Who belives in what ?
- Thread starter Paraclete
- Start date
We have frequent polls like this and they usually result in a near 50/50 split. But its nice to check again.
I would make the distinction between the two primary groups -
1. A positive belief that something like a god, a soul, or some form of supernatural realm exists.
2. A disbelief in (1), or doubts, or a definite belief that (1) is false.
I would make the distinction between the two primary groups -
1. A positive belief that something like a god, a soul, or some form of supernatural realm exists.
2. A disbelief in (1), or doubts, or a definite belief that (1) is false.
I see your point , Cris - but I was inspired from your post about non-christians , and especially muslims growing in numbers and atheists/agnostics .
So I wanted to have a special vote for christians and non-christians - and then threw in an option for non believers too ......
So this vote is primarily to see how many are christians .....
I will repeat the poll in 2035...
So I wanted to have a special vote for christians and non-christians - and then threw in an option for non believers too ......
So this vote is primarily to see how many are christians .....
I will repeat the poll in 2035...
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Paraclete said:
True, I should have worded it differently. I rely on my senses and logic. I will believe anything that can be explained and/or observed.
I still have the ability to theorize over a creator, but I am secure enough not to want them to be true without evidence backing it up.
*************Nisus said:
M*W: The "King of Israel" was "Saul" or "Sol," the Sun-God. "Is-ra-el" stands for the Egyptian Goddess "Isis," "Ra," another name for sun worship, and "el" for god.
You're saying you worship the sun god, just like all good christians and Jews.
From my early teens, being dissatisfied with the Greek Orthodox Christian religion I'd been born into and when I began to question the whole concept of religion and God, I've been through various phases of 'belief'.
At 13 I came up with the idea that God lives inside us. The idea seemed to make sense to me at the time and persisted into my late teens at which point I became aware of more esoteric beliefs and practices, such as Buddhism and chakras and re-incarnation etc. I wasn't moved enough to follow any such beliefs but realising that my knowledge of the whole subject of religion was miniscule and also realising that there could never really be an answer to my deep questions except through blind faith in a particular belief, I became agnostic.
In my early 30's, through circumstances that I won't bore you with right now, I became 'born again Christian'. This lasted for 3-4 years until I realised that I was taking it too seriously and I began having thoughts of selling up everything and giving my property to the poor, leaving my wife and going to somewhere like Ethiopia to devote my time to the sick and starving. All very commendable some might say, but for a man of my culture and considering how hard I'd worked for my money and considering the love I felt for my wife, this idea was akin to suicide.
I'm a kind of all or nothing guy and I really wanted to be a good Christian and go by the book. The guilt I used to feel when I was cooking the books of my business to save on taxes was horrendous. Thank God (ha ha) that I began to see through the bullshit in time. I realised that the ministers at the church I used to go to, apart from 15 minutes of interpreting passages out of the bible to make a point on a particular topic, did nothing but try and squeeze as many donations out of the congregation as they possibly could; there would be as many as 4 collections in any one service. They used to say things like, 'just because God said you must tithe 10% of your earnings, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't give more!' Give, give, give, that's all they wanted. This particular group of churches (Elohim) is now huge in the UK.
But the worst thing, were the quasi political messages about our greatest enemy not being the Soviets, but it was Islam that we should be worrying about. This was in the mid 80's, before the fall of communism and before 'Islamist terrorism' had reared its ugly American/Anglo Christian inspired head. It was obvious shit stirring and they began to piss me off with their one sided arrogance and rhetoric. Soon afterwards, I consciously decided not to believe in the Christian myth and felt much happier for it.
As the years rolled by, I came up with various theories as to the origins of man and gods and to re-incarnation, life and death etc, and though some seemed feasible at times I never actually took them seriously. In '99 I began writing a novel that would attempt to encompass some of my theories, whilst still being humourous and tongue in cheek, because, I actually think beliefs in religions and unfounded theories are risible. During my research for this novel, that is when I discovered Sciforums and thanks to that, I have put all theories to one side and am pleased to confirm my true atheism.
