How can you be so damned sure?
 

I don't subscribe to any sort of organized religion. I was raised a Catholic but drifted away from the church long ago. My delema if you will is with any person espousing the beliefs of their religion without being able to see the greater picture. Christianity is young when compared to other major religions yet Christians claim the only true God. What about everyone else, are they all wrong? Are Animists wrong? Bhudists, Shintoists(please forgive any mistakes I might make in identifying beliefs) Moslims, Taoists? How can you be so self assured? With so many beliefs in this great and diverse world, how can you subcribe to only one? I don't claim to be a student of religion or to have been exposed to many but I have trouble putting all my eggs in one basket. How much are we missing out on by not opening our horizons and embracing all that the people of the world have to offer?

I always assumed that at least the Christian, Jewish and Muslim gods are all the same entity. I'm not really sure how Buddhism and Hinduism really figure into that, but I suppose it's possible they are all the same too. I think the different religions arose from different peoples' interpretations of God manifesting himself (itself?) to them.

People grasp onto what they "think" they know,
because they are frightened.

And it defines an otherwise "random" world & life.

It's also a disipline again the darker thoughts they might have.

There is a sense of security in all this.

Only look to God when the World doesn't have the answers you seek.

Prosequence, the point of my thread is which God do I look to, 'cause people all over the world are dying in the name of "thier" God. I am not debating the exsistence of God but simply the diversity of belief and the zealotry of believers. What makes you (general you not you personally) so sure that your belief system is right and all others have got it slightly wrong.( wife says over my shoulder that in her experience " I am right and everyone else is completely wrong" is the statement more often used.) I actually had someone tell me that only the few people who attended his church were going to be with God when the rapture came and all others were outside looking in. Looking to God for answers is great but do I just choose my own?

I do not believe in any organized religion...The bible, koran, or any "book" or "tablet" was created by man....Furthermore the interpertations of these works are also mans interpertations,
hence the changes in church law, or the creation of different sects or new religions based on the same "book"

Would the world end if I ate pork, ate meat on friday, or any of the inanely stupid and ridicules rituals that organize religion tell us to do. (Granted, many of these rituals have roots that were legitimate at some point in time, however, now that we have refrigerators and electricity some may be a bit outdated)

If one wishes to believe in a divine entity or a higher power, so be it. Greed, war, death, colonization, servitude, slavery, have all been perpetrated in the name of God...Somehow if there is a higher power she is probable laughing her ass off (in irony) at what humans can do to each other in the name of God.

Neddy, search out a God you can relate to. No one falls in love with a car becasue of the MANUAL, they find something that they connect with, the Manual helps answers some questions along the way.

It is more honest to face your lack of knowledge and to say you are 'not sure' than to make something up . . . . . . . . . .

If you are the spiritual type, you might need a different path to God (or gods, or goddesses, etc.) than someone else. Everyone's different. For some, the strict sexual ideology of Catholicism isn't for them. Others find Islam to be sexist. Some find Buddhism just too difficult too grasp.

And as you may end up making a life-long devotion to one of these religions and their sects, you don't want to think you've led yourself down a dead end. You want to be right, and with the slippery slope of faith over fact, sometimes the only way to do that is to claim everyone else is wrong.

religion is a scam

my thoughts are thus: IF there is a God (or higher being) that created all of this, he/she/it is far beyond our possibility of ever understanding. For this reason, I refuse to espouse any organized (or even dis-organized) religion.

it seems immature to put a face on god. If he created us, how could we possibly understand? why should we? why not just accept that something larger than you or even all of mankind holds everything in the universe together. God should be felt not explained.

I am Jewish by blood, and though I was baptised when I was born, I identify myself as a Jew. Still, I am sure I fall into the bottom %10 of the worst Jews out there. I eat pork (and like it!), and don't go to Sabbath services (boooring!), and I question organized religion in general (just a big money-making scheme?). Still, I hang on to my.. er.. Jewishness.

Here's a funny idea. I like to believe that there's indeed a god, watching our every move, and giving us a helping nudge when we need it - but that god is grown inside us. Each one of us must cultivate our god, not by putting others down and smiting the heretics and holier-than-thou crap like that, but by being the kind of person you are happy with being, on the inside - then you're making your god happy too.

See, as far as I can tell, the holy books (Torah, Bible, Koran) were written with the intent of keeping the peoples' identity alive, because in those crazy times, human value was nothing. People had to stick together to survive, and survival usually meant that the other groups had to die. But those times are over, and we must use those books not to just stay alive, but as instruction booklets to help us live our lives happy, and bring a benefit to the human race.

This awful Jew, for one, is doing his best to be a good person, and to improve his life and that of others. I am happy with myself, and so is my little god. :)

Weird, huh?

