All Encompassing Are You Religious and Why Thread

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Russ

Not unsurprisingly you've totally missed the point.

I was just saying that yeh, if you include joining the scouts and the local darts team because they put a God clause in their membership requirements. then yeh religion is everywhere, but you can probably discount those that lied to get in.

I'm a little puzzled at why someone with clear and obvious intelligence has created a poll with such restrictive options

What do you want added?

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

Atheist I cannot believe in a benevolent diety given what I have seen in the past personally let alone what we all see on our tele's everyday. While I will support the right of anyone to hold and practice whatever belief they wish I encourage those I know to make the choice when they are old enough to be able to understand all aspects of it.

Who said anything about the deity being benevolent nothing says he/she can't be in a bad mood and strike out with fire and brimstone on all and sundry just because he/she can (see the old testament for examples)

[Hom3r]

I don't believe in any god, but I think in the past people use knowlegde and technology to scare people in to thinking that they are gods.

Where these people came form though is a different story.

Nowadays religion is used by some groups whom corrupt it to their own way of thought to start fights rather than stop them.

[joglynne]

I am an Atheist but would never try to impose my views on anyone else.

One of my oldest, and dearest friends retired at 52 from his position as a University Professor. He was then ordained in to the United Reform Church and was a practicing Minister for over 40 years up to his death last year. Over the years the discussions we had about God and Religion never changed my views or caused his to waiver. He was one of the gentlest, strongest, good men I have ever known but I do not believe he would have been any different if he did not have God in his life.

One thing he did say was that he believed in a Benevolent God and that such a God would not judge a person by who he worshiped but by how he lived his life, and to believe other wise was to damn legions of human beings that were born and died before 'God' was worshiped.

a God would not judge a person by who he worshiped but by how he lived his life

So true - and equally true of any person.

Judge a person by their behaviours, not by a label.

[Saaf_laandon_mo]

Muslim... you're all going to hell.................

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:51 ----------

Joke

---------- Post added at 14:53 ---------- Previous post was at 14:52 ----------

And yes I am religious, and agree with joglynne and Hugh above in terms of judging people.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Russ

Flawed poll - everyone believes in religion, there is evidences for it everywhere

you just misread it its agnostic not antagonistic

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Gary L

What do you want added?

It's not what I *want* added (lest anyone suggest someone who has faith in God is 'demanding' something be changed to suit them...), but if I was going to contribute to the poll, then I would have preferred the options to be along the lines of:

• Follow a particular faith and insist everyone else does too
• Belong to a religion/religious organisation
• Have faith in a deity's existence and attempt to live your life that way
• Don't believe in anything specific but are sure some higher power exists
• Don't care either way
• Pretty sure there is no deity.
• Firmly believe/am convinced there is no deity
• Dislike anything connected with religion/faith/spirituality and want all traces of it removed from society because I disagree with/misunderstand it.

Going on all the opinions and views I've seen, heard and read over the years, I think that covers all eventualities.

My position is the third from top. I don't belong to any religious organisation, nobody tells me I have to do/think/believe anything, I go along to a church but no-one forces me to, nobody there tells me how to live my life, I have questions and they have answers. In all my time with my faith I have never met anyone within it who has views differing from that.

Almost every atheist will apparently have had an experience with a 'religious nutcase' who has threatened them with Hell etc, I have never encountered anyone like that and if I did I'd simply ignore them.

As a side note I really don't know what this thread will achieve which has not been repeated over and over again on this forum.

[Peter_]

I have been an Atheist since about the age of 5 when I was sent to a High Church of England Church school and I hated every second of my time there, it had to be bad for a 5 year old to have such a strong feeling of disbelief instilled into him at such a young age.

Russ above must be one of the lucky ones who has also never been accosted by religious nutcases as well as oddly enough they do exist, I remember going to work one morning and bumping into a neighbour who was a year or so older than me but had been to the same school, who started asking me about god and when I told him that I was an atheist he started going on about religion and that if I went with him now to his church that I would very quickly be talking in tongues, my bus arrived and I jumped on leaving him at the stop, afterwards I avoided him like the plague and my mother said that when speaking to his mother that he was trying to get anyone he knew to join his church in this way.

If you believe in a god in any form then please do not try to accost me or anyone else and try to instil your beliefs in them as that is by far the best way to alienate people to you and your religion as belief is a private and personal thing.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Russ

It's not what I *want* added (lest anyone suggest someone who has faith in God is 'demanding' something be changed to suit them...), but if I was going to contribute to the poll, then I would have preferred the options to be along the lines of:

Dislike anything connected with religion/faith/spirituality and want all traces of it removed from society because I disagree with/misunderstand it.

As a side note I really don't know what this thread will achieve which has not been repeated over and over again on this forum.

It was as much my own curiousity than anything else, and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible hence covering the major 3 bases.

Unsure about claiming spirituality for religion and faith. The human spirit, is surely something we can all agree with, it's quite possible to be spiritual without believing in a deity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_spirituality

[Gary L]

I was working on a friends car the other day and 2 religious nutters that Russ speaks of came up the drive and introduced themselves. I politely told them that I'm not interested. but the one questioned me and asked as if it was unusual "don't you follow a faith?"

I said "Islam"

they were so rude just walking away.

I think if we got rid of the "religious nutters" then the rest of us normal religious and non religious people would feel a lot better.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Gary L

I was working on a friends car the other day and 2 religious nutters that Russ speaks of came up the drive and introduced themselves. I politely told them that I'm not interested. but the one questioned me and asked as if it was unusual "don't you follow a faith?"

I said "Islam"

they were so rude just walking away.

I think if we got rid of the "religious nutters" then the rest of us normal religious and non religious people would feel a lot better.

I just tell them i was a hired killer for the Queen and would they like to see a sample of my work ?. Why they think they can disturb me on a Saturday morning at my front door i don't know.

Originally Posted by Gary L

I was working on a friends car the other day and 2 religious nutters that Russ speaks of came up the drive and introduced themselves. I politely told them that I'm not interested. but the one questioned me and asked as if it was unusual "don't you follow a faith?"

I said "Islam"

they were so rude just walking away.

I think if we got rid of the "religious nutters" then the rest of us normal religious and non religious people would feel a lot better.

They were probably "rude" and just walked away because you were rude and gave them idiotic childish answers

[idi banashapan]

I'm not religious at all. there are too many horrendous things in this world that no 'all loving God' would allow to happen. and please don't bring 'free will' into this - no one chooses to have a disease or illness that kills them slowly and painfully.

[Gary L]

White people can follow Islam you know Marty.

I could have told them to go away you nutters! that would have been rude.