God

[Master of Blades]

I know for a fact that there is a lot of religeons on this board and people who believe in them but I just wanted to hear everyones opinion on the subject. Who actually believes in God and why? If you dont what dont you believe about or is just the idea of it all? Me personally I'm Jewish by name but I have chosen Atheist because I dont believe in God and on the whole I believe Religeon is a bad thing. I'm thinking of becoming Jedi cuz thats the only Religeon that makes any sense to me at the moment.

P.s Can we have no religeon bashing here.....I just want to here views etc :shrug:

 

[yilisifu]

Havbing studied and practiced Buddhism and later, Daoism for many years, I am a hardcore Christian.

Organized religion certainly has had it's negative points, but that doesn't mean the doctrine is bad...just as if a given martial arts practicioner goes out and gets crazy and kills someone, that should not reflect on the martial arts as a whole. His actions do not mean that martial arts is wrong or "bad"; only that HE is.

So I am a Christian and I'll be the first in line to stand up and say it.

 

[Seig]

I'm born a Jew. I have studied every major religion in the world. Guess what, they all have a common underling theme. After experiencing real miracles in my own life, I have had to redefine who I am and what I believe in. Each man's relationship, or lack thereof, with God is his own. Having seen things that make me believe, I am a Jew that believes the messiah has come.

 

[jfarnsworth]

Well I'm of the prodistant faith. I get into church only sometimes. It's hard to try to get up on sunday and make the drive in but it's worth it when you feel better. I have many problems in my life that just drain the entire s*** out of me but that's life. One day we'll all meet the big man in some way shape or form. That's my story and I'm going to stick to that and if anyone wants to talk any further about it you must pm me. That's the only way you'll get me to talk more about the subject.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Practicing Pagan. Celtic and Egyptian influences, with a good Taoistic flavor. Primarily Egyptian symbology and concepts.


:asian:

 

[Cliarlaoch]

I'm Christian. Baptized Salvation Army, and baptized again by choice later in life.

I don't know exactly why, but I just got this feeling that there was a cause behind all the coincidences in my life, and began reading the Bible. It made sense. Call it divine revelation, call it faith, call it what you want, but God gave me a wakeup call, and I answered... I had been very agnostic for years, but that all changed when I met my fiancee... weird that, eh? Pascal's wager had an impact too...

I have no problems with people of any religion... I don't necessarily like some (if someone's Satanic, I WILL get in their face about it, for obvious reasons), but on the whole... God gave us free choice, and I've made mine (that is, to serve and follow Christ).

--Cliarlaoch

 

[chufeng]

Born and raised Catholic...
Left that religion as a Sophomore in high school.
Wandered and studied a variety of religions to include Buddhism, Taoism (they are actually more philosophies and disciplines at their core), and Hindu...

I am a Christian, though...and practice Zen meditation...much like the contemplative disciplines in the old church (before the Catholic church forbade such things)...

I am interested in ALL world views...better communication between people is probably the best way to AVOID conflict...

Forcing an ideology down someone's throat is the qickest way to lose someone...

We each believe that our belief is THE way...and that is fine...I do not have an overwhelming urge to kill someone because he or she does not see the world as I do. Hopefully, I can live my life in such a way so others will want to follow a similar path.

I do not preach...but if someone ASKS, I will share my thoughts on it...and I always preface my statements with, "I could be wrong, but..."

:asian:
chufeng

 

[Mon Mon]

Im a christian

 

[Pakhet]

Baptized Methodist at birth, raised Southern Baptist, I'm now an eclectic pagan, heavy on the celtic and egyptian symbolism. I study just about everything, though...reading the Goetia right now.

Lisa

 

[Abbax8]

I was born and raised a Catholic, drifted away for a while, studied aspects of Eastern faiths and even dabbled in the occult. Now I'm back home in the Catholic faith and taking the time to learn what the church REALLY teaches. So far it all makes sense to ME. More than that, I am filled with something that helps me to be the father and husband I need to be.

Peace
Dennis

 

[Abbax8]

Originally posted by Chufeng

I am a Christian, though...and practice Zen meditation...much like the contemplative disciplines in the old church (before the Catholic church forbade such things)...

The church today does not forbid contemplative meditation- it highly recommnends it. Examples are the Rosary, Centering Prayer, Eucharistic Adoration.