At 13 I came up with the idea that God lives inside us. The idea seemed to make sense to me at the time and persisted into my late teens at which point I became aware of more esoteric beliefs and practices, such as Buddhism and chakras and re-incarnation etc. I wasn't moved enough to follow any such beliefs but realising that my knowledge of the whole subject of religion was miniscule and also realising that there could never really be an answer to my deep questions except through blind faith in a particular belief, I became agnostic.
In my early 30's, through circumstances that I won't bore you with right now, I became 'born again Christian'. This lasted for 3-4 years until I realised that I was taking it too seriously and I began having thoughts of selling up everything and giving my property to the poor, leaving my wife and going to somewhere like Ethiopia to devote my time to the sick and starving. All very commendable some might say, but for a man of my culture and considering how hard I'd worked for my money and considering the love I felt for my wife, this idea was akin to suicide.
I'm a kind of all or nothing guy and I really wanted to be a good Christian and go by the book. The guilt I used to feel when I was cooking the books of my business to save on taxes was horrendous. Thank God (ha ha) that I began to see through the bullshit in time. I realised that the ministers at the church I used to go to, apart from 15 minutes of interpreting passages out of the bible to make a point on a particular topic, did nothing but try and squeeze as many donations out of the congregation as they possibly could; there would be as many as 4 collections in any one service. They used to say things like, 'just because God said you must tithe 10% of your earnings, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't give more!' Give, give, give, that's all they wanted. This particular group of churches (Elohim) is now huge in the UK.
But the worst thing, were the quasi political messages about our greatest enemy not being the Soviets, but it was Islam that we should be worrying about. This was in the mid 80's, before the fall of communism and before 'Islamist terrorism' had reared its ugly American/Anglo Christian inspired head. It was obvious shit stirring and they began to piss me off with their one sided arrogance and rhetoric. Soon afterwards, I consciously decided not to believe in the Christian myth and felt much happier for it.
As the years rolled by, I came up with various theories as to the origins of man and gods and to re-incarnation, life and death etc, and though some seemed feasible at times I never actually took them seriously. In '99 I began writing a novel that would attempt to encompass some of my theories, whilst still being humourous and tongue in cheek, because, I actually think beliefs in religions and unfounded theories are risible. During my research for this novel, that is when I discovered Sciforums and thanks to that, I have put all theories to one side and am pleased to confirm my true atheism.
Cris said:
I was an atheist once, but now I can understand things like gods and religions so I'm no longer an atheist. I used to be like you. The idea that "god" would have created the universe made me laugh. I thought the religions were stories, "fantasies". But now I understand them. Eyes are opened through suffering. But it's not like I've just switched sides. I'm between religions and science.
Evolution goes like this: first you're simple, you understand religious truths subconsciously, you feel the love in them so you blindly believe in them, then your worldly eyes are opened, so you become an atheist, you only believe in what you see, religions sound like stupid fairytales, then your spiritual eyes are opened, you understand the ideas of religions consciously, you see the entire spectrum of things, the source, not just two poles, you become half religious, half scientific, [what you recognize as] a "mystic", and then lastly, you become yourself.
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c7ityi_ said:
The idea that a 'God' created the universe isn't funny at all. It's one of the few reasonable assumptions that religion has to offer.
Religions are stories. Thats why different religions have different stories. If they have any benefit it is on a personal level - In no way does it represent their God nor does it help humanity in this day and age on a general widespread level.
KennyJC said:
Yes, but to atheists, like Cris, it is ridiculous.
They are real things in story form. How would you explain advanced physics, like quantum mechanics, to a child? You would simplify it so that they understand it. That's what the ancients did, they took the highest truths and converted them into simple form, which can later be converted back to their original form by the awakened.
For example, the story about Adam and Eve is a real event, it's just that Adam and Eve does not represent actual human beings. However, everything in religions are not in story form. For example, when Moses divided the red sea, it was an actual event. Religions are semi-allegorical.
You don't have to believe in it. It is the role of consciousness to repel, otherwise, if you accepted everything, you could not remain the person you love, you would evolve with infinite speed and become unconscious.
