Ideal age/Now mostly about Religion and Religious Upbringing

[voh]

It's funny how many people would rather be happy than right.

Basically what I got from Yeowster's statements is that she would rather live the way she wants and not live her life in fear of "go[ing] to hell" than to worry about it. This is where we differ in opinions though. Because even though I've made mistakes in my past, I'd still rather lead a good life and be wrong about this religion stuff than to satisfy my temporal pleasures and be right about it.

One does not exclude the other. I've been raised a good little Christian, but when I was 9 and my grandmother died I turned my back on it and haven't looked back. Through the years, I've tried to figure out what my feelings towards faith and God were, and it turns out I don't believe in the bugger. Now, atheists may from time to time come across as disrespectful towards others, others who do believe, but I, for one, am never trying to be disrespectful. See my trying to convince religious people to think critically about their faith and religion as my 'mission' of sorts

And on the note of Douglas Adams:

     Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
     The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
     "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"
     "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

[Helm]

There are some experiences that are scary but if you keep a safe distance they don't harm you, like this whole concept of perfection and a god existing, if you are brave and jump into it, experience it, you'll be shocked and altered forever when your FEEL IT, not just have it explained to you in logical terms, when you realize for yourself that what you thought was real doesn't exist.

There's much more after this realization, there's understanding how logic is flawed, how words are wrong, how even the concept of self is just a ghost in a machine. The insignificance of life in a macroscopic view... Every one of these things hurts like hell when you go through with it and even when you know all these things in your bones, you still operate as if you've forgotten them because that is the power of social programming, but still, I think the whole effort is worthwhile because that's how you get most out of life, by not being afraid.

You will realize that you're also living a life for happiness, not truth. There is no truth. It's all words and human concepts. SILENCE is the truth.

[Dorcan]

Deacon, Teacher, Priest, Elder. Yeah. Close enough.

translation mistake.

I don't just blindly follow what I'm told I should do. It's true that I was baptized when I was 8 years old. But you're sorely mistaken if you think that I've just taken what I've been taught since I was a child for granted.

I acknowledge that it wouldn't be something easy to admit for anyone. Nobody wants to believe they could have been "a sheep" all these years.  If you say it wasn't your case, that's fine, as long you're not trying to convince yourself.

But the point is that I have looked into it. I have sought after truth. And maybe I don't know everything about "my church"...I wouldn't even say that I know a lot.

Seems like me saying "your church" disturbed you, as you pointed it out several times with quotation marks. I appologize, maybe it hasn't the same meaning as "your religion". In french we often say "your church" or "my church" when we talk about religion.

But what's the worst that could come of it if I'm wrong? I would rather be wrong and have lived a good life than to stray from the things that I do believe (because of that which I don't know) and in the end learn that the church was right.

I see many things. You could for exemple make your children believe it's good, when it's not. 
You say you would have lived a "good life". It depends on what you call "good life". I know that me living in a mormon community was insane for me. But I wouldn't admit. How could the only true church be bad for me ? When I started to know a little more about psyche, and not only about spirituality, lot of things suddenly appeared obvious to me. As me beeing masochist, me believing in sacrifice, me believing I was responsible for anyobody, me never beeing "real" when I was in a community, always wearing the mask of someone "pure"...

I ask you, have you for exemple ever tried to talk about your pornography addiction to anybody who was close to you in your community ? Telling it to your bishop doesn't count, as it is more like telling a doctor your sex problems, and you're somewhat forced to, anyway. It's not the same thing. What I know, is that except from the "spiritual intimacy" you can get, it is quite uneasy to have a real intimacy with friends from this kind of community, and feeling enough comfortable with them for telling them everything. The fear to disappoint and make something wrong is most of the time present.

I want to find out for myself if this thing which I say I believe in is the truth or not.

This is good, really, but :

I believe that I'll find that these things are true.

I have every intention of not only reading the Book of Mormon, but also the Bible before then. And I have every intention of gaining a testimony of the truth of both.

When you say that, it looks like you can't even imagine them being wrong. Which implies that what you're looking after is to reinforce your convictions, not to find out if it is true or false. It's quite a different approach.

[...]this church is either true, or it's not. And I don't dare turn my back unless I know. Unless I really know.

But if I never gain a testimony of that, then I will have to, by my own convictions, accept that I was wrong.

This is something somewhat easy to say. "Never" could be the end of your life. It's a way to convince yourself you're more open to that possibility than you really are, I think, and it certainly makes you "comfortable" with yourself saying this. I'm not sure you can imagine that case happening for the moment.

But I don't want to serve a mission simply because of my beliefs in the church. I want to serve a mission because of my belief in God. I want to share this joyous message that there is a God. That He loves each and every one of us. "My church" has provided me an opportunity to spread this message.

