What religion are you?

Fed up talking videogames? Why?

What religion are you?

Atheist
39
62%
Agnostic
8
13%
Unaffiliated
3
5%
Christian
10
16%
Buddhist
0
No votes
Muslim
0
No votes
Jewish
0
No votes
Hindu
0
No votes
Folk Religion
1
2%
Other
2
3%
 
Total votes: 63
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McCoughlan
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PostWhat religion are you?
by McCoughlan » Mon Jul 08, 2019 10:59 pm

What religion is everyone? How active are you in your religion?

Last edited by McCoughlan on Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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False
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by False » Mon Jul 08, 2019 11:40 pm

Gf is catholic, I am heathen

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Sandy
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Sandy » Mon Jul 08, 2019 11:49 pm

No religion and no belief in a god of any kind.

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Starbreaker
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Starbreaker » Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:01 am

LightWanderer wrote:Something I've noticed since joining this forum is how liberal a lot of the members are. Obviously liberal =/= not religious but out of curiosity, what religion is everyone? How active are you in your religion?


If it doesn't matter, why have the first sentence?

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Peter Crisp
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Peter Crisp » Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:10 am

I'm an atheist but have no problem with people being religious unless they try and convert me at which point I'll just wander off.

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Starbreaker
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Starbreaker » Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:24 am

Peter Crisp wrote:I'm an atheist but have no problem with people being religious unless they try and convert me at which point I'll just wander off.


Yeah, pretty much this. About ten years ago I heard something that made a lot of sense to me: having a religion is a lot like having a penis. It's fine to have one, it's fine to be proud of it. But don't wave it around in public and don't try and shove it down my throat.

I started going to AA meetings about two years ago and it really drew my issues with religion into a sharper light. I was always agnostic-atheist but in terms of belief, for someone who had no strong feelings either way it made me incredibly wary of the predatory way in which religions work. I was told that I needed to believe in something greater or I would die; that I couldn't control my disease by myself and that I needed to let go and believe in God (or the equivalent) before I could lead a happy and fulfilled life. It was two years of absolute misery trying to force myself to believe something I intrinsically couldn't and yet still I had my peers - people I thought of as my friends - telling me my ego was stopping the light of God into my life. As soon as I realised my personal fulfillment lay in being as good a person I could be without castigating myself for being a horrible human the whole time, life got a lot easier. If God exists and judges you on an archaic set of ever-changing standards I'm pretty happy trying to be a good person and taking my chances.

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Abacus
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Abacus » Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:41 am

I've never really thought about it.

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McCoughlan
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by McCoughlan » Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:42 am

I like Starbreaker's thinking a lot. I'm Christian but I hate attending church, not because of God but because of how dogmatic black and white church is. My particular denomination expects everyone to get hitched once they've reached early adulthood, not to have premarital sex and then go it at like rabbits once you're married, so they can produce millions of babies. As a gay person who doesn't even like sex and who can't be married without the church labelling me as an "apostate", the church system brings too much pain than what we should be getting trying to be close to our Father. I like Star's thinking that God shouldn't judge us on these archaic standards but I'm too hardwired to break free from that mould. I still attend church at least twice a month because if I don't I'm an apostate and treated as such from the community but I don't know what I believe anymore. God would never make things this difficult.

That said, the church also saved me. I was in a very dark place a few years ago, and finding the Gospel helped that. I gave my everything to the church but it's amazing how fast they can control your whole worldview. As Star said, organised religion is "predatory". Even in today's society, where none of my family are from my church and very few people my age are, churches encourage us to alter the social circles we keep so that when we do leave the church we have nothing.

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Starbreaker
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Starbreaker » Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:01 am

I can't imagine what growing up as anything other than a straight white male must be like in a religious community. Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who are perfectly morally balanced who are also devoutly religious - further than that, I'd say the two in particular I'm thinking of have been so fulfilled by religion that it allows them to be the two most fantastically selfless people I know - but it always bothered me that once you switch away from the religious norm, whatever that may be, it gets so muddied.

We're now living in a society where people are rapidly moving away from traditional norms and religion doesn't have the vocabulary to deal with that. Gospel might be a brilliant design for broad strokes but under the microscope nowadays it's in the hands of humans and humans are flawed. I'd rather just try and live not being an asshole.

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McCoughlan
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by McCoughlan » Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:26 am

Starbreaker wrote:I can't imagine what growing up as anything other than a straight white male must be like in a religious community. Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who are perfectly morally balanced who are also devoutly religious - further than that, I'd say the two in particular I'm thinking of have been so fulfilled by religion that it allows them to be the two most fantastically selfless people I know - but it always bothered me that once you switch away from the religious norm, whatever that may be, it gets so muddied.

We're now living in a society where people are rapidly moving away from traditional norms and religion doesn't have the vocabulary to deal with that. Gospel might be a brilliant design for broad strokes but under the microscope nowadays it's in the hands of humans and humans are flawed. I'd rather just try and live not being an asshole.