Well, M*W's got a point. Let's just go with it for the sake of argument. While monotheism probably didn't originate with Akenaten, it certainly took on a new meaning. Now, according to the argument, it was this new meaning (application of the Sun Disk to monotheism as a single deity) which influenced Judiasm, and Judeo-Christian religions to follow. Ok. I'll bite.
What is believed now IS NOT what was believed then. Though Judeo-Christian symbolism is imbued with such ancient sun-worship influence, it isn't understood in such a way. This means that there was a shift in thought concerning the whole system of beliefs sometime between then and now. THAT OR, how we understand Egyptian religion is not how Egyptians understood it.
In any case, what we understand to be ancient Egyptian religious beliefs do not coincide with modern-day Judeo-Christian religious beliefs. In fact, they haven't coincided for the past 2000 years. Presumably, Jewish religious beliefs also did not parallel what we believe to be ancient Egyptian religious beleifs for centuries before that.
How are we to account for this? Shall we say, as M*W and others would like, that there is some kind of grand ancient conspiracy to hide the truth of the matter from the masses in some kind of twisted means of controlling the masses? Now, I've heard some conspiracy theories in my time, but that one takes the cake. Rather, and more probably, the truth of the matter resembles something like this:
One of the many nomadic tribes from the area of the Near East first settled in the area of Mesopotamia. Later, either all or part of this group shifted out of Mesopotamia to the west, Abraham (a Semitic name, found on tablets from Mesopotamia, not having Egyptian etymology) being the personage under whom this story was rendered. This group settled first in the southern area of the Levant (as can be attested to in the Archaeological record). These people are a different race than the Canaanites. With them, they brought Mesopotamian religious idea(l)s, including particular gods (such as the main creator god Enlil, later El, as well as Ishtar, later Astarte, and others) Not long afterwards, many of these people shifted south and west into Egypt, and were assimilated into Egyptian culture, but not fully.
It was around this general period that we see the story of Akenaten, and his diversion from Egyptian religious norm in the making of the Aten as the monotheistic god. If we are to say that Akenaten and Moses were the same persons, and that he really was part Hebrew (hapiru), then this may be accounted for in the Bible, as he left Egypt at an early age and found people who revealed his true lineage to him (likely descendants of Abraham who settled in southern Levant, and that general area as I've earlier attested to). This may account for his creation of the egyptian sun disk cult, as he had previously been raised in Egypt, with Egyptian religion, but brought back with him religious idea of monotheism, originating actually from this Hapiru tribe. After his death, this cult died, and there was a large shift of the Hapiru out of Egypt back into the Levant, being unable to be properly absorbed into Egyptian culture (just as was the case in Mesopotamia).
It was around this time that they began to develop a strong sense of cultural identity, and they began to asssert themselves as a cultural group in the Levant. This is also strongly attested to in the archaeological record. Because they began to assert themselves as a cultural group, they needed leadership, and it was about this time that these peoples develop a kingship, and it is during this time that we have strong correspondence in the archaeological record with the OT books of Kings (of the later kings David and Solomon, Hezekiah, etc... but not Saul).
So it is that we find within Jewish religious thought many similarities between Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions. Obviously, if a group of people live in a particular place for any amount of years they pick up on the local cultural identities. This, however, does not mean that these different cultures were the origins of the basic religious thought of that group. So it was with the Hapiru. Furthermore, how those different Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods and goddesses were understood also has extreme significance. Just because you adopt a particular god as an indentifier with your own god, doesn't mean you've adopted everything that is associated with that god in the other culture. Enlil (later El) was the main creator god in Sumer, and so was adopted as an identity of the monotheistic god of the Hapiru for that very reason, but this doesn't mean that they believed in the Sumerian god Enlil, they simply found parallel in Enlil with their own god. Likewise with the Aten, Ra, and so forth. They merely took parallels of these gods with their own. Likely, this is why they were combined into one god, instead taking particular aspects of these gods and combining those aspects to make one that was a closer parallel to their own.
