Since this forum has just about every other controversial topic under the sun, I thought I'd do the honors of creating the inevitable religious beliefs thread.

This topic is relatively self-explanatory. What do you believe in, and why? Do you have a deity (or more than one), does your religion practice certain moral conduct, do your friends/family share religious beliefs, does one's religion influence your opinion on them, etc..?

Try not to make your posts one word/line, and please, no flaming. >_>

I'd consider myself an agnostic, simply because I consider myself a logical thinker (mostly), and there is no definitive proof either way. I lean more towards atheism than theism however simply due to probability.

I used to be major christian. Not anymore. I had the thought that the first thing that every religion does is discount all other religions. That means that all or one of the religions are false. No matter what, most people are wrong and in theory going to their version of hell.

So im hoping for the "It don exits" theory.

I was raised in a very Irish Catholic family. My mother was one of eleven children and went to Catholic school her entire life, and I myself had to endure CCD up until eighth grade. Once I made my conformation, I decided that I never again wanted to set foot into that church. >_>

I've always considered myself to be a logical thinker. I'm very interested in physics, evolution, the creation of the universe, creation myths of ancient cultures, and the motives of organized religion. Even if I believe in the Big Bang and Protoplanets and all that jazz, I can't help but wonder: Where did everything begin? As far as I understand, the Big Bang started as an extremely hot and extremely dense cluster of particles which then underwent cosmic inflation and expanded exponentially to form the universe we know. But how did this begin? Where did all of the energy and matter come from? What was outside of the realm of this cluster of superhot and superdense chaos, and why did it expand in the first place? If a supreme deity didn't have some role in this, how did everything begin?

Also, as far as evolution and the creation of life is concerned... What are the chances that all of the elements and rubbish which the big bang expelled onto planets would randomly form into the specifically-engineered proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and cytoplasm which made up the first bacteria, perfectly suited for Earth's environment? Then, what are the chances that natural selection alone caused only certain bacteria to die out, and then evolution to turn these single-celled organisms into what would eventually become humans? It's too incredible to believe, and I can't help but feel that there was some kind of guiding force.

I suppose that means I'm agnostic. >_>

Also, consider this: the Catholic Church is exempt from all taxation,
gets donations by the billions, and preaches that you're condemned to
hell if you don't follow their beliefs. At this point, it's nothing but
a self-righteous well of income that traps its benefactors in with blackmail: "Do what we say or go to hell." Christianity began innocent enough, but the corruption at this point is ridiculous.

Also, I definitely believe in the morals this religion teaches. >_>


WALL'O'TEXT FTW!!

Oh, and I forgot to mention. I told my parents I worship the Cult of Raptor Jesus, and they were legitimately concerned for my mental health. >_>

I am a Christian.
Like others of you have said, I try to look at things logically... but logically, to me God seems to be the answer.

I believe in Evolution, because evolution seems like a logical answer to ideas like 'dinosaurs' and 'adaption'.

However, I do not believe Darwin's theory of evolution.

I think it's mainly the start of the universe which leads me to believe in a God.

I see it like this...

Scientific theory
1) Nothing
2) Bang
3) Everything

Doesn't seem as logical to me as

1) God
2) God creates big bang and thus
3) Everything

I believe in science and I am scientifically minded. I believe that the expanding universe shows that it must have started from a single point... ie. a big bang (bang in a vacuum? whatever next)
But everyone I have spoken to says that nothing existed before the big bang.
So where did it come from.
I say God.

But it is important to remember that scientists are only making theories and discoveries. They aren't the ones who started the universe.

Confirmed Roman Catholic here.

Before some of you get the image in your head of a crazy fundamentalist imposing his beliefs on you, I'm not that kind of Christian. I've been raised by my father (also a confirmed Catholic) to be liberal-minded about scripture and its implications in morality.

For example, the Book of Leviticus teaches that homosexuality is a sin. However, in the Gospels, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Love one another as I have loved you." Applied to today's day and age, I get somewhat upet about my gay friend whenever he tells me about his all-nighters, but that doesn't affect my friendship with him one bit...I can't abandon a friend I've had for 15 years just because he has buttsecks all the time.

On a related note, I hate the mindless fundamentalist Christians that so many nonreligious people I meet on the Internet assume represent the entire Christian population. Taking scripture as literally as they do will only lead you down the path of hate and prejudice, which is ironically, contradictory to Jesus's teachings.

Well said, but I hope you don't 'hate' fundamentalists.

I agree with most of the Bible, but I think if at any point it becomes unloving to follow what it says, then you're interpreting it wrong. Like... I'm undecided about homosexuality. But I don't hate them. They're still people, but they might be doing something wrong.

Lol these kind of topics tore Smashboards apart, kinda.

Christianity is pure believing.


Depends on what you mean be that... I've seen pretty Biblical-literate people do fine actually, and they don't act like they know everything. I'm aware that some do that, but it probably just goes to how the person themselves interpret it. Some even get mad xD

I'm not religious at all, the closest thing that could describe me is Deism (A higher power exists but does not interact with us) , but Agnosticism pretty much fits the bill too. (Not sure what to believe, God could be real, could be fake, don't deny either possibility).

I was raised a christian as my whole family was but i started going to church less and less as i got older and then something tragic happened and i stopped believing all together so i really dont believe in anything anymore.....so i guess that classifies me as agnostic?