This. Churches need to adapt with the times. There's the whole argument of "they can't change because they need to be in the world but not of the world, they can't embrace something just because that's the way society is leaning right now" but they don't see the damage they're causing. I have friends who have committed suicide because of being homosexual and members of the church but the church refuses to yield. Which is sad - why wouldn't God change to adapt to the direction His kids (society) are going in? Parents change for their kids, so why is it such a foreign idea to churches for God to change too?

I wish I could live not being an asshole without having to worry about religion but when something's been grilled into us, edited our very moral fibre, it takes A LOT to rectify that. There's a reason conversion camps are still a thing - if we can't change the way we feel about God/church, maybe we can change the way we feel about who we're attracted to. But I don't think there's a single successful case of conversion therapy. Everyone seems miserable afterwards.

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Abacus
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Abacus » Tue Jul 09, 2019 2:00 am

I think the term 'conversion therapy' is a disgusting misuse of both words and ideas, as it starts from the false premise that something needs fixing.

Like a lot of things, I think it starts out as being well meaning, then rapidly descends into someone 'knowing best' and trying to impose their own solution. Far left and far right politics are both a bit similar in that respect, I'd suggest.

Yet these seem to be situations which don't require a higher authority, they really need someone to be compassionate when a fellow human being is in distress and that basic kindness is the most important thing. Perhaps, people that try to apply a rigid set of rules in those type of situations are struggling a bit themselves.

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Cumberdanes
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Cumberdanes » Tue Jul 09, 2019 3:09 am

I’m not sure anymore. For years I was a Protestant. I wasn’t raised Protestant rather I found religion on my own. I went to church every Sunday up until around age 17 or 18 but then something changed in my head and suddenly nothing made sense anymore. Where there was once clarity there was chaos.

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Preezy
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Preezy » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:16 am

I'm an atheist and I think it's actually quite easy to disprove the notion of there being an all-knowing, all powerful, all-loving God that answers prayers and takes an interest in the daily lives of humans. There may well be some cosmic entity that created the universe, but as there's no evidence for it I see no reason to believe that either.

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Rightey
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Rightey » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:21 am

Starbreaker wrote:Yeah, pretty much this. About ten years ago I heard something that made a lot of sense to me: having a religion is a lot like having a penis. It's fine to have one, it's fine to be proud of it. But don't wave it around in public and don't try and shove it down my throat.


Well that's kind of a gooseberry fool comparison really isn't it? Yeah, I know it's supposed to be a joke, but it makes it sound like religion is someone's favourite drink or football team or something.

A Christian for example believes that accepting Jesus as your saviour will give you a chance to go to heaven. In that case it makes a lot more sense that someone would try and talk to you about their religion, or get you to convert.

I convinced my wife to convert to Christianity because I care about her, and because it's something deeply important to me, not just because I'm proud to be Christian and think everyone else should be too.

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KK
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by KK » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:24 am

None, but have no problems sitting in a church once in a blue moon. They have their contemplative and architectural qualities when nothing in particular is going on.

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Moggy
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Moggy » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:37 am

Rightey wrote:
Starbreaker wrote:Yeah, pretty much this. About ten years ago I heard something that made a lot of sense to me: having a religion is a lot like having a penis. It's fine to have one, it's fine to be proud of it. But don't wave it around in public and don't try and shove it down my throat.


Well that's kind of a gooseberry fool comparison really isn't it? Yeah, I know it's supposed to be a joke, but it makes it sound like religion is someone's favourite drink or football team or something.

A Christian for example believes that accepting Jesus as your saviour will give you a chance to go to heaven. In that case it makes a lot more sense that someone would try and talk to you about their religion, or get you to convert.

I convinced my wife to convert to Christianity because I care about her, and because it's something deeply important to me, not just because I'm proud to be Christian and think everyone else should be too.


I don't think it is a gooseberry fool comparison. As Starbreaker says it is fine to be religious and it is fine to be proud of your religion. But leave other people the strawberry float alone, most of us don't want people trying to convert us into their cult.

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Rightey
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Rightey » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:48 am

I'm not standing on a street corner and proselytizing, but if someone wants to do that fine for them, it's free speech, I'm not going to convert (nor will most people) but I can understand they have some kind of conviction behind them that drives them.

I'm not saying going around harassing people is ok. People have talked to me about their religions, and I've just politely declined and they've dropped the subject, even those door to door Mormons that people always complain about.

People who want to somehow demonize (lol) talking about religion and make it taboo need to calm down.

Pelloki on ghosts wrote:Just start masturbating furiously. That'll make them go away.

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coldspice
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by coldspice » Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:49 am

Religion is an unfortunate hindrance on human progression.

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Moggy
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by Moggy » Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:10 am

Rightey wrote:People who want to somehow demonize (lol) talking about religion and make it taboo need to calm down.


Nobody has done that here and even if they had would that not also be the free speech you were talking about in the rest of your post?

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: What religion are you?
by OrangeRKN » Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:16 am

Agnostic atheist aka the rational choice

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