A change from politics...

[sqbr]

I've been pondering doing one of these for a while, but wasn't sure I'd get the wording right. Since it worked so well on his lj, I've decided to completely steal the language of angriest's recent post instead(*).

1. Tell me your religious beliefs. It can be as simple as "I am an X" or it can be a lengthy paragraph if you like. If you feel your religious and/or spiritual beliefs are private, either don't reply or leave a note saying as much.
2. If you want to reply to something someone else has written, feel free - particularly if you want to ask them a question about the religion you've always wanted to ask but have never been able to, or felt comfortable enough to.
3. This is one of the biggies: if someone asks you a question and you don't feel comfortable answering it, do not feel obliged to answer. Either don't reply at all, or drop a quick reply saying "I don't really want to answer that".
4. Religious intolerance will not be tolerated. I'm aiming this particularly at the aggressive atheists who seem to get their kicks scoring points, but the rule applies in any direction.

I know a lot of you are on both flists, I decided to do it now while it's still fresh in your heads. You are quite welcome to repeat/post a link to your comment over there! And yes fred_mouse I know you were also planning on stealing his idea, but, well, there's no reason it can't be stolen multiple times :D

(*)And yes, I checked it was ok. Don't want to be sued for copyright violation by the big mean famous writer :)

Comments

I'm really out of it, so hopefully this makes sense.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to work this out in my head for quite awhile.

I mean to start with I'm pretty strongly agnostic. We don't have all the information, so we'll probably never _know_ what's out there. Current scientific theory tells us that its pretty unlikely, but scientific theories change as we learn and discover more. So *shrugs* telling us science says there is no god, always did seem pretty petty and missing the point to me. Religion is more than about whether or not the is a god, I think.

I do however have a very strong ethical and belief system, it changes over time, but its something I stick to, study and use to try to make myself a better person. vegetus mentioned that being vegan was the main part of her beliefs, I wouldn't go as far as this (partly in that I'm 'only' vegetarian, but also I feel there's more to my beliefs than my eating habits/lifestyle). Still being vegetarian, is certainly the main thing people think when it comes to this, its easily the most visible.

My family seems to be a mixture of Anglican and atheist though. Dad doesn't believe there's anything out there, and while his parents do a lot of volunteer work which includes taking the elderly to churches and stuff, they don't seem to be religious either. Mum (and grandma) on the other hand, gets very very angry if there's any suggestion that we are anything else, even though she never goes to church. I think this determination comes from when Granddad died though, the need for there to be a better place, so they can move on (and I don't think any truth is really needed here).

I do have very little patience for people who are the bible-bashing equivalent of atheist though, perhaps even less than for the usual bible bashers, who've always been friendly to me (I don't mind getting told about religions, I don't know that much about them, and its always interesting talking to random people). I don't fully understand the anger that a lot of people express here (except of course when churches start interfering with other peoples lives). And I'm an angry angry person.

Okay and now for the reasons why I'm not various other religions (this seems to be important to me, because that's mostly how I define my religious standpoint).

I mean I'm not atheist, not just because I don't think its likely there is a god (in the traditional sense) but also because being atheist associates you with a rather strong standpoint that has no defined ethical or behavioral structure behind it, means I don't see any use for it. As well it ties in closely to this people believing in science thing, which REALLY annoys me. I'm trying to be polite about it, but really the idea of using something that seems to be a abstract tool to discover more about the world to guide how you live your life... that idea chills me somewhat. The reason science is so useful is that it doesn't actually require or need belief in its theories (in fact your understanding is helped in a lot of chemistry and physics if you can remember that its not 'real' so much as models that enable us to do things) to get what it can give us. Entirely different to a religion (which requires a certain amount of belief and following to get any of the benefits).

I also have an intense dislike of people saying things like relgion has never done any good for the world. Because (especially at an individual level) I've seen it to many wonderful things to people. I'm not saying their hasn't been horrible things that have happened, there have been, but that often the good things religion (even organized) religion can bring are often understated in arguments.

I'm not Anglican, probably mostly because I dislike being told I am, all the while, not going to church, not following or knowing ANY of the beliefs involved and getting a sneaking suspicion that those beliefs involved don't actually match all that many of the ones I currently follow.

Hm. For all that this is stupidly long, I'm not sure I've really explained my position well at all.

Re: I'm really out of it, so hopefully this makes sense.

[alias_sqbr]

telling us science says there is no god, always did seem pretty petty and missing the point to me. Religion is more than about whether or not the is a god, I think.

Absolutely. And really, all science can do is comment on individual specific religious claims, and normally the less important ones (the age of the earth isn't actually the core tenet of christianity etc)

Also, I'm not sure anyone actually uses science as a religion. People may try to act in a rational way, but logic still has to work from some sort of arbitrary principles, and you have to choose those somehow. I used to hang out with lots of atheists, and there were all sorts of different ethical/political etc belief systems, about the only thing they had in common was a tendency not to be super conservative about stuff like sex.

There are certain atheistic dogmas which claim to be the One True Atheism, but they're all diametrically opposed to each other :) My grandma is a communist, and I've encountered lots of very obnoxious capitalist libertarians, so I understand the "If that's atheism count me out" reaction. I used to refuse to call myself an atheist for that reason, but eventually decided I wasn't going to let them tell me what "atheist" meant. (I mean if it doesn't mean you fair enough, but I don't like the way the word gets coopted by the extremists)

I also have an intense dislike of people saying things like relgion has never done any good for the world

Me also. You can argue over whether or not it's done more harm than good (personally I think it's too hard to disentangle it from culture to say) but it's definitely done some good.

Re: I'm really out of it, so hopefully this makes sense.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

Hm. I was more getting at people that go, "I believe in science", where normally you would say "I believe in *whatever religion here". Or the assumption that because of science there is no longer any need for religion. People do treat it as a replacement.

The trouble is I think, religion tends to be embedded pretty strongly into culture (even when individuals are athiest, the community may remain Christian say). Religion is certainly a great way to build up social capital in communities, which will factor into culture.

Re: I'm really out of it, so hopefully this makes sense.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yes, sorry, there was supposed to be a sentence after "'m not sure anyone actually uses science as a religion" that said "I know some people say they do, but they're just being annoying" :) Because ok, yes, religion did also used to do science's job of explaining how things work (angels moving the planets etc) but VERY few people use religion for that any more, they use it for the stuff science can't help with (ethics, meaning etc) As with all groups of people, a great many atheists are full of crap :/

I agree that religion is often very closely entwined with culture and society and may be necessary for it to function well (I'm not sure it is, but I'm not sure it isn't), which is one reason I'm not an evangelical atheist.

Re: I'm really out of it, so hopefully this makes sense.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

*grins*

I don't know about religion being the only way for societies to function well, but if I was less lazy I'm sure I could dig up the essays I read that tell you it is certainly a way for societies to function well, in terms of creating and strengthening communities anyway.