I understand.

Because I know...I know...that I wouldn't be the person I am today if there weren't a true God.

How do you know ? I'm not sure to understand how you did conclude to this. Have you seen in a vision how the world would be if there wasn't a god ? I hope you don't base your faith on this.

I will find an answer before I go...have no doubt about this.

This is something extrem to say. You pretend to know for sure the date limit where you'll get the answer from God. How can you have no doubt about it ? You prayed, and in your heart you felt that : "God will answer to you in some months, just before you go to mission, don't worry about it." ? I hope that's the case, I don't know how you would know otherwise... but if it was the case, that would mean you actually got a pre-answer. Why would you need another answer then?

The reason I have tried to avoid religious debate here on the forums is that I was honestly afraid that differences of opinion on such matters might affect people's overall opinion of me as a member of the community. Since I joined these forums, I have tried to be a productive, active member in this community. I have tried to help maintain and uphold what the community has grown to be. And I have tried to give back when I can. These forums are like a virtual online home to me. I just didn't want to be rejected here because of my beliefs. If in the mission field people reject me, then that's one thing. I was really just afraid that people might judge me as a competent coder...as a member of this community...or whatever...based on any prejudices they might hold against the Mormons. Maybe I'm wrong for trying to hide my faith for such selfish reasons. Maybe I'm just wrong.

Hey it's not like that. You're wrong in thinking that because this community "discovered" that you're mormon it would change anything. We're having a discussion here, a really interesting one, don't make the mistake of believing we're "bashing the mormons", that we would not consider you as a person anymore... This may be part of the fears you have to handle everyday.

Anyway, you've been quite helpful in this community, no doubt about it. And I respect you. You're not a victim here.

edit : changed some words.

[[Cameron]]

I used to be a Christian. I just went along with it for a long time because that's what I was supposed to do. After a while there was just too much that didnt sit right with me, like the hypocrisy of so many "good" christians and some terrible contradictions in what they preach. One I still can't get my head around is them saying that we all have free will to do as we please, believe in god or not, and they also say god planned out everyone's life. Now I'm quite happy as an athiest, if anything, my life got better after I stopped going to church and my youth group. After finishing with those groups I actually got a lot of personal problems sorted out, now I'm not suggesting that'd work for everyone, it's just my story. I go to Christian College, which has actually left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth in regards to religion. At a camp in year 8, my girlfriend and her friend got told during a church service that they were going to hell because they didnt believe in god. Not only is this unfair, it's also a ridiculous way to encourage people to believe. In year 9 we had an amazingly naive preacher who told us that evolution was not real, and at that time some scientists had some new discovery (I can't remember it now) which my friend brought up, to which he responded "They made that up" with no further elaboration. That was his argument and he was sticking to it. I can remember whenever we got talks about pre-marital sex at school or at church/youth group, pretty much everyone said they weren't going to. I can tell you that most of them did, but still hold up the facade of being "pure". I think, although you may see it as a sin, it's one of the most beautiful and fulfilling things in life, to share that closeness to someone you care for and love, and everyone should enjoy that time with their loved one as much as they can. Now to sum this all up, I'm just putting in my 2 cents about religion. I'm pretty happy with the idea that the world is a fluke and that we should enjoy life to it's fullest as, for want of a less cheesy phrase, masters of our own destiny.

[Tuomas]

I totally agree with Meowster there. You can only imagine how hard it is when your mother believes and her mother, and neither will hear a bad word about God. Well I usually just keep quiet, though I've said pfft and blah blah to my mom, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know that I left the church. I never gived a crap about it anyway, on a spiritual level. I can only count the bad things it has done to me and everyone.

[MrColossal]

I just wanted to post this because I get a huge kick out of it and it helps put some things in perspective, at least I hope it does. I imagine most believers just hear him speak and say "Yea but Thor is just mythology, African religions are just backwards tribal silliness and everyone KNOWS Jesus is real!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg

[Helm]

That still leaves a lot of mainstream faith with millions of people believing it. It's just depressing that man considers other faiths a theory just because his world is his immediate surroundings.

The mormons are a small faith. If they're right, then 99.9% of humanity will burn in hell. That's the workings of a strange god!!

[MrColossal]

I wonder how often someone goes on a mission to convert heathens to christianity and end up themselves converted to the local beliefs...

[Mr Flibble]

I remember hearing that people who never hear about God automatically get into heaven if they've lived good lives. Which seems nice and fair, because you couldn't condemn someone to hell if they don't know about God.

The trick is.... why bother telling them about god? I mean, they'll get into heaven anway. Infact telling them about Jesus is cruel because then they have the option to ignore the teachings and be sent to hell whereas they would have gone to heaven if you had done nothing.

