What made you finally settle on a religion?

[Dattebayo 2,850]

My mom told me "God doesn't exist, and if he does, he hates us (my family)", so one day, I just stopped believing.

It's better fir me to believe there is no God than to believe that he exists and cares not for our suffering.

 

I'm weird like that.

[#1FluttershyFan 206]

I don't have a religion. I don't know how I decided that.

[I used to be a stranger 7,993]

This post has been redacted by the author.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Blue

[Discordian 6,015]

Whoever said [a religion] makes life easy, lied. Though refusing to believe any given religion in that regard, isn't better either.

 

I feel sorry for how your interactions with religious belief has been addlepated, confusing or presented with poor examples. There are good reasons for belief, if one is willing to search for them, or listen to better representations.

A religion in itself is undoubtedly not making things any easier but the peace of mind it can bring, such as with Christianity's "God will take care of you as long as you trust in him" dogma, make life much easier to deal with for some.

[I used to be a stranger 7,993]

This post has been redacted by the author.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Blue

[Discordian 6,015]

Christians believe that God communicates with people through several avenues. One of these is the Bible, and it has been a doctrine of all Judeo-Christian-derived beliefs that there is an extremely high level of certainty that God "wrote" the Bible through Divine inspiration of specific people at certain points in history. Numerous people over the course of time that it was written (Old Testament between 2000BC and 400BC, Apocrypha 400BC-10AD, New Testament 30AD-100AD) have claimed this Divine Inspiration, though to say this at the time of its origin (that is, pre-AD Jews) had it in their laws that if a Prophecy was made and it did not come true, then that false prophet should be put to death. Invoking the suggestion that something you wrote was Divinely revealed was a very serious thing.

Now when the Bible was first compiled, theologians and the early church fathers (we're talking less than 300 years since Jesus' death and resurrection here), worked closely with historians to verify what accounts would be most accurate and theologically relevant in-with-being Christ's message. It's not like L. Ron Hubbard who wrote Scientology as a book over the course of a few years, no. Composing and translating the first version of a collected work which we now call "The Bible" was a concentrated, prayerful, dedicated effort to present "Christ's truth" as close to the spirit of the message as possible, which took  a great number of experts nearly a century.

 

It is true that people can do things like look at the Torah (Hebrew Old Testament), Septuagint (the Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament), Vulgate (Latin OT+NT) and all the other resources, and make up your own translation (if you know Aramaic and Latin). Or just wing-it and reword The New International Version or whatever. However it's not like trying to pass off translations of the Bible as authoritative is exactly an easy thing you can do without facing criticism.

 

If you've ever written a fan-fiction, you'd know that every reader can be a pretty caustic critic. The Bible (ignoring where it may have come from) is known to have faced among the toughest critics and most abusive argumentation in every conceivable direction for a longer period of time than almost any extant human institution (which means it exceeds the durability of large countries by an order of magnitude).

 

If the Bible has passed under that scrutiny and still continues to be read and debated as if it were true, that's probably worth a second look. The reason why so many people hate that possibility is because its contents demand that the reader change the course of his/her life.

(Protip: the level of 'questionable' authenticity varies from book to book. Proverbs has a lot less at stake for being divinely inspired or not, versus say the Gospel of Luke.)

 

The Historicity of the Bible (whether or not the Bible is reliable in terms of its historical existence, or whether its contents refer to real events or if they are fictional) is another matter entirely, and is also a very large and vastly fascinating subject.

 

 

Ever heard of "The Blind Men and the Elephant"? Four blind men feel the outside of an elephant, each describing different characteristics and saying that their perspective is the true one. "Elephants are large, firm, thick creatures" says the one feeling the leg. "Elephants are thin, flappy, rough creatures" says the one feeling the ear. "No, you're both wrong, elephants are long, slender, flexible creatures" says the one holding the trunk, and so on.

The fallacy is that it requires the person telling the story to be a man who can see both all of the blind men, and the elephant.

 

Since you're human (since most bronies are human), under your own presumption it is likely that you also do not understand the form of God, or the Bible as a potential example of [the] understanding [of Him].

 

It's flawed logic to say "no one can completely understand truth" because that statement presupposes itself to be a completely understood true statement, or else it fails to make any sense. It doesn't even qualify to be a paradox.

Truth must exist, or else we would never have supposed it was possible that it ever existed at all. Therefore, there must be a truth that can be verified about God, which is discoverable.

Everything I have just said in this response to your last post's paragraph was made by logical proof, not using biblical citation or extra-biblical reference. I could mention that there are things in the Bible which fit in with what I just said, but that's neither here nor there.

 

 

Ah yes, the crux of matter (pardon the pun). The greatest conflict of modern Philosophy, Religion, Metaphysics, Logic and all those tasty parties is not [A World Religion) vs. Scientific Evidence. It's Nature vs. Supernature.

• Everything in the Observable Universe (all of time and space, all matters and energies) can explain themselves. Modernly, this is called Naturalism.
• Everything in the Observable Universe cannot explain itself fully, and there is another kind of existence above or outside Nature, which can. This has always been called Supernaturalism, and every major world religion presupposes it in some shape or form.
• 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive.

