On reincarnation of God

[Birdjaguar]

I can for sure appreciate religious insights on the subject, but a theological discussion about this is a very different beast from a "Hey, so, you guys wanna talk about what reincarnation actually is and how it might work?". That has a scientific pov written all over it, since it's the only method we have for people of different backgrounds & belief systems to try to figure out how something works, in a way that's verifiable by others.

If we are not looking to verify any of the presented theories, then that changes the scope of the conversation somewhat and takes on a more theological pov. Which is fine, but it's just a different conversation

Yes they are certainly very different conversations. both can be fun and interesting. For those looking for supportive anecdotes regarding reincarnation, there are many out there. There are also more detailed texts that talk about how it works.

 

[citizenofdoom]

my current religious beliefs are diverging from mine 4 days ago by simply reading posts

 

[EvaDK]

Is there a belief system that doesn’t ascribe personhood to God? Or at least, something that vaguely resembles personhood?

Many pagan religions worshipped the Sun, the Moon, stars or animals.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Yes, I meant what if the FSM was proven to be a god, would you (general 'you') worship it?

Well there are two answers I can give to this one. The first answer is one that I must be careful how I word because I don't want to violate forum rules. Also please note that I am speaking for myself and other people have their own take. I'm not trying to force anyone to agree with me. I'm just reflecting what I believe.

Let me just say that I know who the true God is and if "proof" of the FSM was produced I would probably reject it. My God says there are no other gods except Him.

Now the second answer I would give if I didn't believe what I believe is yes. Most likely I would worship the FSM if proof was produced because it would seem like he would supply me with endless spaghetti!! But first I would need to understand if the FSM was a loving monster god or one who would pour hot burning spaghetti on me so that he could laugh at my pain.

...
But what I personally would do with it would be to require ALL laws of nature to conform to whatever this supreme deity claims they are, and whatever goes wrong had better be fixed. And even then I doubt I'd worship it, because what would be the alternative if I refused? No deity who says "love me or suffer eternal torment" is worth worshiping regardless of what else they do or don't do.

This is a great answer and is kind of related to the second answer I gave above. It took me a while way back in my teens but after thinking about it carefully I knew that the God I worship is all about true love. I know that I am free to accept or not. A true loving god would not create beings and have them pre-programmed to love him. Otherwise that god would be nothing but a monster. The real and just god has to be the one that allows you to accept him or not. A real and just god would want all to be with him of their own free will but understands and allows everyone the right to say no.

The decision is entirely up to the individual and it is the individual who determines what their final destination will be. God doesn't send anyone to suffer eternal torment. He lets each person decided for themselves where they would like to spend eternity.

I believe that in eternity there are two places. One good and one bad. All cultures/religion (at least that I am aware of) teach that there is evil and good. What some of them don't teach is where a person will end up in the afterlife is either going to be a good place or an evil place. That decision is based on where the individual chooses to go.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

D&D is by necessity a game that uses pantheism as part of its basic structure. So yes, it makes perfect sense that a wizard can take you to meet some god, but you don't worship that god. Maybe you worship a different god or maybe you think all of them are jackasses and don't deserve your worship.

sure, my only quibble is that some players call this "atheist", but my impression is that the in-game character normally wouldn't deny the existence of the thing he's meeting. though yeah, it really comes down to the roleplay/what's in character there and decided by the players ultimately.

at least for me, if i somehow met a deity irl it would definitely change my outlook and present a lot of new questions about how reality works. my current model wrt religions/deities is similar to why i don't expect to see goblins or elves on this earth. observing these things would definitely throw a wrench in the model!

I have a problem with the idea of atheism as a "belief system." There's no "system."

i suppose you could have any basis for being atheist, but i think it's typical to get when using models that require empirical evidence of some kind for believing things. it's more accurate to say atheism arises from a model of reality/belief system, rather than being one itself. it is a *consistent* conclusion (among many others) from a system that uses empirical evidence.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well there are two answers I can give to this one. The first answer is one that I must be careful how I word because I don't want to violate forum rules. Also please note that I am speaking for myself and other people have their own take. I'm not trying to force anyone to agree with me. I'm just reflecting what I believe.

