General religious discussion thread

[NameIess]

7 hours ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.   ---   not underlined portion

Catholic in this context is using it's literal definition:

including a wide variety of things; all-embracing.

So that phrase basically means one holy, universal, and apostolic Church

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

17 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Catholic in this context is using it's literal definition:

including a wide variety of things; all-embracing.

So that phrase basically means one holy, universal, and apostolic Church

ah, thank you. then yes.

[Luckspren]

11 hours ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

Lets see:

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.   ---   yes

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,   ---   yes? wording is kinda thick

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.   ---   no, not at all, at least I don't think so.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.   ---   yes, essentially. 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.   ---   kinda. problems with wording again.

I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.   ---   not underlined portion
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.  ---   not gonna say more on this one until I have more info, b/c wording again.
and I look for to the resurrection of the dead.   ---   yes
and the life of the world to come. Amen.   ---   yes.

note that all responses are from my opinion and interpretation of the creed, results may vary.

No virgin birth by the Holy Spirit? Unless you disagree with Rune that the Bible is the Word of God, how would you interpret this \/ ?

Spoiler

 

 ¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

¹⁹ Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

²⁰ But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

²¹ And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.

²² Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

²³ Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

 

 

[Luckspren]

18 hours ago, Chaos said:

Secondly, I think it is very easy to argue that though religion can certainly create fulfillment and happiness for sure, people themselves have done horrendous things for religion and gods. Tremendous hate, judgment, and bloodshed throughout history. I think there are many, many reasons why people would want nothing to do with any religion for these reasons. There are a lot of reasons why people would think this is an extremely dangerous thing.

I can understand this argument... it's actually pretty compelling in some ways... but I would say that while lots of horrendous things have been done in the name of religion, all horrendous things that have ever been done were done by humans. Saying that humans have done lots of horrendous things in the name of religion means (to me) that: 1) Humans have the capacity to do horrendous things (and they will, with or without the involvement of religion), and 2) Religion is extremely powerful. To many people, it matters more than anything else in their lives. Which means, unfortunately, one of the easiest ways to get people to agree to horrible things is to tell them 'God approves! He told me so in a vision!'

A lot of horrible things have been done in the name of religion... but a lot of wonderful things too. And neither of those things are proof of whether believers are correct. 

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

38 minutes ago, Luckspren said:

No virgin birth by the Holy Spirit? Unless you disagree with Rune that the Bible is the Word of God, how would you interpret this \/ ?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 ¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

¹⁹ Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

²⁰ But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

²¹ And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.

²² Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

²³ Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

 

 

sorry, read that wrong. Yes to that. I need to be better at reading comprehension.

[Rune]

On 7/4/2022 at 2:49 PM, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

sorry, read that wrong. Yes to that. I need to be better at reading comprehension.

Yeah, I get you. It can be pretty difficult to understand some things without rereading many times.  I agree with pretty much everything @EmulatonStromenkiin has said on this. I would like to note that we believe that the Godhead-Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost-are three distinct, separate Beings which is contrary to the idea of the Trinity I believe. The Father and the Son also have resurrected bodies of Flesh and Bone.

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES]

also

On 7/4/2022 at 5:21 PM, Luckspren said:

I can understand this argument... it's actually pretty compelling in some ways... but I would say that while lots of horrendous things have been done in the name of religion, all horrendous things that have ever been done were done by humans. Saying that humans have done lots of horrendous things in the name of religion means (to me) that: 1) Humans have the capacity to do horrendous things (and they will, with or without the involvement of religion), and 2) Religion is extremely powerful. To many people, it matters more than anything else in their lives. Which means, unfortunately, one of the easiest ways to get people to agree to horrible things is to tell them 'God approves! He told me so in a vision!'

A lot of horrible things have been done in the name of religion... but a lot of wonderful things too. And neither of those things are proof of whether believers are correct. 

I think one of the most significant quotes on this topic is from C.S Lewis'

 

“Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the 'Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?’ But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did—if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather—surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.”  -  Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis

Edited July 9, 2022 by HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES

[Trutharchivist]

All right. This is specifically for Abrahamic religions believers, sorry. Won't really work for Atheists or neo-pagan people or any non-Abrahamic religion. Again, sorry.

