Which religious group?

[Joseph Ciotti]

None of the above...

I'm a Wiccan, myself. Well, halved with Christian but a good Wiccan side as well. (No. Wiccans do NOT worship Satan. A common stereotype.)

 

[jamespowers]

I'm a Wiccan, myself. Well, halved with Christian but a good Wiccan side as well. (No. Wiccans do NOT worship Satan. A common stereotype.)

Is it true that it is more of a nature/environment worship? [huh]

Regards,

J

 

[Joseph Ciotti]

Is it true that it is more of a nature/environment worship? [huh]

Regards,

J

Pretty much... And all the spell talk you hear is just prayers really. Good OR bad. And more in control of psychic abilities. Thus why I took the religion up. As the old saying goes, I was born with a "veil over my face."

 

[Dr Doran]

I am enjoying reading all of you because I like hearing how people reason out what they have allowed themselves to believe, and I admire the level of respect here. I would never want to insult anyone's religion and I think it is foolish to do so. As for me, I was Catholic until last August. At least, I called myself one.

But what I realized is that I did not have any faith at all, and that I cannot have faith in things without evidence, and that I am pretty scientific. I want evidence for things. I do not see sufficient evidence for an invisible being who is omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent. Certainly not benevolent. I like the idea of worshipping the spirit of Good. And I think that the major religions have fine moral ideas. But the spirit of Good, although it is worthy of worship if anything is, is only a metaphor for me. Further, I don't see sufficient evidence (outside of believing in revelation) to assume that the force that created the universe is also around today and can hear prayers; and that those two forces are benevolent; and that they are presently omnipotent; and that they listen to us. These seem like unwarranted assumptions to me.

Having said that, I do regard religions highly, and I respect my wife, a Catholic, and I have Christian, Jewish, and a few pagan friends. (I would have friends of other religions, too, but I don't happen to know many.) I think that what we can reconstruct of what Jesus stated seems quite admirable, although biblical scholars don't think the Gospels were written until several generations after his death. Further, our child will surely be baptized Catholic and my wife will take her to Church, and I will not speak ill of religions around her -- although if she asks why I don't go to church, I will politely tell her my opinion. I suppose I just don't see how one person can (expect to) convince another person of something for which sufficient evidence is lacking.

If you all want to read an interesting book on the subject, I recommend Lucretius. You can easily find a decent translation by Penguin publishing. He wrote it in the first century BC and it has a pretty radical view of the afterlife and the gods. Radical for the Romans of the 1st century BC and still fairly radical. Its title is usually translated rather unexcitedly as "The Nature of Things" or "On the Nature of the Universe." In the Latin it is De Rerum Natura. I think every theist and every non-theist should read it. It changed my life, and it made my sister's death in September much easier to bear; he does not advocate an afterlife at all, but makes this prospect (i.e. nothingness after death) not seem horrible.

The person who interestingly mentioned evolutionary tendencies toward pro-social or morally good behavior or else (can't remember what they wrote now) toward believing in divine beings may wish to at least look at Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate. I do not agree with all of it, but it is very erudite and does try to look at beliefs and moral behavior from an evolutionary point of view.

 

[Benny Holiday]

I find it interesting that so many people see science and religion as mutually exclusive camps. A lot of my faith comes from my understanding of science and seeing how scientific findings uphold what the Bible says, rather than undermining it!

Religion (and faith) are on the wane in Western societies today, but in other parts of the globe, it is not so. Why? Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned; in other words, one's heart and mind have to be open to see and experience them. In the West, we're conditioned to believe that evolution is infallible and that religion and science are incompatible. At the same time, we're caught up with mortgages and bills, freeways and traffic jams, fashions, luxuries and consumerism. In the developing world, people don't have those distractions, and their hearts are more open to discerning spiritual things.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

It takes faith to just get up out of bed every day.

If one believes in at least the possibility of the Divine, that is all the spark needed to ignite the fire. I have seen and experienced many things in my life in the light of that fire started from just a small spark. The more one believes, the more one receives.

 

[Weston]

I am enjoying reading all of you because I like hearing how people reason out what they have allowed themselves to believe, and I admire the level of respect here. I would never want to insult anyone's religion and I think it is foolish to do so. As for me, I was Catholic until last August. At least, I called myself one.

Snipped for length...