So your first answer would be "f-word, NO!"? (or similar)

Let me just say that I know who the true God is and if "proof" of the FSM was produced I would probably reject it. My God says there are no other gods except Him.

See, here's the problem. I majored in anthropology, both physical and cultural, in college. I've studied plenty of religions, and here's my take: No religion is more or less valid than any other, be it monotheistic, pantheistic, or something that can be classified as a belief but can't be neatly pigeonholed. If a religion works for whatever culture is being studied, if it fulfills their spiritual and cultural needs (as what I term "the social glue that holds that society together"), then how can an outsider come along and say, "Your religion is false, your gods aren't real, only MY religion is true, only MY gods are real"?

You might be tempted to say this is what I'm doing as an atheist. But atheism isn't a religion. It's a lack of belief in any god/spirit. My anger isn't at people who believe. It's at people who try to force others to believe, and/or pass laws favoring their beliefs (ie. abortion laws, assisted dying laws, mandatory school prayer laws, shoehorning their beliefs into public school curricula, etc.). Even the various "12-step" programs have come under scrutiny over the part about a "higher power". Atheists don't believe in a "higher power" and there has been at least one challenge over this under the freedom of religion clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Being sentenced by a judge to take part in AA meetings when you don't believe in a higher power is forcing the participant to subscribe to something of a religious/spiritual nature they simply do not believe in and therefore can't complete that part of the program and will therefore fail. Freedom of religion must also include freedom from religion.

Now the second answer I would give if I didn't believe what I believe is yes. Most likely I would worship the FSM if proof was produced because it would seem like he would supply me with endless spaghetti!! But first I would need to understand if the FSM was a loving monster god or one who would pour hot burning spaghetti on me so that he could laugh at my pain.

I have to admit that I have no idea what Pastafarianism is about other than spaghetti and colanders. But enough people have lobbied for it to be declared a valid religion that their argument was accepted in at least one jurisdiction I heard about.

Ditto Jedi, btw. Someone I knew in the SCA once angered StatsCan over the federal census, because he listed his religion as "Jedi." He was visited by enumerators, he got more notices, and they kept telling him that this was not on the official list of choices and wouldn't even be accepted as "other" because he was just giving a joke answer instead of a real one. He stuck to his answer and refused to change it. Eventually they quit harassing him.

This is a great answer and is kind of related to the second answer I gave above. It took me a while way back in my teens but after thinking about it carefully I knew that the God I worship is all about true love. I know that I am free to accept or not. A true loving god would not create beings and have them pre-programmed to love him. Otherwise that god would be nothing but a monster. The real and just god has to be the one that allows you to accept him or not. A real and just god would want all to be with him of their own free will but understands and allows everyone the right to say no.

It must be nice to never have anyone tell you that unless you change your beliefs, you'll go to hell. I've been told that on my doorstep, in conversation (once the other person found out I'm not religious), and at a bus stop at the college when another student found out that my major was anthropology and my minor was physical and cultural geography. Apparently, studying things like human evolution, the agricultural revolution, various religions of the Native North Americans, and the geologic time clock means I will go to hell because those things are "sinful." I can just imagine how many more decibels she'd have added to her rant if I'd mentioned having studied astronomy and stellar evolution since I was a child.

Someone in the SCA, who was my friend for many years, gave her very emphatic view when I told her I'm atheist: "NO. You're PAGAN." She herself was very religious, and attended church services several times a week. When we'd first met at an SCA meeting and were introduced, her first words to me were not "Hi, nice to meet you" but rather "What church do you go to?"

My answer of "I don't go to church" was met by a look of profound, unhappy confusion and she said, "Well, that's okay... I guess."

I reminded myself that I was in someone else's home and therefore minded my manners and did not snap at her that I don't need anyone's permission to not attend church. So the initial meeting didn't go well. We did eventually become friends, and then good friends. She's the person who taught me how to play Civ II. She also enjoyed playing D&D (and never had the cleric's issue of choosing a god because she preferred to play thieves).

