What is your religion to you? What does God mean to you, and

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Puran Singh can answer it better than I ever could.

"Love in practice has not that grand colour which is given to it in books. It has the colour of the brown earth and it has the same rugged simplicity. Distribute your labour and the fruits of your labour all around you—feeding, clothing and making your brothers physically comfor-table — this is the simple life of the Sikh. It is a poor life of love and feeling, it has no blind pride and vanity about it.”

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>>1737770
It's a way of living.

Atheist guy here.
I actually like religion for the most part, the ritual and dealing with deep issues are appealing. I was raised protestant so that's the "God" I'm used to, but it's neat to learn about other views. Church history is really interesting to me, so I have a fairly robust knowledge of theology, which is great when talking with Christians who really know what they believe.

>>1737770
I became an atheist because I was a casual christian who realized how absurd it was to know so little about your own faith and set out to read the entire bible. because this I became somewhat of a "religious" atheist, in that rereading the bible over and over again and analyzing passages has become a hobby that takes up a lot of my time

>>1737939
so then would it be fair to say that the scriptures attract or 'call out' to you?

>>1737770
>worshiping a volcano god
Ok jew

>>1737956
Not really. reading from the perspective of actually believing in God, it horrified me. I read it because I'm perplexed: How did a few religious zealots, a king with a forged document and a power grab by the Zadok family of priests in up leading to a large portion of today's world being monotheists? that is utterly amazing to me

>>1737986
*end up

>>1737986
you don't think it's possible to be simultaneously horrified and attracted to something?

>>1737997
absolutely it is. but I wouldn't say that I'm still horrified. It was just the perspective of having to reconcile it and all its flaws with the faith I already had that horrified me. Now I'm actually more obsessed with it than I was when I was still religious

>>1738005
can you understand why, for me, it might seem like the scriptures are calling you?

My religion is the body of information about how the spirit world and this world (to a certain extent) operate and interact. These facts were gradually (and not yet fully) revealed to humanity by God, the Creator of both the spiritual and material worlds, through the Hebrew-Christian tradition starting with Abraham, recorded in the Bible (sometimes in the form of metaphor), and carried forth today by the Church. Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity. He incarnated into this world as a man to show us how to live, and to save those who follow Him from sin and eternal death. Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit is also God, who dwells in the temple of the soul of believers, and helps us resist Satan and follow Jesus. My religion dictates that I must worship God, keep the moral code laid out in the Bible and by the Church, and love other people, even my enemies. Part of the code is that I must attend church services on Sunday to serve God with other Christians.

>>1738012
I wouldn't say that it "calls out" to me anymore than the Lord of the Rings, which I was for a time quite obsessed with due to how much detail there is in the story with all the notes in the back of Return of the King and when you include the Silmarillion. Here's why I would say that it doesn't "call out" to me with all the religious implications therein: what "calls out" to me the most is stuff like when Jephthah sacrifices his daughter, when Ephraim and his descendants are recorded in Israel when they should be in Egypt, when Elijah sets soldiers on fire due to a pun on "man of God" and "fire of God", when Elisha heals a man from Damascus and converts him, after which he takes back all the soil from Israel that he carry on two camels so he can sacrifice on it, the analysis done in regards to the Documentary Hypothesis. in other words all those bits which are poisonous to faith, but are simply just quite interesting in and of themselves

>>1737770
The Beyond.

God to me isn't undefinable, but defined as undefinable. Anything that cannot be lays in the realm of God. His existence is a transcendence of a realm which exists outside of the materialist confines of reality.

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>>1738044
god calls out to us through tolkien just like he calls out to you through what appears to be poisonous.

i will pray that it ends up being fruitful for you

>they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

god bless.

>>1738076
Perhaps I should have used an example of a book that wasn't from a religious author placing in religious themes. Farther back I was quite obsessed with Harry Potter. Did God use this to call out to me?

>>1738095
God is in everything so yes in a way, not that anon btw.

>>1737770
Religion, that thing people on the bus sometimes try to talk to me about. Annoyingly, they never know anything about the early church. I'd be happy to talk about the history of that.

Apatheism is the future, or not, whatever.

Religion's a pretty big part of my life but lately I've kinda just been maxin and relaxin a lot. I try to be more obedient and follow the teachings but sometimes I just cruise and don't really do much. To me, God is our father in heaven and he watches over all of us. He comes into contact with my life mainly through the power of the Holy Ghost. For example, when I read the scriptures and actually try to keep the commandments, I just feel better.

>>1738100
This makes sense in pantheist sense, but if we are talking about the christian God I have a hard time seeing how this is the case. That would mean that God is even in my rejection of him. should I die without believing and am tortured in hell for eternity it would be because he chose for me to be there. I don't know how you could call that a loving God

>>1738124
well yes I don't believe in the Christian God nor in hell, only stated my impulsive opinion, didn't mean to confuse you.

>>1738124
I'm curious, do you spend a lot of time resolving the seeming contradictions of the scripture? I know that in Islam the most beautiful parts of faith are often found when a contradiction is resolved. our attitude towards judgement and trust in Gods judgement comes from the resolution of an (apparent) contradiction.

>>1738139
No, I don't have an interest in trying to resolve them as I don't believe. But reading the apologetic responses to these contradictions are interesting to read because of how silly they often are, since they are mostly produced by fundamentalists. When I was a believer I didn't necessarily have a problem with contradictions, but at certain point you look back and can't figure out which parts of these documents you actually could call inspired

>>1738167
I see. Maybe there's a difference because of the different nature of our scriptures. Where the bible is openly the work of man (with divine help), the Qur'an posits itself to be entirely the work of God, which allows it no possible (unintended) contradiction.

