Flynn11:
Personally i do not believe in religion i do not believe their is a "god" or their is some mighty spirit who created everything i believe their is a logical answer to everything.

However i wish i did believe in a "god" as then you always have someone to turn to and their will always be hope aslong as god is their.

The people like me who are athiests i feel sorry for as they do not have the hopes and beliefs of thiests.

See, stuff like this annoys me. You don't have to see things in such black and white terms. You can be an atheist and still believe that there is more to the universe than we can see. After all, the Universe is the most vast, complicated thing in existence. In fact, it is existence. It's so complex we will never truly understand it. Have you heard, for instance, about the theory that we only live in 3 out of a possible 10 or 11 dimensions of existence. What happens in those other dimensions, who knows. Just because there may not be a god, doesn't mean the Universe is any less wondrous or amazing.

ike_luv:
Now now kids calm down!! Before the fire from the seventh level of lucifer burns bright amongst the hate for christians, and the chances of reaching ramadan this year are cut short for the Muslims, I'd like to see the calm before the storm...not before the storm cos I'd prefer no storm, but you know what I mean!.

I am Christian, only in the sense that I believe in God, I accept that my uncle is Muslim, and my sister is an atheist. Is there ANYONE online that shares an acceptance and love for diversity, even in beliefs? If you disagree, I might suggest a carefully and ELOQUENTLY written argument!! If you cannot control silly retorts and uneducated comments, put them on YouTube where no one seems to mind.

I'm all for a broad religious spectrum. Being that all world religions started in different places anyways, it'd be impossible for people to have the same beliefs geographically speaking.

I for one, consider myself Buddhist at best. I don't believe in Buddha as a savior or God or anything, just a teacher and an enlightened person. I believe in Karma, reincarnation based upon karma, and the ability to reach Nirvana. I believe in God in the sense that there is a "creating, 'holy' spirit" amongst us. However I don't believe in God as an omnipresent watcher and judge over us. I see God as existance in itself, the things that live and exist amongst the universe (because to me, existance is proof of God). So I believe that being kind and benevolent to other people, and being good towards nature, is me being good to God. In my belief, everyone is part of God (not made by God). When I'm a decent person to those around me and the Earth, I achieve good karma, and incease my chances of a positive reincarnation or nirvana.

I don't catch as much serious flak as you'd think for a U.S. southern non-Asian Christian-to-Buddhist convert would. So I suppose I'm lucky. But yeah, I went through a crisis of faith after someone close to me passed away, and I couldn't drive myself to be an athiest because I suppose I was too optimistic I suppose to accept the "no God, no afterlife" thing. I accept scientific theories on creation such as the Big Bang and evolutionary theory. I just figure that God was what guided that process and was a part of that process instead of it just being for no reason. To me, there's no point to existance, no reason for it, unless something started it. So, thats validation enough for me to believe in God.

And even though I don't agree with other, sometimes more fanatic, religions, I still completely accept their right to believe what they want. I've never talked to a person about my fath without being asked, and I've never talked to anyone with the intent to convert them. I find that sort of thing wrong. I was never converted, I converted myself from research (I didn't even know a Buddhist at the time). So, let people do as they wish, worship what they want. No one has any right to say whats wrong or right.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

Flynn11:
Personally i do not believe in religion i do not believe their is a "god" or their is some mighty spirit who created everything i believe their is a logical answer to everything.

However i wish i did believe in a "god" as then you always have someone to turn to and their will always be hope aslong as god is their.

The people like me who are athiests i feel sorry for as they do not have the hopes and beliefs of thiests.

See, stuff like this annoys me. You don't have to see things in such black and white terms. You can be an atheist and still believe that there is more to the universe than we can see. After all, the Universe is the most vast, complicated thing in existence. In fact, it is existence. It's so complex we will never truly understand it. Have you heard, for instance, about the theory that we only live in 3 out of a possible 10 or 11 dimensions of existence. What happens in those other dimensions, who knows. Just because there may not be a god, doesn't mean the Universe is any less wondrous or amazing.

Have one of Iron Ninjas cigars, with my compliments.

anNIALLator:
I don't bother with religion because there are so many. What's the point when you are basically just picking and hoping it's the right one? Like that episode of South Park where people get sent to hell and the organiser says, 'i'm sorry, the correct answer was mormon.'
If did choose one it wouldn't be Christianity. I'd pick one of the fun, happy religions like Hinduism.

Oooh!! You know I'm glad you mentioned South Park. Not my choice of episode though. I can't remember the name but it's the one with the Mormon family who tell Stan the story of how the bible was written according to them. It all seems like a load of rubbish until the end wherein the kid basically says, "You know what, I'm happy and my family's happy. I love my life, and if you're too busy up on your high horse about what you belief then I don't wanna be friends with you."

