Interest Poll: what is your religious background?

I don't "Hate" anyone who disagree's with my belief's, I only feel sad for those who don't belive, because I know what GOD has to offer people, I don't think you are a bad person because you don't believe the way I do.

Being a sinner simply means you are not not a child of GOD, a sinner isn't always a bad person, there is lot's of really good moral people in this world, I have friends and family that are sinners, I love them dearly. I pray for their souls, but I believe they have to obey GODS word to make heaven, but I don't hate anyone, Jesus came to seek and to save those that were lost, the sinners, he loved them enough to die for them, he didn't come to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance, that's what he said...

Please don't take me wrong, I don't "hate" anyone at all, and I am not in the least upset with anyone. the bible says, knowing the terror of the Lord, therefor do we persuade men... I have to let my light shine and be a witness, because that is what GOD called me to be for him, to tell others about his grace, to warn people, I don't want to miss heaven because I failed to tell someone else about GODS goodness, and that I believe he is coming soon...

I love people, and my desire is to make heaven at any cost, and to help others see the truth...
 
It's clear from a number of the posts that many Catheites are strong in their religious faith and I applaud that - I just don't share it. I have read the Bible, more than once. I have also read the Qur'an, Jewish texts, The Book of Mormon, the bhagavad gita etc. I spent many years searching for god and my faith, and all that searching led me to the realization that I don't believe. I am an atheist and glad of it. I feel as strongly about that as others do about God. I have done my own search for faith and am 100 percent content with where it has led me. It is simply what I believe and I do not want or need to be saved, pitied or felt sorry for over it. Please understand that when I hear people say that I need to open my heart to god or that I need to to have god's presence in my life, that is the same to me as if someone said I need to open my heart to the Easter Bunny, or that I need the Tooth Fairy's presence in my life. Please understand that I do not consider the Bible a sacred text, so quoting it to me in an attempt to get me to believe has no impact. What I am trying to say is, I would not try to talk someone out of their religion so please do not try to talk me into one. That is respect and that is tolerance.

Again, just one girl's beliefs. These are not to be taken as a repudiation or mocking of what others hold to be true. And, sorry so longwinded.

Sparrow

____________________
www.scifichics.com
 
Yes, I'm with Sparrow! I appreciate everyone's honesty; I truly believe you feel you're trying to "help" us. But I think you misunderstand what atheist actually means. It means I don't believe in the existence of any god. It doesn't mean that I'm just in denial, as if I know there is a god but for whatever reason I just won't accept him. I am as confident in my disbelief in a god as you are in your belief of a god. So quoting the Bible as "proof" to convince me otherwise is irrelevant, since I don't believe the Bible is god's word. Also telling me that I will go to hell means nothing since I don't believe there is a hell.

How would you feel if everyone told you that god doesn't exist and that deep down you know, but you just refuse to accept it?
 
Wow--great thread and everyone so well behaved:) :).

I was raised in an extremely abusive non religious home. My father converted us all to Catholisism (spelling?) when I was 9. He was a total hypocrite and by the time I was 15, I had completely abandoned the Catholic church and hated anything to do with christianity for many years.

But God is gracious and I came to know His Son as Lord and Savior when I was 24 after lots of struggle and exploration. My husband(a wonderful man and not a hypocrite) and I attend a non-denominational bible teaching church and are raising our children in the faith.

Maggie
who is coming out of the closet on this forum as a....republican...I live in Portland, Oregon though so I'm pretty lonely:p :p
 
I want to second and third what each poster has said about the quality of the posts here. I am proud to be a privileged member of an internet forum that can keep a thread like this civil.
 
Sparrow, i agree with everything you say.
Connie, now that i have faith in. Very well said.
While on the subject, i do have beliefs, i am a buddhist but even with that there are still some areas that i do not believe in (or agree with).
 
I was not attacking anyone's beliefs. Everyone is free to
>choose to believe in whatever they want. I was mearly
>expressing my beliefs. Mine.
>By saying that Jesus was born from two people who created him
>is not saying anything other than my opinion. In fact, it is
>impossible to have a baby by any other means. This is not my
>belief, this, as far as i'm aware, is fact.