Anyway, a thought experience: say that somehow, without any the dead come to life or anything like it, you find yourself in a room where there are representatives of every sect in every Abrahamic religion. But that's not really the point, because in the same room, there are four more people present. Those people are Abraham, Moses, David and Nehemiah. I chose each one for his own reason - Abraham being the starter of it all who gave his name to those religions, Moses being the first person to be a straight contact between G-d and a specific group of people and the more practical beginner of this, David being the king from whom the Messiah is to descend from and a generally important figure and Nehemiah being the latest character in the Tanakh/Old Testament. (I guess Muslims will mostly care about the first two, but I don't really know since I didn't learn the Qur'an.) Anyway, your job now is to catch them up to date with what happened since they died. What will you say? You may wrote your answer for only one of them, one reply for all of them, one for each or really every option in between. 

You can add an answer to how you'll catch Jesus up, or any of his apostles, but this is an addition, since their religious status is nonexistent in other religions. Like mine.

I may write my reply later, but other Jews who have ideas - definitely write them.

If you think this shouldn't be here, do inform me.

[Knight of Iron]

I think that my religion assumes they wouldn’t need caught up, as the dead (or the important dead, at least) are always aware of the world of the living.

[Trutharchivist]

On 9.10.2022 at 7:48 PM, Knight of Iron said:

I think that my religion assumes they wouldn’t need caught up, as the dead (or the important dead, at least) are always aware of the world of the living.

Should've replied earlier, but:

In this scenario, we assume they were taken directly from the moment of death. Otherwise I could say the same - that even in the afterlife, our ancestors see what happens in this world.

[Enter a username]

Spoiler

On 8/13/2022 at 2:40 PM, Trutharchivist said:

All right. This is specifically for Abrahamic religions believers, sorry. Won't really work for Atheists or neo-pagan people or any non-Abrahamic religion. Again, sorry.

Anyway, a thought experience: say that somehow, without any the dead come to life or anything like it, you find yourself in a room where there are representatives of every sect in every Abrahamic religion. But that's not really the point, because in the same room, there are four more people present. Those people are Abraham, Moses, David and Nehemiah. I chose each one for his own reason - Abraham being the starter of it all who gave his name to those religions, Moses being the first person to be a straight contact between G-d and a specific group of people and the more practical beginner of this, David being the king from whom the Messiah is to descend from and a generally important figure and Nehemiah being the latest character in the Tanakh/Old Testament. (I guess Muslims will mostly care about the first two, but I don't really know since I didn't learn the Qur'an.) Anyway, your job now is to catch them up to date with what happened since they died. What will you say? You may wrote your answer for only one of them, one reply for all of them, one for each or really every option in between. 

You can add an answer to how you'll catch Jesus up, or any of his apostles, but this is an addition, since their religious status is nonexistent in other religions. Like mine.

I may write my reply later, but other Jews who have ideas - definitely write them.

If you think this shouldn't be here, do inform me.

In the most pedantic interpretation of this, I wouldn’t be able to tell them anything, seeing as how the only language I speak wouldn’t come about for thousands of years, from their perspectives.
But, in a more workable version of this situation (and almost certainly the one you intended) where the language barrier is a nonissue, I probably still wouldn’t be able to say anything useful because I have an unfortunately difficult time trying to talk to people I see every day, let alone four Old Testament prophets.

But let’s say the above-mentioned actually-getting-words-out-of-my-mouth barrier is also taken care of. I’d probably start with a summarized history of the world (both political and religious), then probably a summary of our current scientific understanding. I feel like I’m missing something incredibly obvious that I’d want to mention after that. Also, I’d probably use the phrase “We’ve gotten really good at killing each other” at least once, most likely regarding one or both of the World Wars.

[tedmundboyton]

I don't think that's necessarily true.

[Enter a username]

17 hours ago, tedmundboyton said:

I don't think that's necessarily true.

Which part?

