What's your spiritual faith and why do you believe in it?

Sun Devil

Sun Devil

Death and Taxes
I'm curious about the religious faith people have around here and curious about why people here have the spiritual convictions they have and what drives them to continue believing (or not). As for me I'm not sure if I've already disclosed this but I identify myself as an agnostic-theist, that is, the belief in a deity (or deities) but do not know or understand the particulars of that deity (deities). I guess I made my transition to agnosticism from Christianity based on the fact that Christianity in some of its philosophies are too absolute. That is, you either are saved based on a belief that Jesus died for your sins or belief in Jehovah as God and I personally felt Christianity didn't answer the really interesting questions. I often felt that in the problem of good and evil Christianity failed to fully explain the concept of evil without contradicting itself or explaining in such a way that the question rather being answered, leads to another question.

I did dibble and dabble early on in my life in the Islamic faith thanks to some friends of mine in undergrad who got me reading some really great Islamic thinkers such as Averroes, Ibn Sina, and Al-Ghazali. After being invited to a few prayers and observing the behaviors of Muslims Islam seemed perfect, but I quickly learned that Islam unfortunately, especially among the American Muslims or Muslims that have migrated to the States they are often very clique-ish as in Africans with Africans, Arabs with Arabs, Pakistanis with Pakistanis. Some Arabs often felt (at least to my observations) that they "own Islam" and it just came across their behavior so I quickly transitioned from Islam to agnosticism.

I guess from what I've experienced and what I know, I personally think human beings through the ages don't know much about God and often use ancient to try and answer the really difficult questions, questions such as do we have freewill? Often times most religionist say humans have freewill yet when it comes to blessings (which is a direct manifest of divine intervention through a pre-determined act from divine providence) some cannot answer the question on whether blessings from God violates the idea of freewill and shift the balance to pre-determinism or whether life is merely a series of random acts and God is nothing more than a deistic being. such persistent questions pretty much have "determined" my philosophical beliefs to be within the agnosticism fold.
 
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Pagan, with elements of a Lovecraftian philosophy behind it. Essentially, the gods are unknownable, and for the most part uncaring about us as a species, and attempts to understanding them in our present state bring only madness (which may also be a blessing conferred by a god from time to time).

As for why? Well, it makes the most sense to me, out of everything else.
 
Unicron said:
Pagan, with elements of a Lovecraftian philosophy behind it. Essentially, the gods are unknownable, and for the most part uncaring about us as a species, and attempts to understanding them in our present state bring only madness (which may also be a blessing conferred by a god from time to time).

As for why? Well, it makes the most sense to me, out of everything else.
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Interesting I have to look up "lovecraftian" and read up more about it. So pretty much your polytheism is deistic. So tell me what lead you to believe in multiple gods as opposed to 1 and do these gods have a distinct characteristic from one another?
 
Sun Devil said:
Interesting I have to look up "lovecraftian" and read up more about it. So pretty much your polytheism is deistic. So tell me what lead you to believe in multiple gods as opposed to 1 and do these gods have a distinct characteristic from one another?
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Why would there be a limit on the number of gods that exist? To me that seems entirely arbitrary. As for their characteristics...well like I said they're unknownable and inconcieveable. As in, our brains are not physically capable of understanding them as they are. Our perceptions of reality are not sophisticated enough. But in so far as WE can percieve them, and generalize them with our primitive understanding and emotions, yes they're different.
 
Unicron said:
Why would there be a limit on the number of gods that exist? To me that seems entirely arbitrary. As for their characteristics...well like I said they're unknownable and inconcieveable. As in, our brains are not physically capable of understanding them as they are. Our perceptions of reality are not sophisticated enough. But in so far as WE can percieve them, and generalize them with our primitive understanding and emotions, yes they're different.
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Besides....living in Detroit....you need all the help you can get!!!
 