Re: How can you be so damned sure?
 

Neither do I.
Here we go again at "Otherness".
This is more or less a variation of the thought: "I know this gras but how do I know the gras is really not greener on the other side. They can't all be wrong."
Yes they can!
The Others don't know more than you do they only feel they do. Your way of thinking or your faith could be the only one that is right. Of course yours could also be wrong.
Just because there are so many different opinions on a topic, it doesn't mean that ALL other opinions are relevant. It doesn't even mean that ANY of them are relevant.
You have to choose what you feel is right.
Within the framework of every faith you can't be wrong as long as you stick to the rules. (once you have chosen you're on safe ground)
As long as you look at different faiths from the oustide you won't be able to find the "right" faith becasue if compared they don't match, they clash and are all wrong.
Once you're "inside" a faith, you found your belief , it should perfectly make sense and feel "right".

In short: you're not missing out on anything. You can't cater to all tastes. Find your own taste and until then stay where you are.

Thanks to all so far. I purposly didn't iniate my oldest child into any organized religion. I gave him the idea of right and wrong and instilled in him a respect for other and simply let him develop his own spirituality. At times I am a little disappointed in his philosophy du-jour but i also find myself very pleased by his open mindedness and willingness to learn.
All this being said, I still cannot see myself following the teachings of any one following but simply finding my own way to relate to God.

The first time i heard neddy65 say this i was infact worried for him because i belive in christ and i am a baptist. But isn't that what he's saying. By automaticly saying "He's in trouble" means that i too am close minded? This bothered me when i first relised it and i had a long discustion with one of my friends about it and i have come to my own conclusion that is pretty much the same as Quietus said. I belive that my God is real and my beliefs are right but on the other hand i belive that God shows himself or herself in many ways.
Neddy i would also like you to hear more about your son? is he just like his father or is he a man totaly apart from his father. I'm always intrested in hearing about familys. Thanks.

I try more to read directly through the Bible and take my interpretations on it. I don't really like it when other people tell me how I should believe. I'm sure, no, I know it's the same way with other people. Sure, I go to church, but I do that to learn, because the pastors that are at my church do know more than I do, and I ask them questions, and my faith deepens, I may disagree with them every once in awhile, but hey, we don't get into fights, we just talk them over calmly and collectedly. I don't know why I'm so sure, I can't begin to tell you why. I guess that's why it's called faith and not logical reasoning.

fooseballwiz, my son is his own man in many respects but he is of course influenced by his surroundings. I am, for good or not, part of his suroundings. Taylor(my son) lives with his mom and spends his weekends with me and I see a lot of his mother in him but she says he is just like me. I would guess it is a matter of perspective. I think I have turned out well, I have great kids, a loving wife and am for the most part happy. If my son ends up like me then I will be happy for him. It is kinda cool to hear parts of yourself reflected in your child. thank you for your comments :)

all MONOtheistic religions believe in A God, that God is the same for all of them.

everyone goes to the same school with the same principal but you take different classes.

I have seldom heard a summary that is more fitting than this one.
This will become one of my all time favourites. :D

I'm not religious, but I don't think you can fit religion into a near epistemological box and consider it either complete bunk or irrefutable Truth of a Higher Being. It's by definiton a matter of faith.

And, by the way, Christianity has de facto become its own religion, but let's not forget that it began as a minor sect of Judaism. It's an extension of Judaism, at least from the early Christian's point of view. Just a thought.

Judaism is an ever-changing religion that never arrives at one certain truth. We accept that we do not know FOR SURE, but we also understand that it is part of life to search for meaning, and derive safety and belief from some sort of system. I am a conservative Jew, and as such, obey specific rules of the Talmud (Jewish Law), including, keeping kosher (kashrut). Keeping kosher by abstaining from trafe (pork, shellfish and the like) is not because it is written somewhere that doing so will break the world in half. It is a TEST. Jews believe that life is a series of tests and is all about accepting limits and challenges. I do not eat trafe because it is a TEST for me. An example of how I can limit something from my life, for the sole purpose of knowing that I challenged myself, and that I can focus enough and have the self control enough not to do something for the hell of it. It is not a damnable trespass, it is just a challenge.

i believe that we all need something to give us confidence in our lives. . .


because i am me!!!

If anyone believes in the Christian God (which I do), then they believe he is the only god, and that he is just. That having been said, i believe, that since many religions are as old or older than judeaism, it is the same god, and he has maybe revealed himself differently to them. Take for instance, native americans. How about the millions of native americans who died before they had any chance to come into an sort of contact with the "Christian God".... did they just go to Hell? Thats not something a just god would do. However they did believe in a monotheistic religion, a single god that created all. I believe it is the same god.