That killed it for me! I know it's South Park (I mean COME ON!), but they did make a damn good point.

IF anyone gets this far, could they quote this question with a response so people understand the context!... *If carefully approached, can religion still do good for the world?*

im cathlic and i accept everyone

Religion is the cheat sheet to life; I'd rather solve the questions on my own than copy the answers from somebody else.

I vote whatever makes you happy, but I'll add "so long as it doesn't negatively effect the lives of others." In other words, be free to worship whatever god(s) you want, so long as they aren't telling you to convert or kill me...

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

Flynn11:
Personally i do not believe in religion i do not believe their is a "god" or their is some mighty spirit who created everything i believe their is a logical answer to everything.

However i wish i did believe in a "god" as then you always have someone to turn to and their will always be hope aslong as god is their.

The people like me who are athiests i feel sorry for as they do not have the hopes and beliefs of thiests.

I love seeing the universe for what it is, science is awesome and i don't care about wishing here was more to it.

I suppose it would be like going to the Northern Lights universe and seeing everyone with their companion daemon and not caring that i didn't have one

See, stuff like this annoys me. You don't have to see things in such black and white terms. You can be an atheist and still believe that there is more to the universe than we can see. After all, the Universe is the most vast, complicated thing in existence. In fact, it is existence. It's so complex we will never truly understand it. Have you heard, for instance, about the theory that we only live in 3 out of a possible 10 or 11 dimensions of existence. What happens in those other dimensions, who knows. Just because there may not be a god, doesn't mean the Universe is any less wondrous or amazing.

Ares Tyr:

ike_luv:
Now now kids calm down!! Before the fire from the seventh level of lucifer burns bright amongst the hate for christians, and the chances of reaching ramadan this year are cut short for the Muslims, I'd like to see the calm before the storm...not before the storm cos I'd prefer no storm, but you know what I mean!.

I am Christian, only in the sense that I believe in God, I accept that my uncle is Muslim, and my sister is an atheist. Is there ANYONE online that shares an acceptance and love for diversity, even in beliefs? If you disagree, I might suggest a carefully and ELOQUENTLY written argument!! If you cannot control silly retorts and uneducated comments, put them on YouTube where no one seems to mind.

I'm all for a broad religious spectrum. Being that all world religions started in different places anyways, it'd be impossible for people to have the same beliefs geographically speaking.

I for one, consider myself Buddhist at best. I don't believe in Buddha as a savior or God or anything, just a teacher and an enlightened person. I believe in Karma, reincarnation based upon karma, and the ability to reach Nirvana. I believe in God in the sense that there is a "creating, 'holy' spirit" amongst us. However I don't believe in God as an omnipresent watcher and judge over us. I see God as existance in itself, the things that live and exist amongst the universe (because to me, existance is proof of God). So I believe that being kind and benevolent to other people, and being good towards nature, is me being good to God. In my belief, everyone is part of God (not made by God). When I'm a decent person to those around me and the Earth, I achieve good karma, and incease my chances of a positive reincarnation or nirvana.

I don't catch as much serious flak as you'd think for a U.S. southern non-Asian Christian-to-Buddhist convert would. So I suppose I'm lucky. But yeah, I went through a crisis of faith after someone close to me passed away, and I couldn't drive myself to be an athiest because I suppose I was too optimistic I suppose to accept the "no God, no afterlife" thing. I accept scientific theories on creation such as the Big Bang and evolutionary theory. I just figure that God was what guided that process and was a part of that process instead of it just being for no reason. To me, there's no point to existance, no reason for it, unless something started it. So, thats validation enough for me to believe in God.

And even though I don't agree with other, sometimes more fanatic, religions, I still completely accept their right to believe what they want. I've never talked to a person about my fath without being asked, and I've never talked to anyone with the intent to convert them. I find that sort of thing wrong. I was never converted, I converted myself from research (I didn't even know a Buddhist at the time). So, let people do as they wish, worship what they want. No one has any right to say whats wrong or right.

Edited my post.

ike_luv:

IF anyone gets this far, could they quote this question with a response so people understand the context!... *If carefully approached, can religion still do good for the world?*

Loaded question; take cover!
The only good thing about religion is that it has the potential to encourage people to be "good". Even that isn't perfect, I don't like people to tell me what my morals are, they have good ones, for the most part, though.
Mainstream religion tends to discourage thought and hinder the progress of man, in my opinion. Ideas should never be, literally, set in stone. An idea that has stopped evolving and isn't open to interpretation is a useless one.

The_Logician19:
I'm a Christian and I accept other people's beliefs; in fact it insults me as a Christian that some people don't.

Apologies Abound.

Pretty much what he just said, except for the apologies. I will not steal his signature style. But I am a Sith Lord, and if I can live and let live, why should those Christians (which my religion is based on, anyway) be allowed to ruin everyone else's lives?