So this many years' friendship is why I was absolutely floored. By that time we had progressed to the point of being able to talk about all sorts of personal and family stuff, and her own grandchildren were encouraged to call me "Auntie Freydis" (Freydis is my SCA name, and I answer to that to this day as there are people who have never known me by any other name). I wouldn't have thought she would have such a wall in her mind over my worldview and its lack of religious belief. I tried to explain that atheism and paganism are entirely different things, but she refused to listen. So to maintain the friendship, we had to agree that discussion of religion was off the table (until things eventually did go south and she snarked that she was "better" than me because of her religious beliefs; that's not something I forget, nor is it something I forgive).

The decision is entirely up to the individual and it is the individual who determines what their final destination will be. God doesn't send anyone to suffer eternal torment. He lets each person decided for themselves where they would like to spend eternity.

I believe that in eternity there are two places. One good and one bad. All cultures/religion (at least that I am aware of) teach that there is evil and good. What some of them don't teach is where a person will end up in the afterlife is either going to be a good place or an evil place. That decision is based on where the individual chooses to go.

That may be what you believe, but it doesn't match what many others believe who profess to worship the same god you do. An objectively real deity would mean all the followers would believe the same message, wouldn't they?

sure, my only quibble is that some players call this "atheist", but my impression is that the in-game character normally wouldn't deny the existence of the thing he's meeting. though yeah, it really comes down to the roleplay/what's in character there and decided by the players ultimately.

Atheism and pantheism are not remotely the same thing. Pantheists (some refer to them as pagans) worship something, even if it's not a person or named being. They may have religious rituals to do with nature - plants, the Moon, etc. I participated in a Wiccan ritual once, out of curiosity, when an SCA acquaintance died. It was a simple, dignified ceremony of remembrance, in which people took turns saying, "I remember _______" and then saying something about what or why you remember that person. We did it by candlelight after dark, at the observation post in the wildlife sanctuary where I worked at the time, as it was a quiet, natural setting.

It was a nice way to say goodbye to someone, rather than the gaudy, often insincere and overblown trappings of conventional funerals, but it wasn't enough to prompt me to look into the entirety of that belief system. I'd already had the experience of being mistaken for someone of that faith at a convention simply because of the costume I was wearing (long black dress, with a magpie feather as one of my accessories; my dad found it in the back yard and gave it to me). They were so sure I was Wiccan, when the truth is that I based my costume on a Larry Elmore Dragonlance painting (though I was considerably more covered up than most of Elmore's female mages are).

I guess another way to look at this particular aspect of the issue for those not into D&D would be the Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys TV series (Xena is a spinoff of Hercules). The main characters regularly met and interacted with various gods (Hercules himself is the son of Zeus, has no love for Hera because she killed his wife, and is the half-brother of the rest of the Olympian gods). There were some they liked, some they hated, and some they had a "frenemy" relationship with. Ares at times looked on Xena as someone he wanted to mentor and sometimes as someone he wanted as a wife and mother of his children.

So did any of these characters worship the Greek gods? None of the main characters did. Gabrielle and Aphrodite had a "favorite girlfriend except for Xena" vibe that translated to friendship, not worship. The villagers tended to worship the gods, though, leaving offerings at the temples and taking part in rituals.

at least for me, if i somehow met a deity irl it would definitely change my outlook and present a lot of new questions about how reality works. my current model wrt religions/deities is similar to why i don't expect to see goblins or elves on this earth. observing these things would definitely throw a wrench in the model!

But how would you know, beyond doubt, that you were meeting a deity?

I played around with this in a fanfiction a long time ago, in a bizarre combination of Sliders/Xena: Warrior Princess, that takes place in 20th century San Francisco. The Sliders slide into a world in which Alexander the Great didn't die young, but conquered his way all across the Asian continent and managed to find his way to North America. He set up a Greek empire there that lasted until (at least) the 20th century when the characters of the Sliders TV show got there by accident.

I justify the inclusion of traditional versions of the Xena characters simply because the showrunners of that program played fast and loose with history anyway and they could turn up at any point during a several-millennia span of time and space. What prompted this fanfic was a line in a Sliders episode directed to either Quinn or the Professor, saying, "If we ever slide into a place where they only speak Greek, you'd be right at home."