I certainly hope you don't take this the wrong way, but is that your child in the photo? Because for all my theological training and classes, that picture for me is about the only proof I'd need of God, holding a child of mine in my arms.

Hopefully next year if all goes well. God bless you.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I find it interesting that so many people see science and religion as mutually exclusive camps. A lot of my faith comes from my understanding of science and seeing how scientific findings uphold what the Bible says, rather than undermining it!

Religion (and faith) are on the wane in Western societies today, but in other parts of the globe, it is not so. Why? Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned; in other words, one's heart and mind have to be open to see and experience them. In the West, we're conditioned to believe that evolution is infallible and that religion and science are incompatible. At the same time, we're caught up with mortgages and bills, freeways and traffic jams, fashions, luxuries and consumerism. In the developing world, people don't have those distractions, and their hearts are more open to discerning spiritual things.

Which is why god invented Religious Science!
http://www.religiousscience.org/

-dixon cannon

 

[Orgetorix]

I find it interesting that so many people see science and religion as mutually exclusive camps. A lot of my faith comes from my understanding of science and seeing how scientific findings uphold what the Bible says, rather than undermining it!

Religion (and faith) are on the wane in Western societies today, but in other parts of the globe, it is not so. Why? Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned; in other words, one's heart and mind have to be open to see and experience them. In the West, we're conditioned to believe that evolution is infallible and that religion and science are incompatible. At the same time, we're caught up with mortgages and bills, freeways and traffic jams, fashions, luxuries and consumerism. In the developing world, people don't have those distractions, and their hearts are more open to discerning spiritual things.

Well said, Benny. I'm of the opinion that people are naturally bent to look for an excuse not to believe in God, and that science happens to be the convenient excuse of our day in the modern West. It's absurd that people take a scientific explanation of natural phenomena as disproving God's agency in/behind those phenomena. Example: Once upon a time, people attributed the wind to "the breath of God." Now, in the modern age, we know that the wind is in fact caused by natural phenomena--the Coriolis effect, and such. So this proves that God has nothing to do with the wind, right?

That's as absurd as attributing Hank Aaron's home runs to his bat, and saying Hank had nothing to do with them.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Well, in fact people look to science to disprove things (science can *prove* nothing, only disprove). The problem with God is that he's not disprovable (He is unfalsifyable), because no data can be gathered. "Oh look at that, it couldn't have been done by anything other than a guiding hand" is not data.

Every piece of scientific data i have gathered can be proved wrong at some point. I have no *faith* in science or even my own results - scientific training (to constantly question and reevaluate everything you ever hear, say, or do) makes for an interesting life. I think my data will stand up to scrutiny but someday it will be proved wrong (or at least be proved to be not the complete story), like 99.9% of scientific findings. All one can do is weigh the evidence and come to an informed conclusion Re. that evidence.

frank kurtz

 

[Orgetorix]

Well, in fact people look to science to disprove things (science can *prove* nothing, only disprove). The problem with God is that he's not disprovable (He is unfalsifyable), because no data can be gathered. "Oh look at that, it couldn't have been done by anything other than a guiding hand" is not data.

Every piece of scientific data i have gathered can be proved wrong at some point. I have no *faith* in science or even my own results - scientific training (to constantly question and reevaluate everything you ever hear, say, or do) makes for an interesting life. I think my data will stand up to scrutiny but someday it will be proved wrong (or at least be proved to be not the complete story), like 99.9% of scientific findings. All one can do is weigh the evidence and come to an informed conclusion Re. that evidence.

frank kurtz

Since the conclusions you make from your data can't be proved, isn't your belief in those conclusions a kind of faith? It would seem one always has to make an a-logical leap from evidence to conclusion. The strength of the evidence may determine how great or small that leap is, but it seems (to my admittedly unscientific mind) that leap is always necessary.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

fftopic: a little, since christian scientists don't really follow this concept.

conclusion was the wrong word. "idea" or "theory" would be closer to what i meant. Conclusion is so definitive and does indeed imply belief in the context in which you mean it (i think), and in the meaning of the word as used in this discussion. The leap from evidence (that is to say: results) to a theory should never be a-logical or illogical, though these things are very often seen in scientific journals. All things stated should be backed up with reference to the previous literature, and the data within those papers.