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
To quote a line from the Alan Moore interview that Razzle posted (incidentally, I was going to link the very same interview), 'Everyone should make their own peace with the universe'.

I agree with this; spirituality is an incredibly personal thing, and should be kept that day. Asking other people for advice on matters of existance seems ridiculous to me, as - when you think about it - we all know as much about life after death, God, etcetera, as anyone who has ever lived. Nothing.

But to answer the thread question, I'd consider myself a level six atheist:

Richard Dawkins:
Very low probability [of God existing], but short of zero. De facto atheist. "I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."

I think everyone can think what they want, unless they say it's the truth, because it isn't.
Also if anyone harms someone because of their beliefs thats wrong.

other people can believe whatever they want. just don't stop me in the street and try and convice me to join in worship of your god because thats just as bad as trying to convice someone to stop believing in their religion.

I am Lutheran(Christian) and I believe that religion is generally doing a good thing in the world. The loudest people tend to be the annoying/violent/stupid ones so that's why I see religion getting a bad reputation with a lot of people.

The hilariously colorful thing about religion is that it is so open to interpretation that it's difficult to really grasp the core values of what the original founders based the religion upon.

I believe that religion is one of those carefully crafted things, so it's really hard to say if anyone is right or wrong. I personally think the majority of religion, or at least the spreading thereof, should be the core values.

If you choose to believe that Christianity is wrong, I may disagree, but I won't disapprove. Although, if you reject the morality behind Christianity (or, at least, the New Testament version, goodwill to man, fairness to neighbor, etc), then I'm going to have beef with you on a personal level, not a spiritual one. I believe that morality of religion should be taught, not necessarily the religion itself. Let the individual take what s/he may from the religious texts, only preach the morals.

I'm generally accepting of others' religions, so long as the people themselves aren't rude or condemning.

Although, I'd be something of a liar if I said that I'm totally accepting. I find Scientologists to be very questionable people, with evil intentions or misguided words. I both disagree with the teachings religiously, and the teachings morally, of Scientology. No "religion" should tax it's members, manditorially, for the members to learn more about the core beliefs of the religion. That's like adding a surcharge for every book of the bible you allow Christians to read.

It's just wrong.

Cid SilverWing:
Steadfast atheist. My reason? I have yet to see any divine interventions in real life.

Sounds more agnostic than atheist to me. You sound like you aren't sure if there's a God, not steadfast that there definitely isn't one.

Believe what you will as long as you believe is true and not some spoon fed set of ancestral traditions.

Jezus himself was quite the rebel provoking the rabbis and romans alike. Not to cause a fuzz but he believed that living by fixed rules was not the way of true believe.
And if he wasn't resurected he would turn in his grave if he saw how some people pretend to be religious by taking up it's rituals and dogmas.

I think he was right.
Believe is not about wich God you worship or wich land is promised to you.
Believe is about a feeling of righteousness and justice toward yourself and the people around you.
I don't believe in God or Allah but I do believe that in life eachother is all we have.

Do as to others as you would have them do unto you.

I try to avoid religion. It, generally, seems to put a huge amount of uncontrollable power on paper, which is bad.

Imagine if a sheet of paper had the ability to cause and/or fuel deadly wars all around the globe, lasting decades or even centuries. Would you like it? I doubt it. Why would you like your Bible, or your Koran? It's done exactly that.

Also, the idea of deities is far-fetched to me, and I don't like the idea of devoting my life to something that probably doesn't exist. Seriously, if I were to walk into a store and say "Hey everyone, there's a bearded man in the sky granting wishes!" would anyone believe me? I don't think so. But if I said, "Hey everyone, God answers prayers!" at least a few people would agree wholeheartedly with me. Why? Because that's what a book says, if a book is able to sway millions of people in the direction of blind following of others, it's only clearing a path toward blindly following worse people, like terrorists. It's already happened in other countries, why do we insist?

I'm an athiest, but I voted "whatever makes us happy (which incidentally tied everything up for that instant)

Sure I don't beleive in any god, and I hate it when christians (it's always been christians, most likely because I know alot more christians than people of any other religion.) tell me I'm wrong and try to convince me to convert back. So It would be pretty hypocritical of me to say that only my way of thinking is right and try and convince others to think the same.

But just so you know, the reason I don't beleive in all that religion stuff is that I think it's fine to have rule books for your actions, they could save lives, they could prevent crimes. But when you have books that tell you what to think? well I'd like to have at least a bit of control over my own life.

Edit: However on a more inflamatory note Scientology can kiss my arse.

LewsTherin:

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

Flynn11:
Personally i do not believe in religion i do not believe their is a "god" or their is some mighty spirit who created everything i believe their is a logical answer to everything.

