of "I don't know" tone. Before that moment, I though the bible was law and nothing was above it. Then that was the first time I doubted my beliefs. I was a christian up until seventh grade, then a skeptical christian in eighth, agnostic in ninth, and became an atheist in tenth and that's where I stand.

I respect that everyone has their own beliefs, and don't judge by religion. I judge a person for who they are and what they've done. I, also, feel like most younger people are the same, and even lots of parents, these days. I am an Agnostic-theist, and have probably been so my whole life. As a child I went to a Protestant Church, and saw it sort of like school. A place to learn about new things, and then ponder over them as I saw fit. I never just listened to my grandmother about God being one hundred percent real, because I wa an observant child and realized quickly that was just what people decided to believe in. Which I realized was why it was called faith.

So, as I got older and learned more about other religions, I easily discovered I had always been Agnostic. I knew I decided to believe in God simply because I wanted, and knew there wasn't sure proof of his existence. And I think that's where a lot of people seem to forget the definition of words such as 'belief' and 'faith'. I've been the reciprocant of many one-sided arguments where people feel the need to tell me there is no proof of God. To which I say, that is why it is called faith and not fact. I feel like if people realized what these words meant, they would stop using the argument of proof. If someone says they believe in ghosts, you realize they don't need proof because it is a belief and that is something not based on anything other than how they feel and their experiences. In any case, I really don't believe in the Bible, and neither does any of my immediate family. My mother and sister, in particular, always agree that the Bible was written by man and could easily be false. We also find some of the stuff in the Bible to be very self-serving to certain people, and highly doubt that God would feel the need to cater to particular groups over rather questionable things.

It is also weird to me that people argue no God would let horrible things happen to humans if they existed. I find that really weird reasoning. I imagine if I could be some all-knowing and mighty being, I would not spend every minute constantly interfering in people's lives to make sure everything was peaches and cream. Why is it automatically assumed that an almighty being would want to shield their creations from the very things that would make them unique? We are all writers, and we can all agree without tragedy and human flaws, our characters would be nothing. Imagine creating your own fantasy world and then refusing to let anything bad happen to your creations because you made them. It would be boring and lifeless. So, I guess I imagine God as a writer, of sorts. They created this amazing world, and while they care for each of their characters, they can't simply baby them and never allow them to live through the very things that breath life into them. And while God lets some bad things happen to humans, They still love love us like we writers still love our creations when we put them through tough situations.

In short, no one can prove or disprove anything. So why claim to know what is real or not, when you can simply admit you don't know and are simply deciding to believe in your views? It's perhaps rude of me, but I wish everyone would simply practice Agnosticism in some form or another. It's simply admitting you don't know for sure, and are admitting to making your decisions based of off personal beliefs and reasons. Simply being open-minded, and looking at all sides while accepting everyone and everything for what it is, personal opinions and beliefs.

i beleve that life was created by another life, someone who was here long before us and wishes that we become compleatly civelized one day

I am an Islam, mainly because I grew up in an Islamic environment. But also because God showed me the correct way and saved me in ways that I don't even understand.

An example is my attempts of... suicide. I was saved in ways that doesn't make any sense to people. Like the knife is suddenly dull, but after I diss the thought of suicide I used that exact same knife to cut carrots and it was so sharp. How can it possibly be sharp in less than 30 minutes and I held that knife the whole time?

I don't know if that even made any sense but it's true. I believe God exists and is always helping me in any trouble.

I believe what I believe so I don't paragraph smash strangers on a roleplay forum when I feel my views are challenged.

There's nothing that leads me to believe there is anything beyond the universe itself. I can sorta see spiritual beliefs, in some abstract degree, but religions themselves are just comical to me. At best. Most terrify me, really. I mean, I'd like it to be different, but the world itself and our history doesn't really give much hope either, so...

Its kinda weird that this conversation went straight to religion when the question was, " Why do you believe what you believe?"

I would generally like to consider myself an empiricist, yet I do take into account that human senses are limited. We can only sense an infinitesimal range of light wavelengths out of the whole spectrum, and the same is true of sound. My answer to your question is this: generally if you see something it is correct to believe in it, yet for example in a magician's trick something might be there but might not see it, or it might just be that you don't hold the right accessory structures to detect said stimuli. However, even if we haven't directly witnessed each step of the trick we can still sometimes theorize of the mechanics of the operation. Whatever the case, I think it is more worthy to pay close attention to the trick in hopes of discovery, rather than to sit back in awe.

i think the creation of the universe, anything within it and anything potentially beyond it can be explained scientifically. I also believe that humanity isn't quite advanced enough to pursue those answers/explanations, and so they remain a mystery to us (spirituality.) i believe many folks dont like the idea of random events that can literally wipe the planet, and so an idea of some sort of super protector is then implemented to combat that fear. i think that while the idea of a big giant almighty being or twelve looking out for me is comforting, it's easy as a person to manipulate that story so that it looks out for me and my interests but not necessarily other people with other interests that i disagree with. & with that comes a great divide, and many opposing beliefs (religion.)

tldr science is my god and religion is a tool initially used to make people feel better about the unknown that got twisted into a weapon of violence and oppression as time went on because humans are awful