I am not a Christian, though I was sporadically raised in various types of churches and eventually confirmed as a *shiver* evangelical. There's not much stock to be taken in that though, when we went to church (and never by *my* choice, but my parents) we generally went wherever was nearest and the people were least uppity/judgmental. I've been to Catholic, Lutheran, Evangelical and Baptist churches -- Hated the Evangelical, was too young to recall the Catholic, Lutheran was a non-event. I liked the Baptist the best, not because I felt connected or engaged in any way, but mostly because I got the sense that the people there were more genuine than I had experienced to that time or since. I've never been to a Synagogue, but of all the Abrahamic religions, I find the Jewish concept of goodliness and the introspection of their own religion to be something I can respect a great deal.

I consider myself an Agnostic -- Mostly because I believe that proving or disproving the existance of "God" is an impossibility. I think the question of whether the universe is rules by "God" or nature is a a matter of whether or not the order of the universe is determined through some sentience, or through the complex interaction of several fundamentally simple rules. If this "God" exists in sentient form, then I do not believe that this God is the Christian concept of God, nor is it the concept of any other religion, mono-theistic, plurally-theistic or non-theistic.

I believe the world's religions are an attempt to quantify and structure the organization of things, including our place in the universe and our relation to each other. They may indeed contain some amount of divine inspiration, be entirely man-made, or inspired by the origination of order in only very removed ways. I don't think it matters where the inspiration or invention comes from, as the inner-most tenets of essentially all religion appear to be quite compatible both amongst themselves and with the tenets of any evolved society.

I value religious texts and teachings, but view them mostly as parables -- some of which feature product-placement for their particular invisible friend(s). Some teachings and lessons are more valuable than others, some contain no value at all as far as I'm concerned. Many texts have perverted some of its lessons, either since inception or over time. I've not really read the Bible or any other text myself as I consider any modern translation to be tainted (whether intentional or not) and I lack the knowledge and historical context to read anything closer to the root. I do enjoy listening to lectures by religious scholars who have taken the time and have the context to understand and explain the original texts, though -- all with a grain of salt, of course.

I try to be equally skeptical of scientific dogmatism as well -- For example, I believe in evolution, but am also well aware of the fact that evolution alone does not explain the origin of life, even in its most simple forms -- that is, evolution does not explain the necessary jump from the inorganic to the organic -- Its no coincidence or oversight to me that Darwin's work was titled "The Origin of Species" rather than "The Origin of Life". It troubles me that things like "Intelligent Design" (that is to say, academically-honest ID questions, rather than attempts to say "Science doesn't prove it today, so it must be my God".) cannot be scientifically studied because anyone who raises such questions and concerns is ostracized from the scientific community. Hard science is often a question not of proof, but of disproof of other likely proposals, so the tendency to avoid questions simply because they might be religiously motivated is a trend that only weakens the standing of science in the world by making it a less-honest practice.

I'm a non-denominational christian. I've been to around 100 different churches of all denominations.

I've read the bible a few times but don't read it hardly at all anymore unless someone asks me something or I am looking for something specific.

As for creation/evolution I'm against both in a sense. I am not sold on evolution and I think it will be replaced by another scientific theory sometime in my life. But I also do not think the earth was created in 7 days by God. There is clearly a large age of stuff going on in the world, if nothing else we see light from stars millions of light years away. I don't see any reason why the earth couldn't be billions of years old. Why would God make a universe from scratch and rush to get it done in 144 hours? Each day in creation could be a trillion years for all I know, clearly our time is not god's time.

However, I think it is pointless to argue about it from a theological point of view. Realistically, there is no way to prove any scientific or biblical theory on the creation of life. I do not believe that there will ever be a LAW of evolution or creation or anything similar, so there will always be some gap requiring "belief" in something that is not provable. Arguing will not change anyone's point of view and from a christian viewpoint, even if arguing lead someone to believe that God existed, it would not cause someone to have a love or reliance on God which is the only thing that is important.

Contrary to popular belief, faith in God is NOT just blind belief beyond reason. Faith is more of a trusting or reliance Word Study. I firmly believe that God expects all christians to use their brain. When I see science I view it as a byproduct of a genius creator that developed the most intricate system of rules (kind of like a kick-ass video game). If there is a conflict between science and God, it is because we do not fully understand one or both, not because they are at odds.

