Are you religious, which religion, and why?

Question

i am an atheist and interested, mostly in why people are religious. i am biased i admit because personally i dislike organised religion. i believe it generally acts as a force of social restraint and prevents real social change and the destruction of inequality. do you have evidence/ a view to suggest otherwise?

can you also tell me what country you are from, because although this may be an assumption i get the feeling a lot of the religious talk is from people from the U.S.A?

Answer 1

I lack "faith", and by golly I hope I'm right about that or I'm in for a bad time after I die!!!!

Answer 2

I'm a pagan, I believe in mother nature and her generosity. I've been an atheist up until 2 years ago when I discovered the cult of the goddess and took an interest in it. I realised then that I had found a name for what I had believed in all along.
Like you I am against organised religions because they go against the basic principle of freedom, and because they are run by men who, no matter what purpose they serve, always turn out to be greedy and crooked.
I've always believed that religion should be a personal thing, and though scriptures about religions would be useful to give people guidance, temples and churches are not. Religion is more about a philosophy of life to me than going to a building every week to recite a few prayers.
And I'm half Belgian, half Dutch, living in London by the way.

Answer 3

OK I'm a Muslim from the UK, but not at all segregated from people with different cultures and backgrounds.

Although strictly speaking I'm not religious, I think Islam offers logic, guidance in all aspects of life (law, etiquette, pre nups, charity etc), and promotes goodness, cohesion and tolerance, and I think is post modernist in approach. It is also an extension of Judaism and Christianity, but a more consistent version. Ultimately society cannot operate effectively in anarchy therefore Islam offers much needed structure to our lives.

On a personal level, I think it is difficult to relate to God, because I just can't feel any connection, so doubts are always there.

Answer 4

Well, it differs from sect to sect and religion to religion. I am Neo-Pagan so I have a very open-minded outlook on other religions than my own. Paganism is very diverse and every Pagan has different beliefs. The "faith" part of the religion is not as important as spiritual wisdom. If science proves any of my beliefs wrong, I won't believe it anymore, science is not my enemy like some of the other religions on planet earth. Science is one of the elements I base my beliefs on.


There have been other religions that have managed to worm themselves into the governments and have done incredible injustices throughout the human history. The sad part is, when those religions started it was about doing good and helping your neighbour and then somehow they started doing the opposite.

Answer 5

I would have to agree with you on that. Though, I'm not Atheist, I can not stand organized religion. Or any form of mainstream religion (including many of the Pagan paths that are now floating around). Too many of them have been the cause of depression and fear in people who would normally be caring. And it does keep society in general from changing. Tolerance isn't as high as it should be, IMO (but who cares bout that huh?) LOL So many are too busy pointing out the flaws in others that they ignore their own (which I think they do on purpose).
It's a shame...

Answer 6

well I am church of england and that is a normal religion to me. don't really attend church all that often, only for weddings, christening, funerals things like that. I think religion is taken far too seriously by many people resulting in wars and such which is really annoying because most religions believe in the same things deep down anyway and different aspects of religion are passed to other religions as well. I mean everyone believes in a god and if they are worshippers of gods then why do they run about killing people.. is that what god would want them to do ? I think not...so why doesn't he stop them I wonder ? why does he take people that are good and innocent ?

Answer 7

You may laugh or think that I am lying, but I am truly following the Jedi religion.

I am tolerant of other beliefs and have an open mind to the ideas of others.

I am on the pursuit of perfection, trying to be the best that I can whilst hurting others as little as possible.

It works for me.

I hope your religion works for you.

Answer 8

No, n/a, and I would never wager the way i live my life against the possibility of picking the wrong religion. Or gamble my afterlife on the same assumption. The whole concept is ridiculous. - Agnostic

Answer 9

Hi. I'm from Mauritius and I was born in a Hindu family and have no qualms about that. I just believe I was destined for this and have never bothered.
As for your query I believe that by not having tasted the ocean's waters I cannot say how salty they are.I really am sorry for you BUT keep asking-you never know!

Answer 10

I am nearly 50years old and I have been raised in religion all my life up untill the early 90's when I began to think for myself.
In my opinion, religion is a form of control and it does restrain society from being the true human beings that we are... "self destructing".
All you have to do is look around and you will see that we no longer have any restraints as a society of humans, instead we have a type of social genocide taking place, because it is one race of people that is being destroyed by lack of self restraint and thats the "Human Race".
I do not believe in controlling people, but I believe that people need to controll themselves for the bettering of Mankind.
I am still a true believer and worshiper of God Almighty and I am a follower of Jesus Christ but I do not belong to the christian religion. I follow the teachings of Christ so people label me a Christian and that's fine, but I will not be controlled by a religions rules and regulations. If there is any blame for religion being a controlling, restaining force.... that blame should lie on the shoulders of those that was trusted to lead the churches....not God.
In the beginning God did controll his people with the commandments of moses, but it was because of the peoples strange ways that was adopted from the egyptians that God needed to separate his people from those that now worshipped in the egyptian ways.
CHRIST CAME TO REMOVE RELIGION and all of its rules and regulations. Because he saw that religion became more important that God.... "Think about it".... The temple became more important than God and the people he was trying to save.... and this is only the tip of the ice berg........... because there is so much more that people don't know about God, but only know the hardship that left a bad taste in their mouths.

CHRIST CAME TO REMOVE RELIGION and to set in place a new way to worship God. He removed the fear and replaced it with Love.

1John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. "Think about it"

SELF CONTROL is not rubbish. What is rubbish is when people actually say that it is better that there is no controll. Well...everytime you see the news of murders, rapes, gang violence, drugs running rampid through the streets and especially Holy wars... Then I say, I am thankful that I am controlled by God because it would've been real easy for me to be another statistic.

Answer 11

I've been trying to find out why the believe in utter rubbish for months and I still don't know and honestly I don't think they know either. The current line going round is that to see proof of god you have to believe in god. Well that's no god because to believe in god you need some proof which apparently you can only get if you believe in god. They just don't know what they are on about.