In other words, what they were attempting to do was exactly what the early Christian mission was, that is to take whatever aspects of another religion were true and incorporate it into their own so as to root out the false and combine all religions into a single whole. This is the ideal that Jesus was said to have upheld, and which the Christian Church attained toward (which is why there is just about no part of the Catholic Church that is original, and not based on pagan religious beliefs and rituals), but that the Jews of the time had forgotten.
If you think for a moment that Christianity, or Judaism, having so many parallels with other religions is proof of Christianity's falseness, then you've completely missed the point of Christian thought. And if that isn't the present-day Christian way of thinking, then most Christians have completely missed the point of Christianity. If anything, all of these parallels that you have shown are a strength and testament to the achievement of Judaism and Christianity in their mission.
What is believed now IS NOT what was believed then. Though Judeo-Christian symbolism is imbued with such ancient sun-worship influence, it isn't understood in such a way. This means that there was a shift in thought concerning the whole system of beliefs sometime between then and now. THAT OR, how we understand Egyptian religion is not how Egyptians understood it.
In any case, what we understand to be ancient Egyptian religious beliefs do not coincide with modern-day Judeo-Christian religious beliefs. In fact, they haven't coincided for the past 2000 years. Presumably, Jewish religious beliefs also did not parallel what we believe to be ancient Egyptian religious beleifs for centuries before that.
How are we to account for this? Shall we say, as M*W and others would like, that there is some kind of grand ancient conspiracy to hide the truth of the matter from the masses in some kind of twisted means of controlling the masses? Now, I've heard some conspiracy theories in my time, but that one takes the cake. Rather, and more probably, the truth of the matter resembles something like this:
One of the many nomadic tribes from the area of the Near East first settled in the area of Mesopotamia. Later, either all or part of this group shifted out of Mesopotamia to the west, Abraham (a Semitic name, found on tablets from Mesopotamia, not having Egyptian etymology) being the personage under whom this story was rendered. This group settled first in the southern area of the Levant (as can be attested to in the Archaeological record). These people are a different race than the Canaanites. With them, they brought Mesopotamian religious idea(l)s, including particular gods (such as the main creator god Enlil, later El, as well as Ishtar, later Astarte, and others) Not long afterwards, many of these people shifted south and west into Egypt, and were assimilated into Egyptian culture, but not fully.
It was around this general period that we see the story of Akenaten, and his diversion from Egyptian religious norm in the making of the Aten as the monotheistic god. If we are to say that Akenaten and Moses were the same persons, and that he really was part Hebrew (hapiru), then this may be accounted for in the Bible, as he left Egypt at an early age and found people who revealed his true lineage to him (likely descendants of Abraham who settled in southern Levant, and that general area as I've earlier attested to). This may account for his creation of the egyptian sun disk cult, as he had previously been raised in Egypt, with Egyptian religion, but brought back with him religious idea of monotheism, originating actually from this Hapiru tribe. After his death, this cult died, and there was a large shift of the Hapiru out of Egypt back into the Levant, being unable to be properly absorbed into Egyptian culture (just as was the case in Mesopotamia).
It was around this time that they began to develop a strong sense of cultural identity, and they began to asssert themselves as a cultural group in the Levant. This is also strongly attested to in the archaeological record. Because they began to assert themselves as a cultural group, they needed leadership, and it was about this time that these peoples develop a kingship, and it is during this time that we have strong correspondence in the archaeological record with the OT books of Kings (of the later kings David and Solomon, Hezekiah, etc... but not Saul).
So it is that we find within Jewish religious thought many similarities between Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions. Obviously, if a group of people live in a particular place for any amount of years they pick up on the local cultural identities. This, however, does not mean that these different cultures were the origins of the basic religious thought of that group. So it was with the Hapiru. Furthermore, how those different Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods and goddesses were understood also has extreme significance. Just because you adopt a particular god as an indentifier with your own god, doesn't mean you've adopted everything that is associated with that god in the other culture. Enlil (later El) was the main creator god in Sumer, and so was adopted as an identity of the monotheistic god of the Hapiru for that very reason, but this doesn't mean that they believed in the Sumerian god Enlil, they simply found parallel in Enlil with their own god. Likewise with the Aten, Ra, and so forth. They merely took parallels of these gods with their own. Likely, this is why they were combined into one god, instead taking particular aspects of these gods and combining those aspects to make one that was a closer parallel to their own.