I won't get on the mannerisms of Miracles (which is the religious technical term for phenomena that cannot be empirically explained but exist as beneficial coincidences, or like-definitions) but what you referenced to, many Christians think of as "pet deism". C.S. Lewis called it 'The Toy Universe' metaphor; God simply sets out a Universe like a giant trainset, and watches it spin for his amusement. Christians would say assuming this is what God did runs directly against examples of completely unavoidable instances of "Miracles", such as Mary and the virgin birth. Such instances the Bible says, are direct evidences that God is intimately concerned with the goings on of his Creation, and that he is willing to make changes on the fly if he needs to. He doesn't break the rules, the rules obey Him. This is how Jesus was able to walk on water, another example.

 

 

The problem with thinking that the Christian God is just another old superstition used to explain how things worked that we didn't understand runs smack into the face of things Jews and Christians have held ever since Genesis was written: "Do not worship anything created." - God. "I created the Universe" - God. Therefore, do not worship the Universe.

 

I'd probably clean up this response a bit more, but I have to skedaddle.

 

 

Hence the common theme that those with religious belief are typically happier.

 

Whether happiness is the most important thing in life however, is another story.

 

I will concede that you know far more about this subject than I do. I simply deign to question the things that I do not know myself. When I do know, I will question further.

 

And I will fully admit that I know little about the bible itself. It's a subject I've yet to research fully.

 

You've given me much to think about regardless so I thank you for that.

[IcyHaze 594]

Nothing. I have Christian morals, and a nagging feeling that there's a God out there - but I can't tell if that's because I was brought up as a Catholic or if I truly believe. Because I'm forever doubting, I cna only call myself an agnostic.

 

On top of that, I despise organised religions which aren't open to change.

[碇 シンジン 27,431]

The information I gathered and putting the pieces rogheter I arrived to a conclusion

[Nyactis Mewcis Catlum 672]

I've always been pretty non-religious, but doing research into religions has further turned me away from them.

I used to say I was "agnostic", but thanks to some videos and information I've seen, atheist is a better fit for me. "Agnostic atheist" is redundant because atheism is saying you don't believe in god, not that you believe there is no god. One is passive, the other is an active belief.

[Altastrofae 933]

I was Christian. Then I read the Bible. Then I was Athiest. Later, I found that I enjoyed studying other religion. More specifically, ancient beliefs. This led me to Neopaganism which narrowed down to Wicca, but I still pull in other beliefs, I just classify myself as Wiccan.

[Vintjack Greasymane 3,460]

The more I study history, the more I believe religions are the main source of chaos and disorder in this world...

Seriously, they have been used as expedients to cover some political/economical goals on one hand, while on the other hand they have been the main cause of fanatics who have done nothing but killing people and destroying places...

Now, I know that religions represent the biggest example of hope, since believing in something gives you the power to go on, but we should really need to calm down and think a bit, in my opinion.

If everybody were keeping its own beliefs private (no Institutions, no Church, no anything) I believe the world would be a happier and more peaceful place to live in. Like I have my own beliefs, which do not really get along with traditional religions (or probably even with less known ones), but I keep them to myself, without trying to force anybody into thinking the same. I know many people are like this (luckily, I'd say!), but I know the world is also full of fanatics who don't bother to kill someone just because that one has different opinions.

On the other hand though, I know I haven't got enough knowledge to talk about every single religion (up there I was talking about every single one of them. I don't really know much about Buddhism, for example), so I won't go anywhere further, but, considering what I've seen so far, I still stick to my opinion. I will have to be better informed and do some researches to change my mind.

Oh, I haven't said that yet: this is basically why I decided to create my own belief. I felt like I didn't want to believe into something that, over the decades, has demonstrated to only have lust for material power, without focusing on its main purpose, and instead using this one as some excuse to do whatever it wanted to do.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Vintjack Greasymane

[kaiser5578 340]

I just chose the oldest religion that didn't try to murder logic. Also I don't like the idea of hell, not even Hitler deserves forever. Because eventually they will suffer equal to what they have done, with Hinduism you are reborn and must see your evil deeds from an outside set of eyes.

[The Kaeya Simp 13,988]

I was looking for people who took MLP like me (religiously) and came across Celestianism and I've been a Celestianist ever since

Edited April 5, 2018 by Sherbert
Agnostic until last year

[shadowwarp940 1,303]

I'm atheist, but my mom's a faithful christian. So when we lost our house when my dad left, we would pray everyday whenever and wherever we could to be rescued from this terrible life. That didn't happen for almost two years, so I gave up. I realized that any kind and merciful god wouldn't allow Innocent people to suffer like this, and if he was real, why did he do this? So I gave up on religion

[Justin_Case001 4,876]

On 4/22/2014 at 7:41 AM, Super Sand Legend said:

i dont have a religion, and i decided to settle with that because there is no evidence god exists, and the bible doesnt count as evidence.

Up high, bro!  High five!  Now five low!  On the flip-side!

I have always been an atheist.  This sums up why pretty well:

Spoiler

 

 

[EpicEnergy 23,130]

Ever since I was a child, I've always believed in Christianity. I don't blindly believe it though, as I've looked at it critically plenty of times before.

[The Kaeya Simp 13,988]

Ever since reading the bible and researching the secs