[tedmundboyton]

There are many stories and legends that I've read on https://firstchurchlove.com of the dead being unable to move on because they're still attached to the world of the living. Your religion may assume that the dead are always aware of the world of the living because it provides comfort to the living. I think it's more likely that once we die, we're gone, and that's it. I don't think there's anything after death, no heaven or hell, just nothingness. But who knows? Maybe you're right, and there is something after death. I guess we'll find out when we die.

Edited October 31, 2022 by tedmundboyton

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

2 hours ago, tedmundboyton said:

I don't think there's anything after death, no heaven or hell, just nothingness.

that seems depressing, for some reason.

[Chaos]

On 10/31/2022 at 0:12 PM, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

that seems depressing, for some reason.

I have always found the idea of existing in perpetuity far more depressing, especially for all the people who are presumably sent to the bad place. Horrifying to imagine that if you believe the wrong thing, you are punished forever.

Death and endings are not an inherently bad thing. It allows for new things to grow. Even in the good place, would I want to exist forever with people from antiquity with all the prejudices that go on with that? I'll pass. (Sure, there would be some novelty to talk to the greats, but forever is a long time.) There's nothing to fear from death.

[Ixthos]

21 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I have always found the idea of existing in perpetuity far more depressing, especially for all the people who are presumably sent to the bad place. Horrifying to imagine that if you believe the wrong thing, you are punished forever.

Death and endings are not an inherently bad thing. It allows for new things to grow. Even in the good place, would I want to exist forever with people from antiquity with all the prejudices that go on with that? I'll pass. (Sure, there would be some novelty to talk to the greats, but forever is a long time.) There's nothing to fear from death.

Funnily enough, I get that on both counts, and at the very least for those condemned the idea of eternal conscious torment always bothered me. And this point (eternity and humanity) is a great topic to discuss* for both the unbelievers' fate and the believers' fate. As I mentioned before, I'm somewhat heterodox in certain positions, and I believe both points - for believers and unbelievers - can actually be argued to be much more complicated than the pop-culture / theme-park versions many of my fellow believers, as well as unbelievers ... believe. 

 

I'll be brief, because if I don't I'll be writing all day:

• The issue with how people view "Heaven and Hell" is complicated by the fact that we have three bodies (as I mentioned earlier in this thread, being the body, soul, and spirit), and most Christians and non-Christians tend to think only in terms of a meat-puppet body and a puppet master soul or spirit (which they believe the Bible teaches is immortal - when in fact the Bible teaches that NONE of the bodies actually are), as well as the conflation between the ideas of (for Hell) Hades / Sheol / the Grave, Tartarus, "Satan's kingdom," and the Lake of Fire, and conflation of the ideas of (for Heaven) Heaven, the Kingdom and the Kingdom Come, and the New Heaven and New Earth - all these ideas within their respective groups are related, but they are not the same;
• There are three main views on the nature of Hell, being Traditionalism (eternal conscious torment of some kind, some viewing it literally as eternal physical flames, others as metaphorical fire), Universalism (eventually Hell will be emptied and everyone in it redeemed), and Annihilationism (Hell as destruction, the body and soul completely destroyed). Of the three, the one I want to believe is Universalism, but the one I think has the most scriptural support is Annihilationsim - this site has some excellent articles going in detail about all the verses discussing the afterlife and why Annihilationsim actually fits scripture best - https://www.hellhadesafterlife.com/
  • Also note, that I think the way the three bodies of humanity interact with the worlds might explain some of the confusion that arises around this topic - the body and soul will be destroyed, but to ensure that that particular individual is destroyed forever their spirit is locked away, thus the underlying pattern that formed their soul can never manifest again, the consciousness of the person is gone forever and into all eternities they will never exist again, in all of infinite time that pattern is lost, and this is because their spirit has been sealed away to eternal contempt;
• The Bible is clear that humanity will be changed - and indeed must be changed in order to enter - in the New Heaven and the New Earth, and there are key points implied and mentioned in scripture which strongly indicate that eternity in the LORD God's presence will be eternally wonderful:
  • What makes being with the LORD God wonderful isn't that we are living forever, but that our relationship with Him will be restored to its fullness, as it was supposed to be, and so our own natures will have been changed - it won't just be us "living forever" as we are, with our original flawed natures, able to be bored and run out of things to do, but rather it will be "new every day" and our natures themselves changed;
  • We are awaiting not just a New Earth, but a New Heaven as well - scripture is clear on this point, and that implies that even the nature of the Spirit World will change, that the nature of archetypes will be different, and thus that the very nature of our reality will be different - and not just that, but it will be a combined New Heaven and New Earth, like Eden was;
  • We will have bodies like Yeshua's Resurrected body, and so our natures won't just be physical (bound by time) but spiritual, which is implied to be timeless - and as brain chemistry determines much of how we think, new bodies implies a change to our minds, just as when we grew from baby to toddler to young child to teen to young adult to adult to middle ages to elderly, we are not the same people we were before, but each step contains the seed of who the previous you was, like a seed to a plant - you will be you, and you will be different, and you will be who you always longed to be;
  • We will partake of the life and nature of the LORD God to sustain us, and He exists outside of time, and is the very source of order - not sterile but vibrant and living and alive - and of creativity and of purpose and love, being with Him and learning from Him, and thus we will free to finally be who we are meant to be, and redundant elements of our bodies and minds, like boredom and pain and the ability to feel and experience negative states, will be gone - and our hearts will be changed, so that we can finally and completely love God and finally and completely love one another, no more division or hatred between the peoples - and finally free to be useful into eternity, and to enjoy that usefulness
  • Also, in brief, my fascination with the different sizes of infinity shows that it is possible for someone to have eternal time and yet, even over the course of infinite eternities, always have something new to do - if the cardinality of the one is less than that of the other, or even if they are the same (see Hilbert's Hotel), one can, if both are infinite, always have something to do and never get bored.

