Other What's your religion?

[Saccharine Cyanide]

I'll respect that, but I think the simulation theory isn't substantial, or, at least evidence such as that isn't. How we model our universe is, by necessity, technically just abstract no matter how accurate it is. You can make a 1:1 perfectly replicated statue of a person, or even a clone, but it isn't the original person. I personally think someone saying "We found computer code in string theory' is akin to saying "I found paint in the mona lisa". Nonetheless, the simulation theory is fascinating to think about. Of course, it also just raises further questions; it really just moves the problem. It's like 'earth life originated on another planet', well, how did life originate on that other planet? You get what I'm saying?





2

I think it's more like "the woman in the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows." Maybe it means that there's some great secret to the Mona Lisa to be uncovered...or maybe Da Vinci just didn't have time to paint the eyebrows. : P


Yeah, I agree. Right now it's just an interesting "maybe" with not a lot of evidence.

 

[SimpleGuy]

http://dudeism.com/


I'm a priest for this religion

 

[Grey]

Of course, that's severely bastardized, so search it up and do your own research. Just search 'God's Debris' if you're any interested. I think it makes perfect sense.

There are actually a couple of belief structures derived from pantheism which state, essentially, that god became a component of the universe as a consequence of creating it.  It crops it in fiction here and there, and I'll have to do some digging but I distinctly recall this is implied by one or two creation myths.


Pers'nally I've used it in a setting or two myself, and the excellent Kill Six Billion Demons webcomic uses the concept beautifully. 

 

[Dugym]

Well, we could just be particularly aware chunks of this greater being. I personally think it meshes well with your theories; some people (such as yourself) could just be more innately aware or simply suspicious of this original event. It could be a type of 'genetic' or perhaps 'quantum' memory.


Edit: yeah @Saccharine Cyanide it's a pretty interesting concept and is effectively just an alternative take on the basic idea.

Or perhaps, assuming this theory is true, we could be the cells of this God.


The theory of God's Debris is similar to panentheism. Panentheism is a religion compatible with science (I haven't studied religion extensively, but I know enough to know not all of Christianity is compatible with science), and it essentially says we are all part of God, but we don't know it. What really strengthens the argument of panentheism is the fact that if you apply panentheism logic to real world examples, it makes sense. Panentheism logic would say your hand is part of you. The hand doesn't know it's part of you, but it is. However, pantheism says everything is God. For a real world example, pantheism logic would say your hand is you.


Also, another argument for panentheism says this: "God is a creator, but so are we. We've created machines, medicine, new types of food, etc... God is a creator, and we are creators."


I'll drop some more content.


What Is Panentheism?


Pantheism vs. Panentheism: Beware of bias


Christianity and Panentheism: Bias


What Is Evil?: 8-Bit Philosophy


The Problem of Evil: Crash Course Philosophy #13

 

[Tedronai]

Well, that's my lunchtime entertainment sorted

 

[Veni656]

I'm pagan poly-thesticaly inclined...Poly-pantheon too

 

[Hige]

I'm pagan poly-thesticaly inclined...Poly-pantheon too

That's awesome to know I'm not the only pagan around.

 

[Veni656]

That's awesome to know I'm not the only pagan around.

I know the feeling ^-^

 

[Hige]

I know the feeling ^-^

May I ask who you follow? 

 

[Veni656]

May I ask who you follow? 

Certainly!


First and foremost i follow the fates


followed by the Goddess Hel


Odin


Thor


the belief that everything has a spirit


and well this last part is a bit off the beaten path but the other pantheon is::


Legend of Zelda(PM me if you have extra questions on this part..there's a lot to explain )


your turn

 

[Hige]

Certainly!


First and foremost i follow the fates


followed by the Goddess Hel


Odin


Thor


the belief that everything has a spirit


and well this last part is a bit off the beaten path but the other pantheon is::


Legend of Zelda(PM me if you have extra questions on this part..there's a lot to explain )


your turn

How fascinating. 


I follow Set, who is my main patron, then Anubis. I also honor Ra and Anhur-Shu. 


Set is this guy.

 

[Veni656]

How fascinating. 


I follow Set, who is my main patron, then Anubis. I also honor Ra and Anhur-Shu. 


Set is this guy.





 

Ah cool! h haven't met anyone who follows an egyptian pantheon!


And forgive me but i though Set was spelled with an "h" somewhere? or is that someone else?(please forgive any rudeness, I'm simply curious) Or i've just been spelling it wrong forever..in which case i need to ask Set forgive me

 

[Hige]

Ah cool! h haven't met anyone who follows an egyptian pantheon!