In other words, what they were attempting to do was exactly what the early Christian mission was, that is to take whatever aspects of another religion were true and incorporate it into their own so as to root out the false and combine all religions into a single whole. This is the ideal that Jesus was said to have upheld, and which the Christian Church attained toward (which is why there is just about no part of the Catholic Church that is original, and not based on pagan religious beliefs and rituals), but that the Jews of the time had forgotten.
If you think for a moment that Christianity, or Judaism, having so many parallels with other religions is proof of Christianity's falseness, then you've completely missed the point of Christian thought. And if that isn't the present-day Christian way of thinking, then most Christians have completely missed the point of Christianity. If anything, all of these parallels that you have shown are a strength and testament to the achievement of Judaism and Christianity in their mission.
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C7,
Sounds like you have been seduced by the dark side. LOL, but also doesn’t sound like you are completely convinced by anything just yet.
Here is my re-write of eventual realization –
1. A sound perspective of ancient times and life and how religious myths were developed.
2. Truth doesn’t have to be pleasant.
3. Total absence of evidence for religious claims.
4. Religious faith has absolutely no value or substance (it is simply belief without proof).
5. Personal emotions and desires are extremely powerful.
6. Understand the power of religious indoctrination especially on children.
7. Spirituality is nothing more than another emotion, it has no magical qualities.
8. Truth is likely far more bizarre than the limited ideas of religions.
9. Einstein and Darwin became atheists.
10. Science establishes real knowledge, religion has never provided any.
I could go on but that’s enough for now. Put it all together and you’ll find that all major world religions lack a basic essence of credibility or substantive basis.
Religious ideas and other spiritual concepts can be seductively attractive. And they do offset the sometimes depressive idea that “is this all there is, there must be something more to life”. In moments of weakness I can understand how you could give up and imagine something nicer – tough – that’s life – learn to deal with it.
But this transition didn’t occur because of sciforums though, right?
Sounds like you have been seduced by the dark side. LOL, but also doesn’t sound like you are completely convinced by anything just yet.
No this isn’t an evolved path. This is simply a collection of random experiences, emotions, and a confused conclusion resulting in indecision.
Here is my re-write of eventual realization –
1. A sound perspective of ancient times and life and how religious myths were developed.
2. Truth doesn’t have to be pleasant.
3. Total absence of evidence for religious claims.
4. Religious faith has absolutely no value or substance (it is simply belief without proof).
5. Personal emotions and desires are extremely powerful.
6. Understand the power of religious indoctrination especially on children.
7. Spirituality is nothing more than another emotion, it has no magical qualities.
8. Truth is likely far more bizarre than the limited ideas of religions.
9. Einstein and Darwin became atheists.
10. Science establishes real knowledge, religion has never provided any.
I could go on but that’s enough for now. Put it all together and you’ll find that all major world religions lack a basic essence of credibility or substantive basis.
Religious ideas and other spiritual concepts can be seductively attractive. And they do offset the sometimes depressive idea that “is this all there is, there must be something more to life”. In moments of weakness I can understand how you could give up and imagine something nicer – tough – that’s life – learn to deal with it.
scorpius said:
The mind's eye. The eye which sees and understands mental (or spiritual) things. When you have the 3rd eye, you can more easily understand things like: "If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never plant anything and never harvest anything."
You will not laugh when you hear something stupid, instead you will learn.
You will understand that all religions come from the same source and that they talk about the same things and the same God: the self.
You will find a voice in your head which always tells the truth. The voice of your real self. By its guidance you will always do each action in its right place and time.
You will learn from children, often more than from adults.
You will find that there were wiser people in the past and you will also understand why. The 3rd eye lets you see the past and future, and your infinite lives, just in the ancient times, but that will take a long time.
what were you before then?
A person.
You believe in scorpius, your person. scorpius is only a fraction of the spectrum of the self. The self is within me also, so in order to know yourself, you'd have to know me too. It is possible to find everything within yourself. Before you became scorpius you created me so that I would say these things to you.