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Original post by LessBread I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic high school. I don't recall ever praying the rosary in school, only at funerals.

Yeah, the rosary thing was more in elementary school. In high school we still went to mass and whatnot once a month, but our religious studies curriculum focused mostly on everything BUT Catholicism. It was very eye opening.

Awesome replies, everybody! [smile]

I'm really eager to read more responses, so please, keep posting. [smile]

Also, here's a tidbit for you:

In 2 Peter 3:8 it says:

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But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

So, basically what I'm trying to say is that the seven day creation story of Genesis is allegorical / symbolic.

[smile]

I do not believe in God because I am a logical person. You may say "You can be logical and believe in God too!" No you can't and let me explain why. If I were to tell people that I have an invisible flying magic hippo in my apartment no one would believe me unless I showed them proof, right?

On the other hand if I told someone that I will not stop believing that I have an invisible flying magic hippo in my apartment unless they can disprove it. Do you think they could disprove it? No... Basically God is an invisible flying magic hippo and unless you can prove he exist then no logical person would believe in him.

I come from a Christian family (Pentecostal Holiness Protestant Christans at that), and still identify myself with it, but increasingly less so. A lot of reasons behind that, probably best not to go into some here.

However, the questions you raise are related to my decreasing faith.

In particular, I've arrived at the conclusion that much of the Bible can't be taken literally, and / or our understanding of God's nature is flawed.

Creation, for example is traditionally attributed to the 7 day period of God making the universe and everything in it. We have very strong evidence that humans did not exist for billions of years of Earth's early history. That conflicts with the Bible. People can offer what explanations they want, but I believe that God did not create the universe in 7 days as we understand it.

Further more, as far as evolution goes, I don't think God really just made a man as we look today. We again have pretty strong evidence that we descended from common ancestors to some other primate. People can again offer whatever explanations they want, but I don't see why God would have to jump through hoops to make it look like He didn't create humans like that when He said he did.

Thus, I'm pretty adamant that the story of creation is just a story, like every other religion's explanation on how the universe and man came into being. It has no basis in reality. There's other problems too, such as the idea that one of His subordinates would turn on an all powerful being, surely he knew he would fail. Or the idea that God didn't know that would happen (He's all knowing, after all), or if He did know, why did He create Satan? That whole can of worms.

So, to make a very long discussion just a moderately long one, I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is nothing like it should be. It made sense to the people of its era, but it hasn't grown with humanity. God changed his mind before and even said He was sorry. We don't believe half of the things in the Old Testament any more, (such as the idea that slavery is acceptable), so why do we still cling to others so strongly?

Ok, I think I'm drifting too close to that flame war you wanted to avoid. I'll be quiet now.

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Original post by SteveDeFacto ...

Of course you are right. In terms of Popper's criterion for logic-based science, one needs empirical evidence.

1) Neither the bible nor the well-known existence of Jesus the human are empirical proof of God's existence. Popper's criterion is not met by modern religion (Christianity).

2) High-energy physics is exactly like this today. Quantum gravity has multiple models/interpretations, and we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever directly test them experimentally. Without experimental testing, Popper's criterion is not met by modern science.

Do you believe in supersymmetric string theory, or M-theory as in The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow? I do. It's totally illogical by your standards, but oh well. I don't believe in Popper either.

This is the book where Hawking effectively states "God is dead" as he pries apart science and religion. This simply counterbalances the fusion of science and religion brought on by (the Catholic priest) Lemaitre, with his Big Bang idea in the 1920s (a while ago!!!). Either way, the Big Bang implies a singular existence in the past -- I for one still believe that it was sparked by God. What you believe is up to you, of course.

In any case, pink elephants are visual hallucinations. Faith is obviously different from that. I don't see/hear/smell/taste/feel (e.g., sense) things that aren't there. I say screw you for even making slight fun of people who suffer from hallucinations (... not very Christian of me, I know). Take John Nash, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994. Totally unrelated to his Nobel, he also showed that you can embed any nD Reimannian (curved) manifold into a flat space of some finite mD. This is world-changing math, and proven to be an extremely useful tool in general. Apparently the guy still suffers from visual hallucinations to this day.

[Edited by - taby on September 12, 2010 11:19:51 PM]

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Original post by Pipes McGee So, basically what I'm trying to say is that the seven day creation story of Genesis is allegorical / symbolic.