And forgive me but i though Set was spelled with an "h" somewhere? or is that someone else?(please forgive any rudeness, I'm simply curious) Or i've just been spelling it wrong forever..in which case i need to ask Set forgive me

Seth is another variation of his name. He also goes by Sutah, Ash, or Sutekh. 

 

[Veni656]

Seth is another variation of his name. He also goes by Sutah, Ash, or Sutekh. 

whew...glad i didn't offend d(^-^)

 

[Hige]

whew...glad i didn't offend d(^-^)

I doubt that would offend him, haha. He is often seen as a God under a different name in other religions nearby Egypt. (Typhon, Ash, ect.) So he has quite a number of them.

 

[Scattered Ambitions]

I'm pretty sure I'm an Atheist. I might be agnostic though, not sure.


However, I find religion very, very interesting. I was trying out religions a few years ago and ended up with Paganism/Hellenism. One of the more interesting religions, I think. 


Not sure if the term "trying out religions" is offensive. If anyone is offended, apologies in advance.

 

[Hige]

Not sure if the term "trying out religions" is offensive. If anyone is offended, apologies in advance.

You're fine, its good to experiment in life and see what is right for you. How else will you find what fits best with you if you don't try new things first? 

 

[Mr_DC]

That question usually starts all kinds of problems...

 

[Scattered Ambitions]

Which one? I think that the majority of the rpn members know how to hold a respectful conversation over anything/ Religion, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.

 

[Dugym]

That question usually starts all kinds of problems...

Well, we've have good luck so far: 13 pages of mostly tame discussion. Isn't that great? 

 

[Probix]

I'm an atheist. But, I do find religion interesting. 

 

[sorrow made you]

I can't say that I believe in one religion. I do believe in higher beings, but I've kind of picked and pulled different parts of different religions and apply them for my own beliefs.


I grew up Christian, but how I was taught really made it boring. I stopped going to church around 10, and now only go when there's some kind of holiday event with family. Even then, I seem to occasion Catholic churches for family (part of my family is kind of Catholic? While the rest is Christian). As I've grown and taken a lot of art history and civilization classes, I've found that there's a lot of things of other religions that appeal to me and align with my own personal beliefs about the world. Religions include that of Buddhism, a little bit of Hinduism, Catholicism, Christianity. So in total, I believe that there's many gods, all interpreted in different ways by different people. A lot of them have parallels with other gods. So maybe they're the same just thought of as different, or maybe they really are different. Maybe they're all one in the same depending on the viewpoint. So no one is entirely wrong and everyone is right in their own minds. With that beings said, I believe worship is a one-on-one thing, and congregation is a little.. eh... I don't particularly like it.


Anyways, I'm rambling. >_>;;


tl;dr, I'd consider myself something like a Buddhist-Christian hybrid?

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

Also, the stereotype of laveyan satanists bothers me- the super arrogant, "all religious people are sheeples and stupid" elitist "MY religion supports critical thinking therefore im better than you"" stereotype.





6

This is a sentiment that I see a lot in the atheistic community and it bothers me quite a bit, the whole "holier than thou" attitude (pun not intended). It almost makes me feel a little ashamed to be an atheist sometimes, so much so that I started drifting toward the "secular humanist" label for a little while.


Maybe we can learn from the cult of "Dudeism" someone posted earlier: "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole."

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

yeah, same. i've met atheists that spent all their time trying to convert christians, which is hilarious, because they were behaving the exact same way as the people in my church.


i know more than one person who'd say that all religious people are inherently stupider in some ways, which annoys me and I also disagree with. Not only does it dismiss indoctrination and the struggles that people like me went through, but also the biological, psychological, and sociological reasons of why people tend to believe. Which is what seems kinda dumb to me.  





5

If I was raised differently, like if I actually went to church when I was a kid, I would probably be religious too.


Apparently, my mom was going to raise me Catholic, but...uh, something happened that drove her out of the church for about...twenty years. I could just as easily be on the other side of the fence if I had been born differently.

 

[TeaMMatE11]

oh boy, a chance to talk about my favorite thing- myself? 


my username might spoil part of it, but oh well lmfao.


I'm not really religious. I have some general philosophies but that's it. I'm interested in atheistic satanism, but without the ability to borrow/buy the Satanic Bible on my own and actually read the thing, I have no interest in claiming to be a member of or trying to practice a religion when I haven't actually read their source material/dogma/etc. I could find it really easily online for free in full, but the founder himself said he didn't like people reading it illegally. Normally I wouldn't care, but I feel like in this scenario, I should respect that.