Peace
Dennis

 

[Nightingale]

raised Roman Catholic. I found too many things about Catholicism in particular and Christianity in general that I didn't like, particularly its intolerance of people who believe differently, and its active conversion strategies. My view is that if people have an interest in your faith, they will seek you out. There is no need to actively recruit. For some reason, many christians are intolerant of other religions to the point of feeling threatened by them. Other religions, however, for the most part tend to be rather tolerant of christianity. I don't care what path you walk as long as you don't try to trample on mine. Open dialogue is good. "You're going to hell if you don't convert!" is bad.

I found Wicca/Paganism in high school. Nobody "recruited" me. I found it on my own in a book, found the ideas in the book meshed with everything I already believed, and actively sought out others on the same path. What really struck me was the two main ideas. The first is "There is no one true way." Each person needs to follow their own path. No path is better or worse than anyone else's, just different. We're all different people, and naturally, we will approach the concept of god and religious faith differently.

The second was "If it harms none, do what you will." This means that your actions shouldn't cause pain or suffering to anyone or anything, yourself included. What it pretty much amounts to is that if your actions don't help someone out, make someone feel good, or spread a little love around, it probably isn't something you should be doing. It also stretches to include inaction. If anyone (yourself included) is harmed by your failing to act, then you've still violated the rule, so you can't just say "I don't want to get involved." because by being human and a member of society, you are already involved. The problem I always had with the ten commandments is that I found people doing evil things and justifying them because they weren't forbidden by those rules.

Wicca really doesn't have any "sacred texts" or bibles or whatever. I've found that religions with large texts can twist the text to mean whatever they need it to mean to suit their purpose through selective editing. They also don't always take into account the historical times in which the documents were written, and even if those documents were divinely inspired, they were still written through a human "lens" and human beings are just that. Human.

"Harm none" is kind of hard to screw up. Its more a way of life than a way of religion. Being Wiccan means that I see God in everything and everyone. It makes me accountable for my actions.

Many people are afraid of Wicca and Wiccans (who sometimes call themselves "white witches") mainly because they don't understand. Wiccans sometimes use the term "witch" because it relates to the pre christian European idea of the "wise woman", "witch" or "herbalist". we don't fly on broomsticks and turn people into frogs. We have no "magic" beyond that magic that every human being possesses. What we call "spells" are nothing more than prayers and prayer rituals, just like church, and many of the christian rituals have pagan roots... you know Easter? the name comes from the pagan festival of
Eostara (EE-star-uh), the spring holiday. That's why you eat chocolate rabbits, think about little baby chicks, and color eggs...they're pagan fertility symbols. The early christians set their festival of life at the same time and adopted the same symbols.

Pagans and Christians are two branches of the same tree. We both respect life and the world we live in, and want to change it for the better. We love our friends, our families, and our world, and would never harm another human being without due cause.

If you have a question about wicca, ask a wiccan. please. don't assume. don't generalize. and please don't assume that what your priest or pastor says about us is correct, because they probably don't know any more than you do.

Good books to look at for more information are:

anything by Silver Ravenwolf
anything by Scott Cunningham
Pagans and Christians (forget author's name...its written by a christian, though, and is a very interesting read. the man has done his research well on both sides of the issue).

respectfully,

-N-

 

[Kiz Bell]

Hi,

I am a Witch and a Pagan but I am not Wiccan. I have been a witch for about 17 or 18 years now. The most common question I get asked is are you a white witch or a black witch? I tell 'em I'm a Green Witch! Depending on my mood I might also call myself a Kitchen Witch. I don't call myself a Wiccan because my main influences are from traditional Norse and Celtic witchcraft/shamanism rather than the Alexandrian or whatever style Wicca I've seen.

Real witchcraft is about as similar to Charmed as your local dojo is to the Power Rangers. Witchcraft also has nothing to Satanism either. Satan is a Christian concept. Witchcraft does have a God/Goddess figure though. Being female I naturally gravitate toward the Goddess side though.

For me witchcraft is less about rituals and covens (I'm not in one) than it is about healing (both people and animals) through herbalism, healing through massage and counselling, and other related skills, as well as the growing, care and identification of medicinal plants, and the care of people and animals in sickness and in health. My spiritual path also requires strict vegetarianism. I have not eaten any meat or byproducts for over 16 years now.

But that is my path. Other witches may follow different ones. Just like other religions, witchcraft/paganism/wicca is incredibly diverse, and gets it's fundementalist fruitcakes like all others - but don't judge all of us witches by them. They're no more representative of this religion that your local bible-bashing born again Jesus-freak is of general Christianity.

