Welcome to Gaia! ::

I may be the only person here who is fairly dedicated to a religion, i'm Jewish. I don't believe in "God" like a human or animal or person but a beginning, a leading ways if you understand. I'm not one of the Jews that's narrowminded that's only ultra othodox usually but most of us believe in evolution and such since we are an educated people.

I'm Catholic and believe in God, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, yadeyadeyadeya, Jesus as Christ, and if you want I can probably recite the Nicene Creed. Don't kill me for being christian, it just fits me best. Of course I guess that statement would be kinda weird, but for me religion is personal and why should I force my religion on someone else and get mad if they do it to me? So I don't. I believe (strongly) in evolution and that a large part of the Old Testament was allegorical, and anyway, a book that's been translated umpteen times and before it was all written down was told over campfires for centuries most likely isn't going to be word for word accurate. My favorite is when some christians pick Creation stories to be exactly word for word truth but can then take statements such as 7 times 70 (just a number Jesus gives) and decide that He didn't mean 490, He meant a lot of times....so basically, when a bunch of nomads write something, it's true, and when God says it, it's supposed to mean something else. Puts me in a weird place because I've never met a non-Catholic Christian who believes in evolution. My feeling is, if you need to cover up facts with excuses, maybe you should reexamine your take on that issue.

Erm, sorry, that was long, just explaining that I do believe firmly in the same God all other CHristians do but I also am here so I obviously don't believe the bible's a history book.

In other words, you're not Catholic by any means. Or you've gone to define Catholic to exclude all of the nasty things it also means.

Sorry, but Christianity (including catholocism) has a _lot_ of nasty stuff in it. The nice people try to pretend it doesn't exist and the mean (or stupid) follow every little bit of it.

The nice people just try to pretend the nasty stuff doesn't exist but still claim to be Christian because they don't want to face the wrath of the mean (and stupid) followers. Which further boosts the ego of the mean (and stupid) followers into thinking they're that much more right when they have the nice people claiming to believe the same thing.

Worse yet, most of the nice Christians don't even know how nasty their religion is. We'd all be better off if we adopted a healthy philosophy that doesn't have the baggage Christianity does and be able to love one another for real reasons, not because some deity said to (but just so happened to also say to stone people who remarry because that's adultery). Christianity has too much hate baggage and it only takes a few people to follow this part of it to make the whole religion bad, especially when there are healthier alternatives like humanist philosophy.

First of all, I want to say thanks for letting me into the guild! ^_^

I took the third choice... sweatdrop I always tend to just say I don't really have a religion, but truthfully I have a combination of beliefs from different religions, but mostly I lean towards Buddhism and Wicca. 3nodding I believe that 'God' or 'the divine' is in all things. You, me, the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, etc, etc, etc... As far as the "is there a God" question is concerned, I think there is, in a sense, but I just don't think it is an all-seeing, all-knowing Santa Claus-like man living in the sky. gonk heart

She has the right idea. The Christian god, no matter how people want to argue, rewards good people and "punishes" bad people. That lump of coal can very well symbolize that the bad person is piling up the fuel that's going to be used to roast them in hell. Whether it actually symbolizes this I don't know.

But if you're "good" (by Christian standards) you get a present (heaven). If you're "bad" (again, by Christian standards) you get coal (hell). Both Santa and God supposedly know everything that's happening.

The very basics of the beliefs are the same and if you boil it down to this the Christian God just seems as silly as Santa Claus. I'll try posting a poll in the Extended Discussion forum about this...

No two people have the same idea of what God is. So either you (I'm referring to anyone who believes in God here) have the right idea about God and everyone else is wrong, or you have the wrong idea about God, and so does everyone else.

I've heard every response to this statement already. A common one is; there is no wrong idea about God; and that God is whoever you think it is.

This is all very well and good, but there are at least ten times as many people who think you're wrong, and that God is an objectve entity sitting on a cloud bunging lightening at whoever the ******** he feels like.

People should just never use the word God. It's a meaningless word. People should just believe in what they know exists, assume that things exist based on the evidence, and have faith in nothing (because if there was a good reason to believe in something, you'd have no need for faith)

I voted for "not exactly," since I am Atheist, but with a little spice of Agnostic floating around in an otherwise entirely delectable Atheist soup. I don't think that a god (if there is one) would be the type that, say, the Christians worship. God doesn't care what you do, god won't answer prayers, and god sure as hell isn't a "He" (I'm really trying not to go all femmenazi* here). God has no gender, God has no matter, God is everything and nothing, right? God isn't some huge human floating in the sky, and Earth is not the larger than life Sim-City game on God's laptop.

The reason for my kind-of agnosticism is that the world and the universe is so interconnected, that it seems impossible for this to have all happened by random chance. This is not to say that I believe in the "OMFG god totally created the world in seven days!!11 LOL!" hooey, because I believe in the big bang all the way (and not like "God said 'bang!' and there it all was," either). The concept of 'god' in itself is hard to comprehend, and harder to explain, but in my mind, god is a kind of energy source. Apathetic, and doesn't damn you for not believing, kind of more animal than human. Less psychotic, and more instinctive, or something, and without the human pettiness and favoritism.

((I am so happy that I was accepted! This rules!))



*a crazy hardcore feminist

GOD= everything, its just a name for it
and I HATE IT!! when God is reffered to as "he"