Of course, (as an example) almost everything we say in science is based upon the premise that electrons exist, which has only been inferred and theorised up 'til now. Now proof of this existence has ever been presented (and from what i said before, it never can be *proved*, only theorised and disproved).

mathemetics is different. one can have proofs in mathematics, but the word means something quite different in that field of science.

bk

 

[Orgetorix]

fftopic: a little, since christian scientists don't really follow this concept.

conclusion was the wrong word. "idea" or "theory" would be closer to what i meant. Conclusion is so definitive and does indeed imply belief in the context in which you mean it (i think), and in the meaning of the word as used in this discussion. The leap from evidence (that is to say: results) to a theory should never be a-logical or illogical, though these things are very often seen in scientific journals. All things stated should be backed up with reference to the previous literature, and the data within those papers.

Of course, (as an example) almost everything we say in science is based upon the premise that electrons exist, which has only been inferred and theorised up 'til now. Now proof of this existence has ever been presented (and from what i said before, it never can be *proved*, only theorised and disproved).

mathemetics is different. one can have proofs in mathematics, but the word means something quite different in that field of science.

bk

I think I understand you. Is the difference between an idea/theory and a conclusion simply the degree of certainty with which it is held or believed? E.g., a conclusion is more or less settled, while a theory is always merely the best explanation available at the present time?

 

[Baron Kurtz]

I guess so, but it depends upon the specific meaning of the word conclusion given the context. As a *very* simple example:

I can conclude that my pet is a cat, because that's what we call it. But i can only theorize as to the evolutionary path that has produced the cat as we see it today . . . And i can only use my speculum in determining what it means to be "cat". Uncertainty is the key to progress . . .

bk

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I guess so, but it depends upon the specific meaning of the word conclusion given the context. As a *very* simple example:

I can conclude that my pet is a cat, because that's what we call it. But i can only theorize as to the evolutionary path that has produced the cat as we see it today . . . And i can only use my speculum in determining what it means to be "cat". Uncertainty is the key to progress . . .

bk

But look. Surely a cat that can drive as well as I can is nothing short of a miracle,...no?

 

[RBH]

United Methodist, all my life. Currently Lay Leader in my church.

 

[Dr Doran]

I find it interesting that so many people see science and religion as mutually exclusive camps. A lot of my faith comes from my understanding of science and seeing how scientific findings uphold what the Bible says, rather than undermining it!

Religion (and faith) are on the wane in Western societies today, but in other parts of the globe, it is not so. Why? Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned; in other words, one's heart and mind have to be open to see and experience them. In the West, we're conditioned to believe that evolution is infallible and that religion and science are incompatible. At the same time, we're caught up with mortgages and bills, freeways and traffic jams, fashions, luxuries and consumerism. In the developing world, people don't have those distractions, and their hearts are more open to discerning spiritual things.

Fair enough, my good Mr. Holiday. I suppose I am addicted to reproducible results ... it may be a disease. I will certainly agree with you wholeheartedly that our agnosticism in the (post)modern Western world often shuts out the possibility of things difficult to explain, or strains to find an explanation.

 

[Dr Doran]

Snipped for length...

I certainly hope you don't take this the wrong way, but is that your child in the photo? Because for all my theological training and classes, that picture for me is about the only proof I'd need of God, holding a child of mine in my arms.

Hopefully next year if all goes well. God bless you.[/QUOTE

Thank you for the blessing, my good man. I wish to be blessed by all men's gods. And I wish you luck on your future fatherhood. It has been lovely for me. Yes, it is my daughter Dominika, a lovely moppet. However, with all due respect to your beliefs and undoubtedly profound training, and with great respect to Christianity in particular as it is the cultural matrix in which I grew up and possesses many beautiful and highly admirable features, I must confess that while the existence of life itself is a wondrous thing, a "miracle" in one sense of the term, and although the emergence of life is wonderfully strange, I do not find the positing of a single (!) omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, being to be particularly necessary to explain life's emergence.

 

[Twitch]

Well I was baptized in an evangelical church and went there as a kid. Evangelical then and evangelists now are 2 different things.

 

[John in Covina]

Evangelical

Well I was baptized in an evangelical church and went there as a kid. Evangelical then and evangelists now are 2 different things.

**************

Of the many branches of Lutheranism around the globe, the term "Evangelical" comes up as part of the name of their branch or "Synod." But what most people associate with the term Evangelical doesn't really seem to apply to Lutheran churches.

Also, the term Fundimental when applied to a Christian sect usually has bad connotations to the public at large.


Sincerely,