The Big Questions, State your creed. Options

[mel2]

Ok folks, here it is - the place you can go if you want to discuss the big issues without hijacking another thread.
Didn't want to spoil the fun on the Daily Wisdom but things were getting off topic. Don't blame me if it gets heated (these things often have in the past).

Will I be here alone in 2 hours time with the bottle uncorked and the bunting up?

Ready, steady......

[corenfa]

OK, I'll bite.. I don't think about religion very much. I just don't seem to need it in my life. Not because I feel strongly against it but because I don't feel strongly about it. I keep an open mind because I have received no proof one way or the other (no offence to anyone telling me to read any particular scripture - I have done so, and that doesn't constitute "proof" to me). I don't rule out the possibility that I may one day receive some.

I do like some religious music though - the St Matthew Passion is one of my favourite pieces.

[fsharpminor]

Quite simply, the Nicene Creed!

[Arundodonuts]

I'm an atheist and have been since my early teens.

I don't see any evidence for the existence of a "higher being" or force, nor do I feel the need for one to help me make sense of the world around me or my place within it. I don't believe there is any purpose to life other than to pass on genetic material (which incidentally I haven't bothered doing anyway). Life itself exists simply because the conditions are right. In that respect, its presence here on Earth was not chance but an inevitability.

There have been many religions in the past which are no longer considered "real" - Greek and Roman Gods, Sun Worship, etc. and I don't see anything in current religions which makes them any more plausible.

I have enormous admiration for some of the monumental edifices erected in the name of religion though. Church and cathedral architecture, art works, sacred music, etc. At one time in my youth I couldn't have been dragged into a church and I certainly wouldn't have sung a hymn or sacred choral piece. I'm not bothered now though - if it's good art, it's good art.

[Misterioso]

I have enormous admiration for some of the monumental edifices erected in the name of religion though. Church and cathedral architecture, art works, sacred music, etc. At one time in my youth I couldn't have been dragged into a church and I certainly wouldn't have sung a hymn or sacred choral piece. I'm not bothered now though - if it's good art, it's good art.

I like to think that "good art" is inspired by something outside oneself that is much greater than anything that could come entirely from within a person. I'm with fsharpminor - my creed is the Nicene Creed.

[Czerny]

There have been many religions in the past which are no longer considered "real" - Greek and Roman Gods, Sun Worship, etc. and I don't see anything in current religions which makes them any more plausible.

I agree with this explanation. Humankind has long sought to understand and make sense of things; every god ever invented has been for that reason so it seems reasonable (to me) to believe that this is why God "exists".

It would be wonderful to feel that there was a purpose to life, but despite daily opportunities to contemplate this throughout seven years at a faith school - and on numerous occasions since - I can't manage to believe that there is.

[corenfa]

I do feel that I have a purpose in life, it just has nothing to do with religion - my purpose in life includes learning as much as I can and want to in whatever fields I want to. Music is obviously a large part of this. I also want to be happy and enjoy the company of friends and family. For me, it's relatively uncomplicated and I don't feel that I need to think any harder about it. I try to not upset people unnecessarily, admittedly it does sometimes get hard to balance that with not being a total doormat (which would be upsetting myself unnecessarily).

I used to spend a lot more time thinking about big questions when I was younger and more fervent, but I've decided that life's too short and I just ought to get on with it. I also think that these things are personal and shouldn't be imposed on others, so I wouldn't expect anyone to necessarily agree with me.

If the above sounds like a load of waffle, that's because it is (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Mad Tom]

"God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown" - Nietzsche

[Arundodonuts]

I do feel that I have a purpose in life, it just has nothing to do with religion - my purpose in life includes learning as much as I can and want to in whatever fields I want to. Music is obviously a large part of this. I also want to be happy and enjoy the company of friends and family.

Ah but is that "purpose" or simply what you like to fill your time with while you are passing through?

[mel2]

I do feel that I have a purpose in life, it just has nothing to do with religion - my purpose in life includes learning as much as I can and want to in whatever fields I want to. Music is obviously a large part of this. I also want to be happy and enjoy the company of friends and family.

Ah but is that "purpose" or simply what you like to fill your time with while you are passing through?

That implies that you've been somewhere and are going somewhere.
If we're only here once, we should be making the most of it.

[Aquarelle]

As a young child I accepted unquestioning, the Christian (Methodist denomination) of my parents. I loved Sunday School and all the fun that went with it. I loved the hymns, the prayers, the beauty (then) of the language, the sheer poetry I found in the hymn book. I was a country child and I loved the peace and beauty of country things. Harvest Festival, Primrose Sunday, Nativity plays were part and parcel of my childhood as much as Alison Uttley and Beatrix Potter.

As a teenager I went to Girl Crusaders, Girls? Life Brigade and sat with other young people at the Methodist church Sunday evening services. I made friends at school with other girls from Christian homes and was a member of the Scripture Union. I sang choruses lustily and thought the world would be a better place if everyone were Christian. I went through a sort of rebellion against Methodism and tried the open Plymouth Brethren for a while.