Was brought up as a Christian Socialist and am now a Sort-of-Buddhist Socialist, since gods seem unlikely. The key point is to realise that people are not for anything and start treating them properly, as Jesus certainly recommended. I tried the Quakers for a bit, but found they'd got too naïve to be worth the bother.
 
iolo said:
Was brought up as a Christian Socialist and am now a Sort-of-Buddhist Socialist, since gods seem unlikely. The key point is to realise that people are not for anything and start treating them properly, as Jesus certainly recommended. I tried the Quakers for a bit, but found they'd got too naïve to be worth the bother.
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When you were with the Quakers, did you get your oats?
 
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Sun Devil said:
I'm curious about the religious faith people have around here and curious about why people here have the spiritual convictions they have and what drives them to continue believing (or not). As for me I'm not sure if I've already disclosed this but I identify myself as an agnostic-theist, that is, the belief in a deity (or deities) but do not know or understand the particulars of that deity (deities). I guess I made my transition to agnosticism from Christianity based on the fact that Christianity in some of its philosophies are too absolute. That is, you either are saved based on a belief that Jesus died for your sins or belief in Jehovah as God and I personally felt Christianity didn't answer the really interesting questions. I often felt that in the problem of good and evil Christianity failed to fully explain the concept of evil without contradicting itself or explaining in such a way that the question rather being answered, leads to another question.

I did dibble and dabble early on in my life in the Islamic faith thanks to some friends of mine in undergrad who got me reading some really great Islamic thinkers such as Averroes, Ibn Sina, and Al-Ghazali. After being invited to a few prayers and observing the behaviors of Muslims Islam seemed perfect, but I quickly learned that Islam unfortunately, especially among the American Muslims or Muslims that have migrated to the States they are often very clique-ish as in Africans with Africans, Arabs with Arabs, Pakistanis with Pakistanis. Some Arabs often felt (at least to my observations) that they "own Islam" and it just came across their behavior so I quickly transitioned from Islam to agnosticism.

I guess from what I've experienced and what I know, I personally think human beings through the ages don't know much about God and often use ancient to try and answer the really difficult questions, questions such as do we have freewill? Often times most religionist say humans have freewill yet when it comes to blessings (which is a direct manifest of divine intervention through a pre-determined act from divine providence) some cannot answer the question on whether blessings from God violates the idea of freewill and shift the balance to pre-determinism or whether life is merely a series of random acts and God is nothing more than a deistic being. such persistent questions pretty much have "determined" my philosophical beliefs to be within the agnosticism fold.
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That is a great question.

I believe in Man Made Global Warming because Algore gave a speech and invented the internets


;)
 
I believe in a universal loving God that is present in everyone and everything. What we know of our world is limited by what we can sense, but inside I know that there is so much more. To me everything is God, and what we perceive as good or evil is simply our perception and is not good or evil, because ultimately there is no such thing. The world (all of it, what we call good bad or ugly) is in divine order, If there is an all powerful God, how could it be anything else.

You could call me a Christian in that via an independent study of Christ, I find that all he did was consistent with the above. Jesus was the son of God, as we all are. He simply was able to live in a way that more perfectly realized that. We all have that potential, however I don't know if anyone has yet to reach the level reached by Jesus.

I am not a Christian in that there is not a Church that teaches what I have come to believe. I find that the conventional understanding of Christ and teaching of who Christ is has become such a manipulated and false story that its often the opposite of reality. God can be seen in almost all aspects of our world, and to a fully enlightened person, God is fully in all aspects of our world. Jesus is simply the human incarnation of that, and an example of a fully enlightened person.
 
I am still searching.

I don't know what I am, but I know that I am no longer a Christian and could not be a Jew or Muslim because they basically are the same religion at the root, only vary on certain tenets, Jesus being one.

I haven't totally rejected the idea of a god, but question the religious concepts of god.

I feel wonder and awe concerning my life and the universe, but I don't feel it is connected to a supernatural being who watches over me and hears my prayers.
 
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Materialist/agnostic/humanist

In other words, I don't have a faith. I recognize that the material world, which I interact with, is real. The spiritual, mystical and divine, which I don't interact with in any concrete way, is to me, a subject of speculation and nothing more. I don't understand it, and I can't immerse myself in it, so I choose not to pay it much mind. My primary concern is the human (and material) world.
 
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