So I created a world they could slide into where everyone speaks Greek. And yes, the two shows' characters meet up. The Professor is unimpressed when Ares (god of war) turns up, and proceeds to give him a lecture on how the Greek gods never existed (I borrowed from the notes in my classical history course as to the possible real historical events that prompted the creation of the myths).

Ares listens for maybe a minute, rolls his eyes in annoyance, and turns the Professor into a frog (he'd earlier made a promise to Xena that he wouldn't just egregiously kill people who posed no threat to him; unlike most people, Xena is someone he respects enough to at least try to keep a promise). The Professor can become human again if he will acknowledge that he's wrong. But will Maximilian Arturo go through with it?

Eventually, since the characters have another world to slide to when the timer runs down. But it won't be easy. Or maybe he'll be stuck as a frog for awhile until they meet another version of Ares. I don't know since I never finished the story. A lot of my ambitious story ideas take a very long time to finish since I do research and of course I've had time to lose my original draft.

i suppose you could have any basis for being atheist, but i think it's typical to get when using models that require empirical evidence of some kind for believing things. it's more accurate to say atheism arises from a model of reality/belief system, rather than being one itself. it is a *consistent* conclusion (among many others) from a system that uses empirical evidence.

My reason for saying it's not a "belief system" is because there are no set parameters for being atheist other than not being a believer. There are no atheist places of worship (what would be the point of having a building where people gather to not worship anything?), no atheist rituals, no atheist prayers, no atheist holy books, and so on.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

...

It must be nice to never have anyone tell you that unless you change your beliefs, you'll go to hell. I've been told that on my doorstep, in conversation (once the other person found out I'm not religious), and at a bus stop at the college when another student found out that my major was anthropology and my minor was physical and cultural geography. Apparently, studying things like human evolution, the agricultural revolution, various religions of the Native North Americans, and the geologic time clock means I will go to hell because those things are "sinful." I can just imagine how many more decibels she'd have added to her rant if I'd mentioned having studied astronomy and stellar evolution since I was a child.

Someone in the SCA, who was my friend for many years, gave her very emphatic view when I told her I'm atheist: "NO. You're PAGAN." She herself was very religious, and attended church services several times a week. When we'd first met at an SCA meeting and were introduced, her first words to me were not "Hi, nice to meet you" but rather "What church do you go to?"

IMHO she was wrong to call you a pagan. Atheism and paganism are definitely two different things. God does not want us to judge anyone. When she asked you "what church do you go to" she judged you. And when you told her you were atheist and she called you pagan she again judged you.

My answer of "I don't go to church" was met by a look of profound, unhappy confusion and she said, "Well, that's okay... I guess."

Again that was wrong for her to say that. She probably meant well, but the way she said it was hurtful. I'm sure that was not her intent.

If someone told me they were atheist and that they thought that my beliefs are utter folly and stupidity I would not judge them. I'm a firm believer in free will. I'll share what I believe in but I don't expect everyone to agree with me or accept what I believe in. True Christianity is to love everyone, judge no one, and believe in Jesus. That's it. Man has an uncanny ability to mess things up. Even things that work get messed up.

That may be what you believe, but it doesn't match what many others believe who profess to worship the same god you do. An objectively real deity would mean all the followers would believe the same message, wouldn't they?

Again you would be surprised how easily man can mess things up. If only people would read the bible and listen to what it's saying they would see how easy faith is. But someone, or some corporation, or some business minded churches, don't want you to discover the truth so they teach their flock things that cause disharmony and discord rather than the peace and love the bible actually preaches. The false teachers pick and choose quotes in the bible and twist them to fit their own goals. They love to pit people against each other also by twisting the words. Finding someone who teach you the truth the way it was meant to be taught is very hard.

Just because some says they worship the same god that I do doesn't mean they believe the same way I do. No wonder why so many people are confused over religion and take it the wrong way. Believing in the God that I believe in is really just all about accepting His son for what he did and then just building up a relationship like you would build up a relationship with a newly made friend. He doesn't care who you are or what you did. He just wants that relationship.