 

Nevertheless, even if I have misunderstood the nature of the afterlife, I fully believe and trust that the LORD God will do what is right - as all He does is right, as all solid moral standards flow from Him, as does all mercy and justice - and so all will be well, and all will be dealt with justly, no-one being rewarded or punished beyond what is right.

 

 

*(One which I think would be nice to fully tackle in great detail after I've posted the Seven Days of Creation post - I've been working on it intermittent for the past couple of months, though life has been especially hectic and draining lately, I've had lots of ideas popping into my head that derail my focus, and I got a bit distracted by the preview chapters for The Lost Metal. I might need to dial back on the forum for a while.)

[TheRavenHasLanded]

I keep reading the book of mormon and am constantly amazed.

[Ixthos]

26 minutes ago, Klaught said:

Just stumbled upon this thread and wanted to spread some positive vibes. It's awesome to see a space where we can discuss religion with kindness and respect. Big shoutout to Ixthos for creating this! Also, you can find inspiration in Christian verses and signs at Christian Walls. Check them out!

Thanks! And thanks for the link, I'll check it out  Also, just a heads up, you can tag people using the @ symbol, so if you type it and start typing a user name, it'll offer you the option to make it a tag that will notify them, like this @Klaught 

[RoyalBeeMage]

as an atheist who finds the conections between religions interesting what/how would you describe your religion as being different from a similar religion(namely the Abrahamic religions) and from science? only asking because science teaches that the world exploded into existence while several religions say that a god or gods created the world and everything in it.

[TheRavenHasLanded]

2 hours ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

as an atheist who finds the conections between religions interesting what/how would you describe your religion as being different from a similar religion(namely the Abrahamic religions) and from science? only asking because science teaches that the world exploded into existence while several religions say that a god or gods created the world and everything in it.

Here's my explanation: Basically, God created everything in harmony with science. Yes, the world kinda blew up into existence, but I believe that God created the universe in this way. I don't understand how that worked, nor do I know how God managed to do this, but I believe that he gave us science to allow us to learn and have greater knowledge of the world so that we can have knowledge of the things of God on a temporal scale. That's just me though.

[NameIess]

3 hours ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

as an atheist who finds the conections between religions interesting what/how would you describe your religion as being different from a similar religion(namely the Abrahamic religions) and from science? only asking because science teaches that the world exploded into existence while several religions say that a god or gods created the world and everything in it.

