Are you religious?

[Iain M Norman]

It took 17 pages to reach meltdown on a religion thread and still people are trying to be polite and reasonable! This is not your normal forum, a pleasant surprise. Normally these things are all out flame-war from page 2.

I could grow to like this place, it does seem to be full of reasonable adult behaviour. Good on you all.

 

[Rob3rt]

It took 17 pages to reach meltdown on a religion thread and still people are trying to be polite and reasonable! This is not your normal forum, a pleasant surprise. Normally these things are all out flame-war from page 2.

I could grow to like this place, it does seem to be full of reasonable adult behaviour. Good on you all.

Talk about trolls

 

[kerndog]

Organised religion was created by man to control man and is not needed in order to live a happy, spiritually full life. You can talk to god without conforming to these stupid cults.

Look at all of the nasty, hateful, disgusting things religion has done over the years, from rampant child abuse to wars and hate crimes. Disgusting and all about power and money.

I stay well away from any of the religious cults be it c of e to Catholicism, they are all corrupt power houses.

okay that justs fell out... didn't mean it to be so... angry

 

[Davidc]

You've got it bang on the nail. You cannot call yourself a Christian (or a Muslim, or a Jew) without believing in God, irrelevant of how much flaky philosophy or theology you try to use to justify it.

Thank you. That states the factual response to those posts succinctly and accurately. The dictionary definitions of religion all involve God or a supernatural power as well, and are not restricted to just those three religions.

I presume that those who are trying to invoke religion without a supernatural power are referring to human spirituality. I have Buddhist friends who will always correct anyone who describes Buddhism as a religion, since they don't believe in any god. They describe it as a philosophy rooted in spirituality - I don't know enough about it to comment on that, but it's an illustration that spirituality comes with the human package and thrives with or without a belief in the supernatural.

While I'm never likely to embrace it, from what I've heard from them over the years Buddhism has a lot more going for it than any religion I've ever formally learnt about.

 

[MacB]

everybody back off here and let this become the Reg and Rev show, two spin merchants with similar attributes....this is an opportunity for amusement

 

[GrumpyGregry]

But that's generally not really how they see it is it? I would wager that most Vicars believe in their creation stories and the afterlife - how many Vicars do you, or anyone else know, who has clambered into the pulpit and said to their congregation "look guys, the teachings I give you are just metaphors. Our creation story, our prayers to someone up above, our afterlife story - they're all just fairy tales that make you feel better about why you are here and better about your eventual demise".

Not many I would say. But if they do truly believe that God is a metaphor and they are not admitting that to their congregation then they are disingenuous in the extreme.

The whole metaphor response is often given when someone has the nous to realise that what they believe in is really a crock of crap but for whatever reason they can't shake off their indoctrinated teachings.

Creation stories as in Geneisis? Only a minority of the CofE vicars I know believe them to be true. I've never yet met a Catholic creationist, let alone a Catholic creationist priest.
Afterlife? Whole range of views exist on that one....
Metaphors? Loads of vicars are of that view. It's a perfectly valid, useful and acceptable belief system.

You objection seems to be that some people don't believe what you, ?as an unbeliever?, think they ought to believe if they claim to be believers!

 

[GrumpyGregry]

You've got it bang on the nail. You cannot call yourself a Christian (or a Muslim, or a Jew) without believing in God, irrelevant of how much flaky philosophy or theology you try to use to justify it.

Tosh. Sorry Reg.

Historically millions of Christians over the ages have rejected fundamental parts of the belief system of mainstream Christianity. Including belief in our Triune God or God at all in the sense we use the term. We used to call them heretics and/or schismatics but we are more polite about it today. They remain(ed) Christians as in followers of Christ regardless of the anathemas and abuse hurled at them by the mainstream.

 

[Crankarm]

everybody back off here and let this become the Reg and Rev show, two spin merchants with similar attributes....this is an opportunity for amusement

 

[Crankarm]

Religion is bunkum. I could use another b word but I see kids are posting on here .

 

[Crankarm]

 

[Davidc]

I think you can have religious beliefs without believing in God - and Buddhism is one of the those cases (although I will acknowledge that some Buddhists do not use the term 'religion' but instead describe it as a belief system or spirituality).

However, when you are talking about the theistic religions (be they monotheistic or polytheistic) all of them have, as a fundamental tenet of that religion, a belief in God (or gods). The giveaway is in the term "theistic" itself.

As part of a bet I took Divinity A level back in 1974, and the materials for that were absolutely clear on the point. Religion involves a supernatural god (aka being) in order to be a religion.

My Buddhist friends will also tell you that Buddhism doesn't involve belief, it is a philosophy and way of life. When challenged they will concede that they believe it is a good way to live and leads to a fulfilled and worthwhile life, but that's as far as they'll accept the term belief.

 

[Crankarm]

As part of a bet I took Divinity A level back in 1974, and the materials for that were absolutely clear on the point. Religion involves a supernatural god (aka being) in order to be a religion.

My Buddhist friends will also tell you that Buddhism doesn't involve belief, it is a philosophy and way of life. When challenged they will concede that they believe it is a good way to live and leads to a fulfilled and worthwhile life, but that's as far as they'll accept the term belief.

Did you win or lose and how much?

 

[Rev]

User I owe you an apology for

one min.......thought not.....coward and liar

It was childish and churlish, I should know better sorry
I can only add (regardless whether the veracity of this statment is also questioned) that I am in my office now and must be brief because a) I do not like to take advantage of my employers good will b) have to have a report finished by 15.30hrs. I would like to re-visit some of these issues however it will have to be later (prob tomorrow) as I have previous commitments. If you could decide before then how you define God for the purposes of this thread. It will make it easier to avoid confusion when I illustrate how many influential religionists lay outside of this. Thanks and I look forward to your response.

 

[Fnaar]

And Lo! It came to pass that a plague of locusts didst descend upon the land of Israel and the people didst eat them for they didst otherwise need make do with McDonalds:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/07/israel-insects

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I'm not surprised Reg is being so doctrinaire but I am surprised that he seems to refuse to acknowledge the existence of large numbers of people who would call themselves Christians, who do not believe in the divinity of Christ or in a 'God'. Take just this guy for example. I don't have to offer any more evidence than this because you only need one exception to disprove a proposition. And if the proposition is that 'All Christians believe in God', then this is clearly false. Now if Reg is actually saying 'All true Christians believe in God' then he's just fallen in a big logical hole - this is the famous 'No true Scotsman' fallacy. Of course, Reg may now go on to assert this is a matter of fact not opinion, but if there's one thing clear about religious doctrinal arguments that we know from hundreds of years of conflict, heresy, schism, inquisition etc., it is that all of these facts are subject to interpretation, revelation and transformation in different contexts. Asserting that there is something called 'the fundamental teachings of Christ' which is an interesting opinion about what those facts are in itself...