Again this is just me explaining what I believe in. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to "obey my commands" (LOL) or something like that. But I feel that I need to just show a different take on one of the standard religions of society.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But how would you know, beyond doubt, that you were meeting a deity?

no idea, it's not something i've explored sufficiently. if they have superpowers beyond human capability, they could convince me of that fairly easily by using them. convincing me that they're a "deity" depends how one defines the term. if some being appears and claims it's the god of water, then violates conservation laws (in a way I can verify, let's assume i'm not just deceived) to produce tremendous quantities of water from nothing...that's enough empirical evidence that it's good enough for me? at least, i wouldn't be inclined to quibble "but is that really enough to make you a god" in that moment.

i wouldn't worship that, but it would be more than enough for me to suspect i'm either gone mentally or there are things about reality to which my previous model was grossly misaligned.

Atheism and pantheism are not remotely the same thing.

i am aware. my point is that if xena outright claimed "i am an atheist", that should raise some eyebrows in her story's reality. even if she doesn't worship ares or zeus etc, the fact that she has literally met them and seen them use powers aligned with what their world accepts as gods would make being an "atheist" bizarre. non-worshiper, sure.

choosing to remain a frog would take an impressive amount of stubbornness, if the guy still had the wits of a human anyway.

My reason for saying it's not a "belief system" is because there are no set parameters for being atheist other than not being a believer.

??? that's why i already clarified with what you quoted. atheism is the result of a belief system (usually via attempts to model reality with empirical evidence), not a belief system itself.

And when you told her you were atheist and she called you pagan she again judged you.

it sounds like judging happened as well, but the term "pagan" is simply an inaccurate descriptor in this case too. atheism by definition rejects paganism.

If only people would read the bible and listen to what it's saying they would see how easy faith is.

at least in my case, i have. faith is easy, in a sense. and people can find strength in its use. but what i am looking for is reality/truth, not faith in non-falsifiable claims. though i note the apparent need for most of humanity to have faith in something, rather than abandoning it as a concept entirely.

if i find a model with better predictive validity, i will use that one instead. faiths/religion by their nature presuppose things that exist outside reality as we know/define it. things that don't necessarily make the world look different if they "exist somewhere outside reality" vs not. don't change our anticipated experiences. people can wield belief to good or ill, but i haven't seen any evidence that this comes from anything but their brains/bodies in either case.

 

[citizenofdoom]

There's two things I'm uncertain about.
The first thing is what is FSM? Finite State Machine? Seems like if our world is in fact discrete instead of continuous, FSM would be a model of the world. A subject to worship. But what's the connection between FSM and spaghetti.
Second thing is, to keep it simple, a part of religion is about God and its wprk. So I can treat religion/religion statement as boolean statements.
So religion kinda:
God is <insert something>. ^ <insert something> was an incardination of God.
Atheist kinda:
God doesn't exist
Both are unverifiable, so it could be TRUE of FALSE.
I don't think I can understand the reason that Atheism is not a religion.
My brother once joked(or spoke what he felt lol) to me that "those set theorists followed a weird religion", implying that he considered set theory as a religion. It seems funny when he's in number theory.

 

[citizenofdoom]

True Christianity is to love everyone, judge no one, and believe in Jesus.

This sounds like what my grandmother told me when I was young, around 6 years old.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Nothing wrong with grandmothers; often they carry much wisdom.

 

[Samson]

The first thing is what is FSM?

Flying Spaghetti Monster.

 

[citizenofdoom]

Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I see.
In the US, they would have an acronym for literally anything.

 

[Farm Boy]

They're real SOBs that way.

The FSM is pretty funny, but if a bit rude. I wouldn't bust it out in polite company.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Sure. The Pan-God, the all-whatever. From dust we are made in the image of God, with life breathed into us for a time. From then we're made from each other and sustained by all which surrounds us. Star stuff, as it were.

I could interpret this as saying God's image is that of whatever primitive life existed on Earth before sex was discovered/evolved (or however you want to express it; Sagan mentioned it at some point in Cosmos but I'm too lazy to track it down right now).

sure, my only quibble is that some players call this "atheist", but my impression is that the in-game character normally wouldn't deny the existence of the thing he's meeting. though yeah, it really comes down to the roleplay/what's in character there and decided by the players ultimately.