Also, the stereotype of laveyan satanists bothers me- the super arrogant, "all religious people are sheeples and stupid" elitist "MY religion supports critical thinking therefore im better than you"" stereotype. And the fact that the overwhelming amount of satanists I've met like that do truly fit this stereotype makes me feel like joining any sort of community (online or not) to discuss satanism and it's philosophy in relation to other things just wouldn't be worth it to me. At the most if I did get ahold of the books and decide to follow their philosophy, it would probably only be for my personal sake and keep to myself about it. 

Either way I really like satan as a specific metaphor- freedom, being concerned with truth, rebellion from past stuff and etc. Which I mean, most people would probably ask why even bother including Satan in a personal metaphor when it's completely unnecessary and there's better things to represent that, that won't make people immediately hate you or deem you an edgy 12 year old? 


There's a lot of reasons. I was raised fundamentalist evangelical christian, like the kind you see in the Netflix documentary Jesus Camp. In short, it wasn't a good environment for a kid (I guess me particularly since other people come out relatively fine) to be raised in. My parents aren't that great either and their specific beliefs probably helped enable them, and obviously religion had a big part in my home life. I'm not going into detail about them though because it's not something to discuss here and it's not something I want to discuss here. 


Anyways as a kid being told stuff like "you're going to go to hell for sinning" is pretty scary. So is "the end of the world as described in Revelations is coming" and stuff like "demons will possess non-believers" but then also "some people aren't true believers because they do _ and _." Being told stuff like "watching that TV show or being angry is a sin, and you're an evil no good sinner and are deserving of hell" also really fucks with your ego among other things. 



All that fear made me dissociate as a kid, which wasn't really fun. I obsessed over demons and possession, which is still one of my fears, even though I don't believe in god. I used to have nightmares about being the antichrist lmAO. was possibly like low-key delusional/paranoid as a result of it too for a portion of my middle school years, and not just in the "pretending because he wants to be special way." i didn't talk about it to anyone anyways, was too worried of how they'd react. 


So being able to put all that aside, do completely things like watch TV, not worry about what's literally thought-crime, and not be constantly begging a god for forgiveness for things that are totally harmless is in itself a way of rebelling against the way I was raised, and my shitty past. I have religion-related intrusive thoughts and I still have to deal with the other bad effects of my former religion, but I'm working to get better, trying to be free. If my parents knew half of what I actually thought and did, I'd be labeled evil, a rebel, sinner destined for hell, a horrible human being who let the Enemy win and take over. Even though from an outsiders perspective, I'm like the least harmful person I know. What better a perfect symbol from breaking from that shit than Satan himself, the guy I used to have horrible nightmares about being, who himself rebelled from God? it's comforting in a way. 


Lol. 


i read some of the pages of this thread, so i have an idea of the kinds of responses i'll get.


Normally I wouldn't want to discuss religion, but I mean, if you wanna disagree or discuss further with me go ahead. im in the right mood for it.

WHOA.  That is strict.  Holy crap.  Because of all the limitations that were put on you because you were "sinning" is not what Christianity is about.  It's not about not sinning - hell, we all have our own problems.  There's people who are drugs, stealing, etc. etc.  We're all broken in our different ways, but, you have to remember that the central point of Christianity is the fact that God gave up his ONE and ONLY son to die on the cross for everyone's sins, 2000 years ago to today.  No offense, but I think your family missed the whole entire point of Christianity, and it probably has twisted your point of view about God.  


There was a line by a well-known preacher named Francis Chan, and he used this analogy with his 10 year old son to portray Jesus dying on the cross.


Jesus dying on the cross is equivalent to letting Francis Chan's son suffer the death penalty so all the criminals can be set free.


I will say this: Justice and Christianity are on the polar opposite ends, and this is something Christians my generation has to face.  We want justice, we want karma, but this is not what Christianity is about.  Not only is it difficult to be a Christian as a millennial, but also the fact that Christianity is, in my opinion, treated as absolute trash of a religion.  Honestly, the "bad" atheists are very similar to Jesus' opponents.  


I am rambling now.  But last point I want to make: the word Christian was originally used as a word to insult the followers of Jesus.  I forgot what it actually meant, something along the lines of slaves of Jesus or something.  In my opinion, the world hasn't changed.  Not a single bit.