That's essentially my issue with missions. Other than all the cultural rape, and arrogance in assuming your own religion is better than theirs.

[Tuomas]

I wonder how often someone goes on a mission to convert heathens to christianity and end up themselves converted to the local beliefs...

quite often. you remember after the middle age round 1500 C.E.  when chirstians would go on crusades. The fun part is, most of the crusades to middle east, which was and is a muslim area, was a great success to christians of Europe, though not because they got people converted, no, more people convert to islam than to christianity, that is if they're already in something. But some of the most all day things that we take for granted in our culture and national structure are adapted from muslim countries and brought to us by crusareds.

[Babar]

What an interesting twist in the topic!

Monkey! We all still love you, and your scriptomania, and nothing about whatever is going to change that I'm going to swipe all your modules and run off with them once you are on your mission. Despite all the anti-preaching here, you're still the same too all! I promise not to look at you different because of what you revealed, and will try with no greater effort than before to convert you from your misbegotten ways .

[LimpingFish]

Religion was never my bag.

I experienced the whole catholic rites of passage: Baptism, Communion, Confirmation.

We were taught that God was to be feared. God was love, but he'd kick your ass as soon as look at you.

My school was funded by local catholic priests, so religion was taught in class as well as those subjects that might actually prove useful in our futures.

So along with a maths book, or a geography book, you had a book dedicated to religious matters. Almost exclusively catholic in content, with slight diversions into Protestantism and other areas of Christianity, the purpose of the book was akin to "Catholicism for Dummies", and was meant to prepare us to be a productive member of catholic society.

In fact, school was really the only source of religious exposure I had as a child. My family, though catholic, didn't really place a lot of focus on church or similar practices.

When secondary(High)school rolled around, religion got it's own class and was taught by a priest.

When I dropped out of school at fifteen, that was pretty much the end of any religious input into my life.

Currently I don't subscribe to any religion. I do identify with Agnosticism, though. It's a middle-ground I'm happy to occupy.

[Gord10]

I agree with most of you (especially Dorcan, Vince Twelve, Meowster and Helm).
You might have known about my beliefs; I'm a Muslim who is not so religious and too bound to his religion. You people have just told my thoughts about religion. I want to add somethings.

Imagine you die. You were always a religious person; you had done every necessities of your religion. And you believe that the infidel people, who didn't believe in your God even if they were aware of your religion, will burn in Hell forever. You are happy, because you know you will go to Heaven.
But something is wrong. They aren't angels who are taking you to the gates. They are the ghosts of Ancient Egyptian soldiers. They take you to the throne of Osiris.
Well, you HAD to believe in Osiris. Because you knew Ancient Egyptians had such a god. Now you have to go to Hell just like the other infidel people, the %99,999999 of the all living humans.

How fair...

[Raggit]

Sometimes I feel really trapped by the notion of God.  I don't believe in God, but I was raised to.  I've had to undo a lot of programming and learn to deal with life differently, but there's always this nagging question, "What if I'm wrong, and God is real." 

Well, I'm really screwed, because I could never surrender myself to him, because I do not agree with his policies and behavior.  So I'll just have to burn I guess.

I agree with a lot of what Meowster said, and with Helm and many, many others.  Very interesting debate. 

[evenwolf]

I got the deal where I'm so tied to God through childhood, that I consider him a weakness because I KNOW he's a myth.  And yet I can't help feeling he's there.

I reject what he does so if I end up in his afterlife, I expect there'll some option to give up.  If there isn't the option to give up then this life actually offered me more.   

[Erenan]

Question: Why ethics? Suppose God does exist, and suppose he were as the Bible depicts him (if you see a logical problem here because of contradictions in the Bible, just go with it for a sec, because the logical soundness of the Bible isn't the point here). If the universe exists in such a state (with the Christian God ruling it and having created the universe and mankind, etc.), then from where does morality come? To what extent and in what way does the Christian God justify his ethical stance? Could we say that the only reason you might say that his ethics are "true to reality" is because might makes right? Is there any validity to the idea that just because he created the universe he sets the rules?

Sorry for rambling in such poor and banal style. I have little time to post during my breaks.

I don't believe in God any longer for a lot of reasons that I've explained in past threads about religion, but I don't claim to know that a God doesn't exist any more than I claim to know that he does.

Also, I like pie.

[MrColossal]

I didn't grow up in a religious household at all but society instilled the belief in god in me. Not really any certain religion just that there is a god and it wants you to be good. I was never good for the sake of god or a Jesus.. I mostly just prayed to god to give me the ability to fly [seriously]. I remember an english teacher in middle school asked everyone to write on a peice of paper "What colour do you think god is?" and she read them out, most people wrote "white" and I she was making an awkward point about race but I remember thinking back on that the following weeks and being "What was that about? And why didn't I write "There is no god"?" Probably because I didn't want to be the odd man out.