I just wanted to clarify that in my Dragonlance example (Krynn, the Kingpriest of Istar, etc.), the people who don't believe in the gods don't refer to themselves by any word or expression that translates as 'atheist.' They simply don't believe the gods exist, at least not anymore. The gods return during the War of the Lance and later, during the Second War (told in the Second Generation anthology and Dragons of Summer Flame). Then they leave again and the clerics discover - as they did after the fall of the Kingpriest centuries earlier - that they no longer have any god-granted powers of healing or any others.

IMHO she was wrong to call you a pagan. Atheism and paganism are definitely two different things. God does not want us to judge anyone. When she asked you "what church do you go to" she judged you. And when you told her you were atheist and she called you pagan she again judged you.

Yes, she could be very judgmental at times. She once went off on a rant about her own grandson and I was fairly shocked, as he'd always been a nice, polite kid (to me, anyway). But she judged things that were rather personal to him, and when I finally indicated how uncomfortable I was with where she was going, she stated, "Well, that's all that needed to be said."

I couldn't help replying, "Actually, none of it needed to be said."

Again that was wrong for her to say that. She probably meant well, but the way she said it was hurtful. I'm sure that was not her intent.

I cannot imagine how anyone could mean that in a nice way. In regions where people are judged by what church they go to, which religion they belong to, which political party they support (being of certain religious views is sometimes an indicator of political affiliation, given that some right-wing parties put it in the party name), I'm wary of people who automatically assume I'm religious.

That's made for a few uncomfortable moments with a couple of social agencies I've dealt with over the years, as one social worker got snappish and said "go ask your church for help"... and he was flabbergasted when I said, "How am I supposed to do that when I don't have a church to ask?"

His response was, "Well, I just assumed you did." It was news to him that not everyone does.

(kinda like when one person wrote in to Ann Landers and asked her to stop telling people to "talk to your clergyperson" because many people don't have clergypeople to talk to, and the solution to the problem might not need a religious angle to it anyway)

If someone told me they were atheist and that they thought that my beliefs are utter folly and stupidity I would not judge them. I'm a firm believer in free will. I'll share what I believe in but I don't expect everyone to agree with me or accept what I believe in. True Christianity is to love everyone, judge no one, and believe in Jesus. That's it. Man has an uncanny ability to mess things up. Even things that work get messed up.

My grandfather went to school in Norway and Sweden prior to WWI. Bible study was mandatory, so he got to know it fairly well. Fast-forward several decades to when he considered me old enough to have non-childish conversations with (about age 7 or 8)... and he made it clear that he was not a believer, but he considered the "Golden Rule" (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) to be good advice. He said that if everyone followed that, the world would be a much better place.

Unfortunately, this has been twisted into "Do unto others before they do unto you" and translates as "hit them first so they can't hit you back."

That's basically how the political party that's running my province operates. The irony is that this party constantly crows about how "moral" they are and how "immoral" the opposition is and by extension anyone who supports them. The Minister for Advanced Education is Catholic and has gone on public record as stating that "public schools teach an immoral, radicalized ideology."

My eventual, rambling point is that I'm no stranger to encountering judgmental people either in my personal life or in wider circles.

Again you would be surprised how easily man can mess things up. If only people would read the bible and listen to what it's saying they would see how easy faith is. But someone, or some corporation, or some business minded churches, don't want you to discover the truth so they teach their flock things that cause disharmony and discord rather than the peace and love the bible actually preaches. The false teachers pick and choose quotes in the bible and twist them to fit their own goals. They love to pit people against each other also by twisting the words. Finding someone who teach you the truth the way it was meant to be taught is very hard.

I'm not even slightly surprised at how easily things can be messed up. It doesn't help when the bible contradicts itself, and some versions are more or less nuanced than others. That can change the meaning of what people take away from those verses.

Here's a question that I've asked numerous times that nobody has ever answered satisfactorily: Since Jesus' followers included men who could read and write, why didn't any of them write anything down during the three-year time period that they were wandering around with him? Why wait decades and cast doubt on the veracity of the story because there are parts that should agree but don't, and therefore lead to suspicion that the Gospels were actually written much much later by people who weren't actually witnesses and made some details up?