However i wish i did believe in a "god" as then you always have someone to turn to and their will always be hope aslong as god is their.

The people like me who are athiests i feel sorry for as they do not have the hopes and beliefs of thiests.

See, stuff like this annoys me. You don't have to see things in such black and white terms. You can be an atheist and still believe that there is more to the universe than we can see. After all, the Universe is the most vast, complicated thing in existence. In fact, it is existence. It's so complex we will never truly understand it. Have you heard, for instance, about the theory that we only live in 3 out of a possible 10 or 11 dimensions of existence. What happens in those other dimensions, who knows. Just because there may not be a god, doesn't mean the Universe is any less wondrous or amazing.

Have one of Iron Ninjas cigars, with my compliments.

Why thank you. If you don't mind, I shall keep it for display purposes. Tried to smoke a cigar one christmas, could taste nothing but ash for the rest of the week.

LewsTherin:
Have one of Iron Ninjas cigars, with my compliments.

Hey now, lets not just hand out all my cigars without asking. Although I have to say j-e-f-f-e-r-s deserved one. Here have another.

I consider myself roman cathlic, and I belive that everyone should have the right to belive in watever they want to, but they shouldn't force their own veiws on people.

The_Logician19:
I'm a christian and I accept other people's belifs; in fact it insluts me as a chiristian that some people don't.

Apologies Abound.

Agreed, so far as they don't attempt to change my country to their religion or change its laws to fit their religion. I don't like atheists forcing an end to non-denominational school prayer. The US constitution prohibits establishment of a national religion; it does not prohibit all religious practice, and it certainly doesn't guarantee your right to not be offended. Let the majority of people have their prayer, and if a principal wants to have a Muslim or Hindu give a prayer, enjoy the variety. Your kid isn't going to Hell because he heard a Muslim prayer.

And Ike_luv, believing in G-d doesn't make you a Christian, that requires specifically believing in the divinity of Jesus as Christ. Muslims and Jews also believe in G-d, and Hindus believe in a butt-load of gods. (Although "butt-load" probably isn't a good way to quantify gods. A shriek of gods? A prayer of gods? A majesty of gods? That sounds about right. Hindus believe in a majesty of gods, then.)

The Iron Ninja:

LewsTherin:
Have one of Iron Ninjas cigars, with my compliments.

Hey now, lets not just hand out all my cigars without asking. Although I have to say j-e-f-f-e-r-s deserved one. Here have another.

Jesus, you all trying to give me cancer or something? Fine, I'll have your cigar as well, much obliged...

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

The Iron Ninja:

LewsTherin:
Have one of Iron Ninjas cigars, with my compliments.

Hey now, lets not just hand out all my cigars without asking. Although I have to say j-e-f-f-e-r-s deserved one. Here have another.

Jesus, you all trying to give me cancer or something? Fine, I'll have your cigar as well, much obliged...

You don't smoke 'em, you collect 'em, they're like pogs.

Despite my normal libertarian leanings, I am vehemently anti-religion. I feel the concept of a god is demeaning as it places a sort of upper limit on what humans can be(that is, you are a horrible, sinful creature and you need to believe like this to be less of a horrible, sinful creature). Sure people are not perfect, but I see no need to forgive someone for being human.

Another reason I don't particularly take a shine to religious doctrine is the fact that it isn't possible to have an omniscient, omnipotent being and still retain free will for lesser creatures. If God is omnipotent, then it must have created me, however, if that same God is omniscient, then it must have known that I would become a horrible person who laughs when people are hurt. Therefore, God created me with full knowledge that I would be damned to Hell if we are to believe the Abrahamic faiths. So, I do not think I should spend my time worshiping a being that sets up its own creations for eternal punishment(unless God is really something who gets laughs out of suffering, then God is a btard, therefore I'm structuring my life in God's image).

Thirdly, whenever I try to question the motives of religious organizations, a general response I've received is either "God moves in mysterious ways" or "How can you even think to know the motives of something so incredibly complex as God?" Now the first one is essentially saying that your God is unpredictable, and therefore, nearly impossible to get advice from, it moving in mysterious ways and all. My response to the second is, If God is so incredibly complex, then how can you claim to know what he wants me to do?

The Iron Ninja:

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

The Iron Ninja:

LewsTherin:
Have one of Iron Ninjas cigars, with my compliments.

Hey now, lets not just hand out all my cigars without asking. Although I have to say j-e-f-f-e-r-s deserved one. Here have another.

Jesus, you all trying to give me cancer or something? Fine, I'll have your cigar as well, much obliged...

You don't smoke 'em, you collect 'em, they're like pogs.

I would have given him one of my Holy Avenger + 16 s but those are few and far between. Kind of like the spatula of a ninja chef.