Have you started learning a scriptural language, or am I geeking out on scripture too much here?

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>>1738177
I really want to learn hebrew in order to read most of the Old Testement, since it interests me the most, but I haven't put any serious effort into it. For now I have pic related, which is the next best thing to knowing the language. plenty of alternate ways to translate the passages in the footnotes and very extensive commentary from people who actually do know the language

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>>1737770
To reaffirm my preconceived Antisemitism

>>1737770
My religion by birth/raising is Zoroastrianism, but I admit that I only follow it culturally, not ontologically; though I studied Hindu philosophy as well, and like Vedanta quite a lot. Abrahamic dogmatism is nothing but cancer, syncretism combined with strict morals is best desu.
A nice shloka:
"As all the water fallen from the skies goes to the sea, similarly salutations to any God finally reach Keshava."

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>>1737770
Catholic is part of my identity even though I'm very much lapsed. I'm trying to get better though. I'm trying my best to drive myself away from materialism, consumerism and scientism and more towards appreciating the metaphysical and spiritual.

>>1737770
I see God as the Great Creator, and all that exists came into being from what God set in motion. To be right in the eyes of God is to work for the prosperity of all through the self, and working to implement the best societal systems. The only true sin is the waste of life, whether that be not doing things with your life, murder, or suicide. All other so called sins are a part of the human experience, and while they should not all be embraced, some are completely fine. I do believe in an afterlife, and I am conflicted about the divinity of Jesus.

>>1738184
I seriously don't understand at all why people waste their time on theology if they don't believe in God, is it like an irl fantasy setting canon for you?

>>1738261
I'm not interested in theology per se. I read the bible primarily to understand how the religion developed overtime. I compare it to archaeological evidence and read what scholars consider to be anachronistic, along with pondering my own flawed analysis

I grew up in an atheist family in the upper class of latin american country.
For me during my childhood religion was always a poor people and brown people thing.
It was not until my teen years that I learnt that these people were the absolute majority of the world even in civilized countries unlike my own.
It turned me in the right wing racist genocidal lunatic I am now in my 20s.

>>1738261
Why would you believe in God before studying him from theological point of view? Isn't it more rational to have necessary knowledge first and form your opinion second?

>>1738285
Why would you believe in God after reading what some dude made up? We can't study God and there is no necessary knowledge for believing in Him. We need to study ourselves.

>>1738285
my opinion is based on my spiritual experiences feeling/perceiving/talking to God, I don't need any so called logical arguments to form my opinion as it cannot and will not be worth more than direct experience.

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>>1738261
The notion that theology is a dull subject is
one of the strangest delusions of a stupid and
uncritical age. The truth is that some of the
most engrossing books ever written in the world are full of it. For example, the Gospel according to St Luke. For example, Nietzsche's "Der Antichrist." For example, Mark Twain's "What Is Man?", St. Augustine's Confessions, Haeckel's "The Riddle of the Universe," and Huxley's Essays. How, indeed, could a thing be dull that has sent hundreds of thousands of men — the very best and the very worst of the race — to the gallows and the stake, and made and broken dynasties, and inspired the greatest of human hopes and enterprises, and embroiled whole continents in war? No, theology is not a soporific. The reason it so often seems so is that its public exposition has chiefly fallen, in these later days, into the hands of a sect of intellectual castrati, who begin by mistaking it for a sub-department of etiquette, and then proceed to anoint it with butter, rose water and talcum powder. Whenever a first-rate intellect tackles it, as in the case of Huxley, or in that of Leo XIII., it at once takes on all the sinister fascination it had in Luther's day.

>>1738341
> We can't study God
And such claim based on what exactly? Everything can be studied to a certain degree.

>>1738343
What about people who doesn't have the direct opportunity to hang up with God? Not everyone knows celebrities personally, like you.

>>1738346
We can study ideas of God, but actual knowledge of God doesn't come from books. Good luck, though.

Of course I can't base this on much. Neither of us can honestly.

>>1738354
then they're looking in the wrong place
God is not in books, it's in nature.

>>1738369
> actual knowledge of God
It is clear that only God can have an actual knowledge of God.

>>1738354
everyone can have spiritual experiences from God though. Ask and you shall recieve

>>1738370
Books are part of nature. It isn't like they are from another dimension or something.

>>1738345
I agree with you, but again because I'm interested in the idea of God and I believe in God, my atheist friends even though they're relatively intellectual and educated will not here a word about God,so from what I know atheist prefer to ignore God entirely and see the whole concept as frivolous, I mean Huxley was at least agnostic and his spiritualism resonate throughout his work even before his ayahuasca experiments.

>>1738377
I'm sorry to hear that. Speaking as an atheist myself, your friends are really missing out and are buying into the weird pseudo-logical-positivist crap that passes as atheist thought nowadays. I'd encourage them to read more atheist/agnostic writers that actually understand and appreciate religion.

>>1738374
I'd say it differently, God is not something which you perceive through thinking as much as you perceive through the abstract, not everyone holds the right tools of language necessary to process this information in a way which makes sense to them, to understand God through thinking you need to think in the language of the abstract fluently.

>>1738076
>I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic
no one ever taught Tolkien what an oxymoron is did they

>>1738223
Why not become a Christian?