Primary sources matter and count more if written/created as the events in question were going on. This is why I have no doubt at all that Augustus was real, for instance (someone actually asked). People wrote about him during his life, he wrote about himself, and numerous artifacts including statues exist that prove he was real and did at least some of the actions attributed to him. By the time later historians were writing about him they had a wealth of primary sources to draw on.

Just because some says they worship the same god that I do doesn't mean they believe the same way I do. No wonder why so many people are confused over religion and take it the wrong way. Believing in the God that I believe in is really just all about accepting His son for what he did and then just building up a relationship like you would build up a relationship with a newly made friend. He doesn't care who you are or what you did. He just wants that relationship.

When religions get edited to this extent over the centuries and millennia, it's difficult to know what the actual original intent was.

Again this is just me explaining what I believe in. I'm not expecting you or anyone else to "obey my commands" (LOL) or something like that. But I feel that I need to just show a different take on one of the standard religions of society.

The only "commands" I obey are those of my cat, Maddy. I guess you could call it ironic that at a time when we've got this thread going I'm using an avatar depicting the cat form of the Egyptian goddess Bastet. It's appropriate, though, since Maddy is a little black cat.

no idea, it's not something i've explored sufficiently. if they have superpowers beyond human capability, they could convince me of that fairly easily by using them. convincing me that they're a "deity" depends how one defines the term. if some being appears and claims it's the god of water, then violates conservation laws (in a way I can verify, let's assume i'm not just deceived) to produce tremendous quantities of water from nothing...that's enough empirical evidence that it's good enough for me? at least, i wouldn't be inclined to quibble "but is that really enough to make you a god" in that moment.

With or without technology? Even in Harry Potter there are characters that make use of wandless and nonverbal spellcasting - which includes creating water from basically nothing - but that hardly means the average Auror or DADA master merits the title of god, regardless of how much respect or awe people might have for them.

i am aware. my point is that if xena outright claimed "i am an atheist", that should raise some eyebrows in her story's reality. even if she doesn't worship ares or zeus etc, the fact that she has literally met them and seen them use powers aligned with what their world accepts as gods would make being an "atheist" bizarre. non-worshiper, sure.

No disagreement here.

BTW, if you want a bizarre scenario, there's an episode that parodies the Indiana Jones movies in which Gabrielle takes the Indiana Jones part and Xena is the mousy secretary who gets in over her head. Things get interesting when they accidentally find and revive Ares, God of War...

(aside: It's such a shame the actor who played Ares died; he was so good in the part and I'd loved to have seen him in other roles)

choosing to remain a frog would take an impressive amount of stubbornness, if the guy still had the wits of a human anyway.

I get the impression you're not that familiar with the Sliders TV show. Professor Arturo (my favorite character on that show) was played by John Rhys-Davies. Now assuming you've seen him in other roles, can you imagine him in any role that didn't include the character trait of being extremely determined and stubborn?

it sounds like judging happened as well, but the term "pagan" is simply an inaccurate descriptor in this case too. atheism by definition rejects paganism.

The thing about this woman was that she simply could not wrap her mind around the idea of not worshiping anything at all. In her mind, better pagan than nothing. And there are people around here (including my own mother) who consider(ed) the word "atheist" to mean something disgusting.

There's two things I'm uncertain about.
The first thing is what is FSM? Finite State Machine? Seems like if our world is in fact discrete instead of continuous, FSM would be a model of the world. A subject to worship. But what's the connection between FSM and spaghetti.
Second thing is, to keep it simple, a part of religion is about God and its wprk. So I can treat religion/religion statement as boolean statements.
So religion kinda:
God is <insert something>. ^ <insert something> was an incardination of God.
Atheist kinda:
God doesn't exist
Both are unverifiable, so it could be TRUE of FALSE.
I don't think I can understand the reason that Atheism is not a religion.
My brother once joked(or spoke what he felt lol) to me that "those set theorists followed a weird religion", implying that he considered set theory as a religion. It seems funny when he's in number theory.