LOL Wayne. Of course it is impossible. That is what makes the virgin birth so special.

And yes you can have your opinion as everyone else, and I'm glad to see this thread be so civil; but I still find your statement that it's not just your "belief,this, as far as i'm aware, is fact" more than just stating your opinion.

I believe in the virgin birth and I'm not twisting anyone's arm to believe in what I believe.
I'm just asking to please not sarcastically ridule my beliefs.

Michelle
 
So true Michelle. I guess we will just have to wait and see on judgement day when we all stand before the Almighty Lord what all these different beliefs (Gods) boil down to on the great Judgement Day. Karen
 
Like many others who posted before me I am a lapsed Catholic. I attended church every week through my youth and was active within the church, singing in the choir, participating in retreats, counting collection, whatever. Much to my parent's chagrin I strayed from the church as a young adult but would return once in a while. My husband was Catholic and when we married I started going again and found that as we started to move to different cities, church was a wonderful way to meet the community. Our 3 daughters are all baptised in the Catholic Church but as the mother of girls I started to feel very restricted and confined within the teachings of the Catholic church. I was warned by a priest that I was becoming a 'cafeteria Catholic' which was absolutely true, 'I'll take some of this but NONE of that!!!'. After my husband's death I attended church for a few years but too many times as I sat in Mass I had to stifle myself during the sermons when I wanted to raise my hand and say, excuse me........ Over the years I've sat in bars with priests and seen them overtly flirt with young parishoners, I've had a priest profess his love for me, I've had a priest refuse to come into my home to see my dying spouse and I've read too much about abuse within the church to be a party to any organization that tolerates repeated occurrences of child abuse.
Through my personal journey I have become very comfortable in my sprituality. I have a huge problem with the genderization (if that is even a word) of 'God'. Our Creator is Spirit and the essence is everywhere, I had to strip my religious background away to come back to the child like wonder of being a part of this amazing Universe and a deep sense of awe and humility for our loving Creator.

Take Care
Laurie :)
 
Laurie-
I'm so glad you posted! I thought it was just me. When I used to go to my mother-in-law's house for Passover seders, everyone would participate in reading the Haggadah. I would annoy everyone by changing "father" to "parents" and "Lord" to "Creator" and at first they were shocked, but over the years my in-laws got used to me and finally accepted me before they died. I find myself offended by references to "father" and "lord". At my wedding, the rabbi used the word "Creator" throughout.

One of my problems with organized religion is that all established religions were invented by men, for men and are about men. Even if I had the propensity for joining groups, and I were inclined to join a pre-established religion, it would have to be a religion created by women, for women and about women. :D

-Nancy

P.S. Just want to add that I too am very impressed with the tone of this topic, and I am very proud to be a member of such a wonderful group, as always.
 
Agnostic here, because mainly I need proof of God's existence beyond the normal things that people use as proof that are actually things that can be explained by science.
To call someone a sinner for not believing in God is wrong in my view. A few questions I'd ask would be:
If God is a loving God then why does he allow all of the terrible things that happen, to occur in the first place?
If God is a loving God then why are you doomed to hell if you don't believe in Him? Doesn't sound like a loving God to me.
I am not clear on how someone can use as proof of God's existence the fact that they had a near miss in traffic and narrowly missed being severely hurt or killed. That's called random luck of the draw. Most likely at the same time that someone on the planet got lucky in that regard, somewhere else on the planet someone else was not so lucky and was hurt or killed. I don't get it.
I love it when people who are very into religion, worshipping God, and seeing angels, etc. say they don't believe in ghosts. Seems contradictory to me.
Differences in religious views have caused alot of death and destruction over the years, no? The current Iraqi war and much of terrorism is because of differences in religious views/ideology.
Also, didn't Jesus have brothers and/or sisters? I could be wrong on that but, if true, and Jesus was not the youngest of the siblings, then the whole virgin birth thing is out the window.
I have seen shows where people who study the Bible have found many contradictions between the different books. They basically have said that the Bible is a book of teachings and is not to be taken verbatim and literally.
I see many people who only follow the parts of the Bible that are most convenient for them. And many of these people seem to take comfort in thinking there is something more after we die, almost like they are hoping for that because they need that kind of thought to get them through their daily drudgery. That seems sad to me.
I am not knocking religion, but these are a few questions agnostics/atheists might have concerning the subject.
 