Even when I realized how silly religion and belief in god or the paranormal is I still had the "Wow it would suck if I was wrong!" thoughts from time to time, like you Raggit. Luckily that's pretty much all dead now. Listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe [excellent podcast http://www.theskepticsguide.org/], reading Dawkins and Shermer, reading the Randi.org commentary... All of these helped to solidify the fact that there is nothing to be wrong about. I didn't see it as deprogramming until I finally took stock of what was left of that "What if...?" in my head and realized that the question was gone. I feel so much better/happier now. So basically what I say is, good luck Raggit and if you ever want help deprogramming, I've got some links!

Eric

[Tuomas]

You probably didn't think of God as something real but 2hoe you saw him". None can't deny that God is there. If not in any form, it still is a word that haunts in the back of our heads. I blame the image of God that is in people's heads for religious wars, for witch hunts, for sacrifices, everything that made men do what ever they did in the name of God. and still I don't think God effects our life any more than Sauron. Though should we believe in Sauron, it would be as sensible to say that in belief of him, I do this and this and rape this little boy. There's no God, it's only in our heads, and I've always thought of the word God as a scapegoat to things you really don't want to think about. Why is there no rain? Becase God wanted so. Why is summer so hot? Because God wanted it so. Why do rabbits jump? Because God made them jump. Well then why the hell did he make some born with down's? Because God works in mysterious ways and stuff. And all that blocks your mind from really thinking about things. I think it's utter shit, and I tell that to everyone. Even my brothers girlfriend who is a believer. And her friend too, who had a crush on me. I told her she believes in a scapegoat and just shows her own weaknesses. Well she told me she doesn't really believe anyway. Dont' care really.

Although...

Imagine you die. You were always a religious person; you had done every necessities of your religion. And you believe that the infidel people, who didn't believe in your God even if they were aware of your religion, will burn in Hell forever. You are happy, because you know you will go to Heaven.
But something is wrong. They aren't angels who are taking you to the gates. They are the ghosts of Ancient Egyptian soldiers. They take you to the throne of Osiris.

That would be so awesome! 

[Raggit]

Yes, Eric, do post some links.  I need all the help I can get... I was raised by fundamentalists. 

[Helm]

I mostly just prayed to god to give me the ability to fly [seriously].

That is the cutest thing ever.


Just as long as we're sharing religious backgrounds, I grew up in an atheistic (not agnostic, my dad is a Marxist, and he does not believe in Ghosts 'n Gods by capcom) and I have never had a single bit of divine inspiration in my life. I don't understand what a god is, I never have, and I rejected the absurd claims that a huge allpowerful omniescent benevolent being that created the universe was sitting on his throne in the skies, studying the cosmos for bad behaviour very early in life.

In greece children are made to 'cross their chest' (it's an orthodox thing) and sing a prayer in unison in the mornings. I stopped doing that in fifth grade (9 years old) and when asked about it in public I said 'There is no god. I refuse to pray to him.' Which made principal to call in my father have a talk about my 'religious problem' with him. My father laughed and high-fived me.

Since then, just because it was an interesting passtime, I've read the Bible just to mess with the christians (I probably know more about christianity than the christians, I know their nonexistent god more intimately than they ever had) at school etc, but eventually that stopped being nice. Tearing down people's fallacies in their lives isn't nice. I believe a lot of impossible things, I think life is good and that every day will be better than the last and that I am an important and good person, so on so on that are equally invalid concepts as thinking you'll get what you deserve after death. But when pressured by theists I destroy their god in few simple arguments, just like old times. And my dad high-fives me again.

No, seriously, my dad never told me he thinks no god exists until I was 15 or 16. I was actually worried when they called him at school over it but I'm glad he supported my right to a choice. I never have been made - by him - to pray to anyone (my mother's side of the family is religious and did that sort of shit) and therefore I am 99% unsoiled by this god thing. If you aren't brought up to believe it, it is an outlandish concept for any happy human. Ponder on this. Ponder on the significance that I am a happy person, free from strange guilts and living a worthwhile life and by your standards, I will burn in hell.

About feeling the peer pressure, I've been beaten up by school kids more than once for my flaunting my godlessness. I've also lost an early girlfriend because I didn't believe in God (I believe her parents pressured her into that one as she wasn't exactly convincing when she explained her 'issue' with my behaviour) and so on. Now obviously, in your situation, a whole christian COMMUNITY trapping you, you stand to lose much more than sustain a few beatings and not rub the boobs of a specific girl. But it's worth it, man. It's worth it to know you've searched inside you and found what there is, even what there is in there is an absence of God.