Some people love spaghetti so much that they created a god in its image. Kinda like how many religions have been created since humans have been humans. After all, the ancient Egyptians created a goddess in the image of cats, and cats have never forgotten this. That's why I have a fridge magnet that says "There is no snooze button on a cat that wants breakfast."

As for atheism not being a religion... I have to make this clear. It isn't a religion. Anyone who insists it is will not find a friendly reception. There used to be a couple of OT regulars here who would taunt me with that, causing numerous arguments and ill-will. I don't want that to happen again.

Can you imagine me going around knocking on doors, saying, "Good morning, my name is Valka, and I'd like to tell you that I don't believe in any deities."

Depending on the person who answers the door, I'm likely to be met with the door slammed in my face - with or without profanity directed at me for disturbing them, or they would look at me and either say "Huh?" or "Go away, you're nuts."

I have no idea what you mean by set theories. I don't speak math.

 

[citizenofdoom]

"Good morning, my name is Valka, and I'd like to tell you that I don't believe in any deities."

Oh in here, they taught in school about atheism&materialism.
It's because you don't live in an atheist country then you don't know.
They literally tell every child that science is real and there's no god.
But religious freedom anyway.
-------------------------------------------------
About it, it's just a funny thing I heard from my brother.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Sorry, I meant Jesus already reincarnated once.

Don't think thats correct in Christian mythology. He was incarnated once and resurrected after death in the same body.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

It's because you don't live in an atheist country then you don't know.
They literally tell every child that science is real and there's no god.
But religious freedom anyway.

Glad to hear they don't persecute people for having a religion in your country (?Ukraine, ?Russia). In many other atheist run countries past and present (North Korea, Cambodia (under Khmer Rouge), USSR, PRC, etc.), where it was more of a case of "science is real and there's no god, and if you disagree with this then bad things will happen to you and your family.."

Edit: I originally said North Vietnam, I meant North Korea, my bad!

 

[Sarin]

Glad to here they don't persecute people for having a religion in your country (?Ukraine, ?Russia). In many other atheist run countries past and present (North Vietnam, Cambodia (under Khmer Rouge), USSR, PRC, etc.), where it was more of a case of "science is real and there's no god, and if you disagree with this then bad things will happen to you and your family.."

This is quite incorrect. You're talking about countries with strong fascist or communist ideology which saw religion as competition to their ideology, as they're quite similar-in essence holding the state in position of unquestionable authority, like god. Quite telling is how these countries often put ideology above science, for example the case of Lysenkoism in USSR.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

This is quite incorrect. You're talking about countries with strong fascist or communist ideology which saw religion as competition to their ideology, as they're quite similar-in essence holding the state in position of unquestionable authority, like god. Quite telling is how these countries often put ideology above science, for example the case of Lysenkoism in USSR.

This is quite incorrect.

"North Korea is considered an atheist state" "those engaged in unsanctioned religious activities often face the harshest of treatment...In particular, those of Christian faith are persecuted the most"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_North_Korea#:~:text=North Korea is considered an,the religious activities of unauthorized


"The Khmer Rouge actively persecuted Buddhists during their reign from 1975 to 1979.[93] Buddhist institutions and temples were destroyed and Buddhist monks and teachers were killed in large numbers.[94] A third of the nation's monasteries were destroyed along with numerous holy texts and items of high artistic quality. 25,000 Buddhist monks were massacred by the regime,[95] which was officially an atheist state."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism#:~:text=25,000 Buddhist monks were massacred,all religious practices were banned.


"From 1932 to 1937 Joseph Stalin declared the 'five-year plans of atheism' and the LMG was charged with completely eliminating all religious expression in the country."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union#:~:text=From 1932 to 1937 Joseph,to be its ideological enemies.


"Antireligious campaigns in China refer to the Chinese Communist Party's official promotion of state atheism, coupled with its persecution of people with spiritual or religious beliefs, in the People's Republic of China.[3][4][5] Antireligious campaigns were launched in 1949, after the Chinese Communist Revolution, and they continue to be waged against Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and members of other religious communities in the 21st century."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antireligious_campaigns_in_China