I think of it this way:

When I explained to a 3-year-old what his cereal is made of, I don't try and explain what calcium carbonate is. Instead I explain it has oats, the same thing that oatmeal cookies are made from. And it has sugar, which is yummy. And it has zinc and iron and vitamin e, vitamin c and vitamin whatever, that all help make their body strong.


When people a few thousand years ago asked God about how the world was made, and He told them, he didn't explain about astrophysics and microbiology. No. That's just like giving the 3-year-old a biochem lesson.

So He said that first he created the world, light and darkness, the sun and the moon. Close enough. Separated they sky and water, that's a great simplification rather than explaining about the densities of the material, breaking down the materials, the planet core heating up, volcanic processes, and so on. Water separated into oceans, that's an easier explanation than perhaps millions of years of erosion breaking down the raw materials until we are basically flat like we know today. Next, we bring forth living creatures from the water. It's easier to explain that the atmosphere needed to be cleaned up, and how cyanobacteria was grown from (presumably) lightning sparks among the proto-ameno-acid soup, and how eventually the algae covered the entire globe. Nope, sum it up with living creatures were grown out of the water.

When it comes to the animals, I'd explain "I created them." I'd not try to explain to people who don't yet understand basic biology or chemistry about how I'd used minor genetic variation in the existing species to create them. I wouldn't tell them I started with a prototypical mosquito which has been extinct for millenia and branched off some varieties, then created some new subspecies and extincted their parents, and branched more off, eventually branching to the haemagogus splendens species of mosquito that he just smashed on his arm.

It's enough for man at the time to know it was created, the very basics, and that near the end of the current process was Man created.



If you couldn't tell, I believe in God, and I also totally believe in evolution. If I were God and I wanted to create a few billion species, that's how I'd do it. Fill the globe with amino-acid soup, get a good algae pool growing, and watch it simmer. Eventually get some lighting to stir up a tiny genetic modification, and let that change take effect. A bit of planned genetic drift here, some useful specialization here, and guide it along the planned destination. If you need a new species there is no reason to start from scratch when you can accomplish the goal with a well-placed DNA fracture.

I don't see any conflict there at all. Just a way of explanation that works for the people at the time.

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Original post by SteveDeFacto I do not believe in God because I am a logical person. You may say "You can be logical and believe in God too!" No you can't and let me explain why. If I were to tell people that I have an invisible flying magic hippo in my apartment no one would believe me unless I showed them proof, right? On the other hand if I told someone that I will not stop believing that I have an invisible flying magic hippo in my apartment unless they can disprove it. Do you think they could disprove it? No... Basically God is an invisible flying magic hippo and unless you can prove he exist then no logical person would believe in him.

Ignoring the religion side, let's look at some similar examples.

And for simplicity, let's imagine we are slightly less technologically advanced. No body scans or chemical blood tests allowed.




Friendship. Does friendship exist? I can't see it. I can't directly measure it. I can't prove or disprove it. I could only say it existed because I felt it, or I could be lying.

Love. Does love exist? I can't see it. I can't measure it. Many people never really experience it. I can't prove or disprove it. I could only say it existed because I felt it, or someone I know says they felt it.

Depression. Does depression exist? I can't see it. I can't measure it. I can't prove or disprove it. I could only say it existed because I felt it



Today, of course, we can use technology to show physical changes in body chemistry for each of these.


I have a firm religious belief. These are based on things I have felt and experienced in my life. I can't see it or hold it. I can't measure it. I can't prove or disprove it. I can only say that I have felt it, and just like my love for my wife and children, I know it to be true.

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Original post by SteveDeFacto I do not believe in God because I am a logical person.

Plenty of very smart and logical people have expressed a belief in God. All throughout the ages. Just to have faith in some higher power beyond your current realm of understanding doesn't negate all logic or cause a person to become illogical. The inverse is also the true - you can not believe in any God and still be a logical person. Let's not paint with such broad strokes, mmmkay? :P

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Original post by SteveDeFacto You may say "You can be logical and believe in God too!" No you can't and let me explain why. If I were to tell people that I have an invisible flying magic hippo in my apartment no one would believe me unless I showed them proof, right?

Pardon me for being frank but, this is a moronic, short sighted stance. There are plenty of things in our world (nay... our UNIVERSE!) that you cannot see, but the proof of their existence is all around you.