Returning to Methodism I became a member of the Methodist church, sang in a very good church choir, trained the Junior choir and was a firm believer. I also studied Religious Education as my second main subject at College of Education. Then I had my first real taste of unchristian behaviour. I was castigated for a part of my private and personal life and was left in no doubt as to the fact that I was expected to clear off. This I did. My faith in the church was shattered. My faith in the New Testament teachings remained intact.
That is how it has been, roughly, ever since. I rather think my name must have been crossed off the Methodist membership list. I deliberately have never resigned. My much loved piano teacher, back when I was in my early twenties saw me in a very bad emotional state and said this to me. ?I am very cynical about going to church but there is this thing about prayer and I?m always astonished at the power of it.? I have never forgotten those words. She was not telling me I ought to pray, or that prayer was the answer for me. She was simply offering me, in the true Christian spirit, something that had worked for her. In a sense that is how I have seen the place of religion in my life ever since. I go to church (Catholic ? being the only possibility for me here) occasionally. I take an interest in church things and particularly in the music and the liturgy. One reason I don?t go more often is that I can?t find myself in the trite words and predictably boring tunes now used. I know all about Christian claims that fellowship is important and one has a duty to be there. I just haven?t been able to take it since I was not very politely told to take myself elsewhere. That is not an excuse but it is a reason. So I suppose I too am firmly with the Nicene Creed in theory and in private but not in public practice.

After my experiences with the church I am now much more tolerant towards other religions and philosophies than I was as a teenager - but then I expect that is true of any thinking person of any persuasion. They all have something to teach us.

[corenfa]

I do feel that I have a purpose in life, it just has nothing to do with religion - my purpose in life includes learning as much as I can and want to in whatever fields I want to. Music is obviously a large part of this. I also want to be happy and enjoy the company of friends and family.

Ah but is that "purpose" or simply what you like to fill your time with while you are passing through?

It's good enough as a "purpose" to me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) "Your mileage might vary"

I don't feel, at the moment, that I need to be heading somewhere.

I might, of course, feel differently as time passes. I didn't use to see things this way.

[anacrusis]

I spent childhood assemblies wondering what all the hymn singing and odd words of prayers were about, and could never really make the contents merge with the way I was learning to think and be. In primary school we studied Scripture, not RE or RS, and though I could see some of the messages from some of the stories we were told, they remained stories in my mind, and the overarching concept of deity remained obscure to me.

As a teen, I thought I ought to be open minded and receptive to all ideas, so called myself agnostic at that point. Later though, that seemed to me to be the wrong word - because when it comes down to it, we none of us know for sure whether any belief system is wrong or right - we are in fact all automatically agnostic. The thinking which I find most comfortable, and most comforting, is that of an unimaginably vast universe, with incompletely understood parameters, arising from a Big Bang. I know we don't understand even a fraction of what there is to know, but the joy of that is the challenge in trying to - for me, a theistic stance reduces all that to something much less, ironically: it makes simple stories from something much bigger and more awesome. A very personal view, and I know it'll not be shared in the deist camp, but I don't want to foist it on others, only to explain my stance. I feel very very very small, in comparison with our planet, which in turn, is very very small, compared with our galaxy, and that again in turn with the vastness of mostly Nothing in space: equally I can feel unbelievably clunkily large, when compared with small animals, they with bacteria, and those with the yet smaller and smaller motes making up our world. I know our minds need to telescope that a bit, and still we struggle to get our heads round it all, but I feel more comfortable trying to look at it that way, than attempting to add any other layers of equally un-understandable material.

In the context of all that, I don't see need for purpose, beyond what has driven the rise of my existence thus far - the urge we feel to reproduce, driven by complex patterns of hormone production, in turn coded for in our DNA, and the activity of that controlled by other biochemical activity - and so on, down to the affinity molecules have for each other, or don't, and right up to the amount of available nutrition, sunspot activity, you name it. My explanations will stop short of all there is to know, because my mind and education are limited, not because we have run out of information: even if we put all the information we have together, there is much more to know yet, but I think it's so exciting that we are bright enough, as a species, to be able to explore that. Will we ever know it all? I doubt it - we'll probably wipe ourselves out first, but for now, it's amazing and inspiring to be around at a time when people are learning so very much (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).

[MNW]

Well I am one of those rare breeds that one calls a practicing Christian, dare I even say...born again Christian! I try to live my life by doing what it says in the bible and not by the latest fad or what's PC. After all, it's darn hard being a Christian, so if I'm going to be one I might as well try and do it properly. Of course, I get it wrong every day but my life is immensely richer for knowing God. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Marvellous]

Well I am one of those rare breeds that one calls a practicing Christian, dare I even say...born again Christian! I try to live my life by doing what it says in the bible and not by the latest fad or what's PC. After all, it's darn hard being a Christian, so if I'm going to be one I might as well try and do it properly. Of course, I get it wrong every day but my life is immensely richer for knowing God. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Does your bible include Leviticus?