What's your Religion?

YAY FOR CAPS

 

who me?
i actually thought it was a good post and repped you

 

my bad, i got a few PMs who were not repping me, they were ripping on me.
it was pretty cool of you to post up and rep me tho, thanks!

 

I replied to you here

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/11134-whats-your-religion.html#post2081253

thanks

 

I am agnostic...and if you ask me (and I don't want to start a e-argument or anything like that here, this is just my $.02) religion is the root of this worlds problem!

 

Amen to freedom of speech.

I'll pray for ya!

 

Bravo!!!!

 

without religion people wouldn't hate each other as much and the world would be nice and peaceful. but that's boring.

 

I have no desire to live in anyone else's world but IMO there are some lost souls floating around this place.

We are what we believe.

I just don't understand the sense of anger I get from some of the posts. That's all.

 

My eyes are ringing. Too much yelling.

 

im sorry. joke that wasnt funny now

 

And being that he is a Christian guy, I am sure he has no ill will towards you.

I guess I could think if he was a secular guy he may forgive you as well.

Then again I wouldn't be certain of that!

 

No worries...nothing to get mad/upset about.

It's funny because at the time I was working at walmart. I went back to work a few days after surgery and my manager asked me if I "got my ass beat." I had a 6-7 inch scar with a good size dressing on my head.

I told him what happened and he had the same response..

 

I love this thread. Always interesting and appreciated. Have a degree in Religious Studies. It hasn't made me a dime, but it sure was fun. As this thread shows.

There is an old Zen proverb that goes something like this ... that thing that you call God or Yahweh or Allah or Buddha Nature or The Way or I Am or the Infinite Ineffable or Great Spirit or simply IT indeed exists. But IT can never be grasped.

Attemtping to capture IT is like attempting to capture the ocean in a dixie cup. You cannot grasp IT because you are in IT, of IT. For a subject to observe object there must be a way to step outside that which you observe. There is no stepping outside of that which is all this, all that is. Therefore you cannot intellectually understand IT. But you can feel IT, intuit IT, be IT in present awareness. Because IT is you. IT is all of us.

All attempts to name IT, to define IT, to give IT "edges" as if there is a limit to the infinite reach of omniscient omnipresense (which we do when we anthropomorphize IT into a human form) ... these are man's attempt to grasp, to hold, to control IT. But to attempt to grasp, hold, isolate, separate, control, box the "living water" described by Christ (which is the same as the Tao, that ineffeable flowing Way) is to stagnate and choke off the flow. This is where SPIRIT becomes DOGMA and Pharisees are born.

My preferred "label" for IT (though I surpasses all labels) is as God is described in the Old Testament .... "I Am..." Note the "..." That's because the "Am" used in the original Hebrew is one that implies an expectation or becoming ... the flow. It has also been written as "I Am that I Am". This of course interesting because another Zen proberb says "The last word in Zen is ...".

Just some things to think about. Our paths may be different but the ... is the same.

Peace to all!

 

^Bryan, I'm curious which school you received your degree from? Are you in mission work of any kind? Ignore me if I'm prying too much.

 

I'm a secular guy. I'm the one that called him out ...

There's always an accusation of anger and rage from the religious when confronted by those who don't believe as they do. I've never understood that. I stay patient mostly. Angry, name calling, profanity filled rants, while very cathartic, usually play right into the hands of the folks who would just sit back and say, "See? Why are Atheists so angry?"

I get angry when I see religion used as a means to deny civil rights, interpret laws, or oppress progress. When I point that out, I get believers telling me, "I don't have a problem with that. It's not ME that's doing that." Well the problem is, "you", the ones who don't try to inject their religious beliefs into local politics (among other things) are in the minority and most of the quiet, pious, respectable believers I have met see no problem with religious meddlers. "It's for your own good anyway" they say.

Yet I, as a patient man who prefers to step back and let the anger subside before I really engage in any kind of constructive talk with believers, will readily tell other atheists and agnostics to knock off the childish sarcasm and endless references to pedo-priests at some point. It gets us nowhere any faster than a religious person rambling on and on about Stalin and Soviet Russia and Hitler (even though Hitler was a more a believer than an agnostic). I make the effort to bring my fellow secular minded individuals over to a calmer side.

Haven't we ALL said time and again that we wish the moderate muslims would speak up against the extremists?

Not all secularists are angry. But some of us are very passionate about certain things. I don't want people who deny science and the reality of fossils to tell my children one day that evolution is simply a theory. I don't want people who don't understand the scientific definition of a "theory" to present creationism, disguised as "intelligent design" to my children one day in a public school, funded by my tax dollars. So yeah, that's something I would get passionate about and damn near irate at some point if someone tried to argue with me on it. But the moment I get angry, I get called "a typical, liberal, godless atheist". <---------Notice the usual assumption about my political beliefs? That happens a lot too. THAT makes me angry.

Doesn't mean I, as an atheist, don't understand the healing power of forgiveness. If there's one thing I've learned in the past few years it's that telling someone that you love them, at least once a day, can feel better than anything else in this world sometimes. I didn't have that realization until long after leaving faith and belief in divinity behind.

Are you and I so different? I forget the man's name, but one of my favorite atheist quotes is; "I would propose to you that we are both atheists. I simply believe in one less god than you do."

Peace.

 

Not prying at all Hoosier.

My degree is from Univ of California Davis. And every day in it's own way is a mission field, not in the sense of conversion but compassion. There are a lot of hurting people out there. Unfortunately religion often forgets that.

 

I thought i would as this here....

Why do people get mad when someone says "oh my god". i said it today in line at the store and the lady in front of me turned and gave me a dirty look. WTF?
this isnt the first time ive seen people get butthurt about it

 

I love Jesus but Satan pays the bills

 

I agree with the red statements above!! I don't know who you are talking about, but I don't want those people presenting creationism either. I know you're not referring to a well versed creationist because science helps to prove creation and dissprove evolution all the time......and if you get angry, I will not call you names.

right you are and that is the heart we must posses!! May God bless your every step through those mission fields.