"Blessed Be", Kiz

 

[Bob Hubbard]

A couple of side threads to this discussion would be, does your faith help, hinder or have no effect your training?

How does a Christian resolve the 'turn the other cheek' or the Wiccan the 'Harm None' aspects with martial training?

With the obvious 'flavoring' of religions other than your own in the arts, how do you deal with the conflicts between your beliefs and the traditions of the art you study?

Did you select an art based on its 'compatability' with you own belief system?

These are the questions I come up with when I think about thise subject... if anyone would like to pick up any of them for discussion, please start a new thread.

I personally find it interesting that the members of this board cross all nationalities, all races, genders, religions and orientations, and for the most part, can communicate in positive manners.


Nightingale, I used to work with Paul Telesco, husband of Trish Telesco. Wonderful woman, terrific author and an excelent cook. I had my first lesson in japanese sword techniques at their house. Haven't seen em in years though. heh.

:asian:

 

[Blindside]

I'm used to be an agnostic, now I'm an atheist.

Generally I believe that the concept of God or an afterlife is a mental crutch to help people face the world. (As in: "God is testing me," or "I prayed to God for help," or "everything is OK, so-in-so is in a better place now.)

I follow an ethic that is derived from a Judeo/Christian system, but I believe that morality can be taught independent of a religious framework. I think that religions got alot of things right when they set up their moral frameworks, but that it usually because the same types of frameworks tend to make societies work best.

I believe that we exist because some DNA fragments we are carrying around are attempting to replicate and we are an extremely successful method of replication.

I do not recruit people into my belief system and do not usually initiate discussions on religion, but I'm always up for a good debate. (I've had a couple of doozies with a Campus Crusade for Christ director when I was in college, it was good clean fun.)

Lamont

 

[TLH3rdDan]

well being from "The South" and "The Bible Belt" this question pops up alot and i ussually end up pi$$ing alot of people off around here :rofl: go figure huh... im an atheist... i believe that religions and gods or supreme beings were created simply to give answers to things people did not have answers for... take most ancient religions were you had a god or goddess that was resposible for every single aspect of the world... it was just a way of explaining things... then someone got smart and rolled all the gods and goddesses up into one god... not a bad thing... and i believe that they were created to keep everyone in line with the old lines of dont do that youll go to hell or something along those lines...

 

[Blindside]

Hey TLH,

You know you are going to Hell right???

:rofl:

Lamont

 

[TLH3rdDan]

well if there is a hell i wont be alone and it will be the biggest party of all times... im sure heaven would be pretty boring without ozzy, ac/dc, the stones, and countless other bands...

 

[Rich Parsons]

As for my Beliefs, I was raised in an agnostic Christian house hold from to parents who were raised as strick Seventh Day Adventists.

I have perused the Old Testiment, the New Testiment, The Koran (* Qu'ran *), some Dao, Budhism, Ancentor worship and the spritis of Nature (* Native American *)

I have even read Nietzsche and his treatise God is Dead.
"Yet I was to choose to Believe would not my Belief then be Greater, knowing that God does not exist"

And I also have many classes in Science/Physics and Chemistry, etc., ..., .


I have a personal belief system out of this I call

Zen Agnostic who recognizes that there is to much commonality in the make up of the universe to have had it created by random.
(* My Path is for me and I expect no one else to follow it or to even understand it. *)

I also believe that our planet is not alone in the Universe. We are located on the outer tip of one of the spirals of the Milky Way which as Galaxy's goes is small and no where near the center. If you argue we are the only life in the Universe. In Engineering if you have billion data points that give you a constant and one that gives you an anomaly, you basically make a foot note of it and go with the constant. In this case the constant would be no life in the Universe.


Remeber you all asked !

 

[Nightingale]

in wicca, self defense is not only justified, it is MANDATORY under the rule of "harm none." "Harm none" covers both action and INACTION, so therefore, if, by your own inaction, you allow yourself to be harmed, you violate the rule. Thus, you must defend yourself in order to minimize the amount of harm done. The harm is minimized, because although you may cause injury to the other party, you aren't going to cause rape or murder.

For all you christians out there, self defense is permitted (or at least, not prohibited) by the ten commandments. There are two versions of a particular commandment. some books say "thou shalt not kill." while others say "thou shalt not murder." if you trace the bible back to the original aramaic text (or even back to the latin), you discover that the word used translates much closer to murder than to kill. therefore, one could draw the conclusion, that since the writers of the book got that specific regarding murder, that some kinds of harm and killing could be acceptable under certain circumstances.