Laurie,
Have you found another church you love? I use to be Catholic , lapsed in my attendance for a few years. When I had my son I wanted to go back, have him baptized and get my marraige blessed by the church. (I had gotten married in my husband's home church since there were so many elderly family that could not travel to our hometown.). I won't go into all the details, but I got the impression they didn't want me!! Made it very difficult for me to get son baptized and marriage approved. That's when I started questioning if I wanted to remain with them. I, too, was cafetaria catholic. I believed in birth control and questioned the issue of celibacy for priests and women's role in the church.

I then took some introductory classes at a Methodist church (my dh's denom.). Converted and had my son baptized. Right now we have a woman preacher. However,the Methodist church is basically conservative. I am happy with my decision. Investigate some other denominations and see if you can find a bible based one that makes you feel loved.:) Marnie
 
>One of my problems with organized religion is that all
>established religions were invented by men, for men and are
>about men.

I read a quote once: "As long as God is a man, men will be gods."

My stepmother and I once got into an argument about "God." I said that I thought that whatever god there was wasn't male OR female, but an essence, and she kept saying that "God is a man." That made absolutely no sense to me and a very naive thing for an intelligent person to think.
 
Nice on ice, I encourage you to find the answers to these questions. I had some of those questions , too and a very knowledgeable , down to earth minister helped me deal with them. I still have questions at times, but still believe in God - just realize that I don't understand all of it. Marnie
 
For me, this is the BIG problem with religion. I have a problem with another PERSON telling me the answers to my questions about god. There is absolutly no way another human being knows the answers to the questions/religious mysteries of the universe! NO WAY!! I don't care if you call yourself a preacher, preist, high preistess, pope, whatever. Call yourself human and don't pretend to know everything because you are not privy to information that I don't have access to!
I think it is strange that we so blindly follow people just because they tell us to. So what if they have a doctoral degree in divinity, does that make them divine? Nope. Does that make them scholars? Probably.
It is my opinion that people who try and convince you that they know something that you don't about god or the secrets of existence are either trying to sell you something or trying to gain power over you.
Carolyn
 
Nancy, I hear you sister!! Going to churches with non-inclusive language make me sad and frustrated. I have had many discussions with people about this and usually agree to disagree. It is so utterly ridiculous to reduce the Creator of all and everything to genitalia!! It's wonderful that you could challenge your in-laws to look at their traditions just a little differently and ultimately have them accept you as the intelligent, compassionate woman that you obviously are :)

Marnie, I have not found a church in which I am comfortable but truthfully I have not actively sought one out. My SIL left the Catholic church and is now an Anglican Minister which I think is wonderful but I'm not interested at this time in 'organized religion'. My love and devotion to our Creator is steadfast and I most definitely have found a place that I feel completely and unconditionally loved, I call it home.:)

Take Care
Laurie:)
 
Regarding the references to "God" as a man, I watched a documentary recently ("What the Bleep Do We Know?") about quantum physics. It was somewhat abstract, but it made a reference to the typical belief in "God" as an external being, a being that you have to please, cater to, obey, and eventually hope to gain something from at the end. This theologist who was interviewed said it was "blasphemous" to consider "God" as something external to yourself. I thought that was a very interesting point.

In this sense, I understand spiritualism and believing in God in your own terms, rather than following the rules of a religion that essentially tries to scare you to keep you in line.

Elaine
 
While it is true that God cannot be "explained," I believe that most people who try to explain their experience with the supernatural nature of God, do so because they hope that others will share or benefit from it. Of course, there are deviants out there, but there is also a wonderful and supportive community of people who would like to be encouraging others.
 
I think religion is a highly personal issue. I believe we can be respectful of others' beliefs whether or not we agree with them. Respect crosses *all* religious boundaries.

Carol
:)
 
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