My religion is supposed to be Buddhism, but I'm actually not. In China, almost everyone believes in Buddhism, but not a lot of people are actually Buddhists. It's sort of like the Chinese turned the religion into a custom. So I technically follow Chinese customs, not the actual religion.
Actually, Buddhism isn't supposed to be a religion. Looking back on Eastern history, India had Buddhism as a teaching to a good person. Buddha taught moderation. All of the sudden, when it reached China, Buddha was turned into a fat, happy, all-powerful god sitting on a pile of gold. The Chinese taught that if you were good, your next life would be happy and filthy rich.
China is messed up.

I am also a Christian, I'll explain a little bit more on my beliefs later.

To add to that, I believe that life is simply WAY too complex for 1) us to understand it all and 2) That it was created all by chance. And no atheist has been able to explain how the transition from non-organic to organic happened... but that's aside from the point.

The reason I simply do not believe in Atheism is this. Imagine this hypothetical situation: There's a world, with only two people, and there is no such thing as God. Person X, believes in God, while Person Y, believes there's no God. When they die, both of them turn into dust/get eaten by bacteria. I don't see the difference in where they go, do you?

Now that I've stated why I believe that there is a God...Which God? Well, the reason I still believe in Christianity (I was in a Christian school from kindergarten to third grade, now in a public school, but I wish I wasn't in a Christian school for four odd years.) is because of a few reasons.

#1 All the rest of the founders of the other religions died, and stayed dead. Jesus, the founder of Christianity, died, and came back to life.

#2 It was among the first of religions, the only thing before it maybe Judaism, which is only based off of the old testament, not the new testament. And so, Christianity/Judaism was more or less an archetype of which people made other religions on.

That's just why I believe this, not why anyone else has to believe this >_>

Okay, a little bit more on what I believe: I hate all of these versions of "Christianity" when people ask my religion I say "Christian" and people will ask "What kind of christian?" And I just get annoyed at that =/
I believe that being a "Christian" means having a relationship with Christ and following his word, the Gospel and sharing the good news. Merely sharing it, not forcing anyone to believe in the Good News. Not referencing anybody, but it's rather annoying when people think you're trying to force your religion on everyone else. Terrorists do this, not me.

I am Agnostic.  I believe that there may be something or many things out there that have done something to create this universe, but to be honest I'm not sure.  I can't truly put blind faith into something I can't see, but that's just me.  I never pick a fight with other religions because I find the whole topic of religion fascinating.  I think it is cool to look at all of the different beliefs. 

I also believe in Evolution and the Big Bang, but I don't know what triggered it.

That is a silly point. You know that there is absolutely no proof of that, so to mention that doesn't help your case at all.

You might as well have said "#1: My God created the world, because a book says so." In order to present a proper argument (which is very difficult on the subject of religion) you need to focus on facts, and facts only. Saying what you believe is not a reason to believe, which is what you said that was supposed to be.


This is a totally false statement. Cavemen worshiped animals and worshiped the sun as their God.

The Egyptians had a very elaborate religion, involving good deeds and worshiping gods leading to an afterlife. Thousands of years before Christianity.

I dont see how you could have just forgotten about that...=/

I'm pretty much the same as you. I'm a general Christian and believe that as long as you put your faith in Jesus, accept that he died on the cross for your sins, and believe that he is the Son of God then you're going to heaven. I don't think that good deeds get you into Heaven, but they won't go without being rewarded. In the same: bad deeds won't go unpunished.
EDIT: I don't know what I was thinking when I said that. In Heaven all of your sins are covered by the death of Jesus (if you've followed the "three requirements"), but I suppose that bad deeds will earn some earthly consequences.

I don't believe in the Evolution theory, but I accept that everything evolves over time (micro evolution). At the same time, I respect what others believe and don't mistreat them any differently than a fellow Christian. I try to have a good time with everyone and not mention my religion if I know that it somehow offends them. I have no problem mentioning Christ to strangers, but I don't go running up person to person screaming the gospel to them. I go to church every Sunday and to a youth group every Tuesday. I enjoy my religion and being around people that believe the same thing that I do.

I hope that my beliefs don't change peoples' feelings about me. I was a little skeptical about sharing about my religion at first for that reason, but now I just don't really care.

used to believe in god till last year, already did the conmunion and confirmation sacraments, i havent confessed in over 3 years and the ive been only to 1 church for the last 5 years which was my bro's conmunion

I try to dissociate myself from religion as much as possible. If you were to categorize my views it would be atheist but it's really just like not caring one bit.

I do not believe in any religion. The only thing that I believe in is the fact that humans are far too insignificant to possibly comprehend the origins of life and the universe, as much as they may try to make sense of everything.

I do however lean towards the scientific aproach of evolution and the big bang, despite the loopholes there may be in these theories, because they offer the most evidence. But I don't think we will ever figure out the full picture.

Anyone who changes thoughts about someone based on religion must have missed a lesson in elementary school.  Anyway, people who change their view so easily tend to be jerks anyway so don't worry about sharing your beliefs.

I'm an atheist raised by an agnostic with a jewish background and a seventh day adventist with an anti-catholic background. Interesting trivia: Did you know that the word agnostic literally means "without knowledge"?