I'm a Christian so my religion is an Abrahamic religion, but on a basic level Christianity's beliefs differ from those of Islam and Judaism in that we believe Jesus is the son of God who died for our sins and rose from the dead. As for how Christianity differs from science, I don't think it does. The Bible says that God existed before the universe and created it, but it doesn't go into detail about how God created it.

Edited January 31 by NameIess

[TheRavenHasLanded]

4 minutes ago, NameIess said:

I'm a Christian so my religion is an Abrahamic religion, but on a basic level Christianity's beliefs differ from those of Islam and Judaism in that we believe Jesus is the son of God who died for our sins and rose from the dead. As for how Christianity differs from science, I don't think it does. The Bible says that God existed before the universe and created it, but it doesn't go into detail about how God created it.

... you put that better than my long winded explanation.

[Trutharchivist]

4 hours ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

as an atheist who finds the conections between religions interesting what/how would you describe your religion as being different from a similar religion(namely the Abrahamic religions) and from science? only asking because science teaches that the world exploded into existence while several religions say that a god or gods created the world and everything in it.

I could say a thing or two about science and religion, but Nameless put it rather fine, I think. I would add that compared to the belief that the world was never created and always existed - a belief that was common among philosophers from 1000 years ago - the Big Bang is relatively easy to settle with the creation story. Another thing to ponder is what is the goal of science, what is the goal of religion, and how much they actually operate in the same field - but that's a different story.

I'm an Orthodox Jew. My religion differs from the other Abrahamic religions in a couple of things - we're the oldest Abrahamic religion, we're an ethno-religion - meaning a Jew is both someone who practices Judaism and someone who is ethnically Jewish. We also don't look to convert - though we do accept converts.

We differ from Christianity in not believing G-d ever took a physical form, and in keeping the commandments of the Torah (the Pentateuch, basically, though it can get more complex) - a complex system of rules is derived from it, which we call Halacha. We also keep a calendar that combines solar years with lunar months. We differ from Islam in many details, but the calendar and not believing Muhammad was a prophet are two of the major ones.

[JJDReffitt]

I haven’t read the ENTIRE forum, but…

I, like many of my generation I’d think (I am the ripe age of 24), were raised with religion and religious values. But upon seeing the darker side religion can bring out of people, I abandoned my belief in the 7th grade. I was… 13 or 14? I became an Atheist from that moment forward.

Now, forgive me, but to get to my point I must provide context. (Or maybe I don’t I just feel the want to do so).

 

Near the end of my stint in college I began to reform my ideals and views, again. Suffice it to say I had some… issues to work through, and I did so by going ‘full nut job’ and researching Confucianism (and then writing my own interpretations based on modern views. Cringe, I know). This was mostly brought on by my fascination with East Asian culture.
 

I was a Japan studies major at one point, switched to minor, but I still practice my Japanese language skills after my drop out. From this stemmed my interest in Shinto.

 

All of this culminates into my religious view, you see. I believe everything has energy, EVERYTHING. And in a scientific sense it does. The only vacuum where there are no particles is outer space, the greatest unknown. Even still, there are rogue particles which carry charges.

 

More to the religious point, I believe it is the morality of our actions that determines our charges as we progress through life. We are all born into this world with a neutral moral charge, and as we progress we accrue charge, positive or negative. When we die… Well I don’t know the logistics of moral energy ghosts, but your moral charge determines your reincarnation (I forgot to mention my brief interest in Buddhism).

 

Well at any rate, the point in my making this post to begin with was to get help putting a name to this belief of mine. I must express, I do not believe in a deity. If anything, much as Shinto, I believe we are all deities in our own right. I believe the universe was born of neutral energy and thus we were all born at the beginning of time. We are merely manifestations of the universe experiencing itself. I guess I’m one of those folk from Stormlight, I feel bad for having forgotten the name of the religion.

 

But again I digress, and now I throw the ball to your alls court, the court of public opinion. How nuts am I, oh great jury of my peers? Or better yet, what think you of my belief? I am genuinely curious. Oh, and please help me identify my a name for this. Thanks for coming to my ted talk