Religious Discussions

A place for more serious off-topic discussion and debates.
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Just about everything you said applies to me and puts into words an experience I often still have issues explaining to people because I don't often have the luxury of doing so.

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Vader182 wrote:
July 22nd, 2019, 2:54 pm
So instantly, a lot of the customs, how you actually "practice the faith" seemed culty and arbitrary.

...

I don't think they sat around in a room and devised it in bad faith (pun lol), it was more it arose as a logical way to get people to conform to their belief system they fully believed was valid. Regardless, it's really toxic.


-Vader
This is an important point, I think. Even if "higher beings" exist, it doesn't follow that a particular belief system is true. Especially if it leads to people claiming they know what those beings want from humans.

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Peace wrote:It's crazy when you are sitting across from someone having a nice conversation, but you know in the back of their head they are 100% sure you are going to hell. Unless you find Jesus of course.
This sounds like someone who has never been raised as religious in the first place to know what they'd be thinking or what their values are. I can't guarantee that and you may have a different experience, but anecdotally, I was raised to think that those who were naive enough to not believe in God would be given another chance once presented with the reality of God. People wouldn't be punished for what they didn't know.

Even if that weren't the case, those who are religious that hypothetically think you are doomed to Hell wouldn't necessarily believe you deserve it or are irredemable. They would simply be following the logic of the rules they are presented with. I have never met a someone who confronted me with my sins and condemned me to Hell. Internet-preaching atheists tend to take an extreme example like the Westboro Baptist Church and generalize it to all who are religious. Half of all Americans are religious and yet, in real life, your communications and relationships are probably just as good with them as those who are nonreligious.

I am not religious, myself.

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I don't even remember when I quit believing in god, I was really young, maybe 11 or 12. It was when I started developing interest in science and started thinking about the beginning of the universe. I noticed there was no proof of god's intervention and started questioning it. And I still question it till this day (I'm agnostic).

As for quitting catholicism? Well, that was even earlier. My parents are catholic but my dad is also a scientist and I was always more hooked on the science aspect of his life, something that can be proven. I never believed any of the stories to be real for obvious reasons. Thankfully, my entire family always thought of them as more metaphorical, especially the Old Testament. The New Testament reads a bit more like a historical book and has some nice ideas about peace and forgiveness in it but there was also a lot of "magical nonsense" in it that's not different from fantastical books. So when my parents taught me at a very young age that what I see in fantasy or action films wasn't real, they inadvertently taught me not to believe in religion as well. Even as a kid I was like "get out of here, that can't be real, there is no magic, it's just a story". I guess I'm way too skeptical in general and I also like to study human psychology and know how religion can be used to manipulate people and how people are eager to believe in something, even lies, to make sense of the universe.

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I’m stuck in that weird place where I’m technically a Catholic (baptized + had my communion, visited church when i was a kid out of curiosity), and culturally I’m Catholic, but none of my family are religious, and I’m not a believer, and nobody brainwashed me, but I read the bible.....just because? So I have no idea if I could even consider myself a lapsed Catholic, an atheist, agnostic, or whatever.

Like I did most of that shit because I have no idea why, but also because it sort of mystified me in a sense that I wanted to be a part of something that felt culturally & historically “ancient” (as a kid)

I feel like when it comes to faith, the closest I’ve come to is thinking “ok so there might be a higher being of sorts we can’t comprehend yet”. I’m stuck in that weird place where I criticize the Church very strongly (I overall dislike ALL religions, but I respect everyone’s right to practice them) and I hate most of what it stands for, how it rose to power, yadda yadda, but my personal experiences with the Catholic church have been... honestly great.

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Catholicism has helped me overcome addiction, & the loss of a loved one, it's a beautiful religion.

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CaviezelReese wrote:
March 15th, 2020, 4:56 am
Catholicism has helped me overcome addiction, & the loss of a loved one, it's a beautiful religion.
Same with an addiction.

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I'm a devoted, Roman Catholic Our Lord & Savior Jesus, made about seventeen predictions, they all came, to fruition Our lady of Fatima made predictions they were accurate.

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Whose troll account is this?

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LelekPL wrote:
May 15th, 2020, 3:24 am
Whose troll account is this?
Probably one of mine that grew its own consciousness while in cold storage.

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