1 hour ago, connda said:

What religion do you practice? 

My religion is treat everyone with respect and expect the same in return, nothing less. 

 

Religion and Politics I avoid, it's destroying society 

5 minutes ago, HappyExpat57 said:

Technically I am an ordained minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Sweet.
"In the name of Oregano, and Tomato Sauce, and Pasta, Amen."  <downs a bottle of Chianti.  
 

6 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Faith does tend to transcend hard realities.  But that's why it's called "Faith." 

12 hours ago, Joe Farang said:

What about Pagan. The original religion of Western Europe before Capitalists took over, and spread Christianity in ordet to get the peasants to fight for God (Capitalist Profit)

 

Remnants of paganism still exist ...

Halloween was Samhain

 

If Easter does indeed have Pagan origins as a quick google search indicates, that means that Christianity made stuff up and stole stuff from Paganism and changed it around. 

 

 

Same goes for Xmas:

 

12 hours ago, Bday Prang said:

mature adults discussing imaginary friends,  Can things get anymore ridiculous ?

 

I got into Buddhism many years ago.

It wasn't about God at all.

Or I guess God is addressed at some point, but you can lose yourself in a lot of Buddhist teachings and not really have to talk about God much. 

It's more of a philosophy than a religion, actually. 

 

Atheism isn't a religion. 

35 minutes ago, connda said:

 

@mikebike @Jingthing
There is now a "None" category by popular demand.

need to include it in section 3 as well as I have not converted to "none" from any other fairy tale. I have never believed in any of that rubbish

My religion....."What goes around, comes around"........🤗

50 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

But what if God is real and we took away all the other false religions and deities, thinking and fighting over it? Wouldn't there be more peace in the world? Yes, the devil surely exists, and it's in some people. It is hard to understand why a God would allow so many bad things to happen, but what if he is real and this is just a test? 

             And removing exactly  what part , would would be necessary to successfully  put an end to kiddie fiddling ? or is that just a "test" too.   It seems to be quite endemic amongst the more popular religions, Catholicism in particular has gone to great lengths to protect and anonymise their perpetrators, and the "faithful" also seem prepared to turn a blind eye to it  when it suits them,

          Lets not forget they consider the pope to be infallible anything he says or even thinks comes straight from "god"  They will claim the kiddie fiddling  is being sorted out, a "work in progress" so to speak, yet the fact that they are still at it after over 2000 years indicates they must be doing the bare minimum, as and when req'd , 

            just like the "devout" followers of the so called religion of peace never seem to publicly denounce the atrocities carried out in its name, to any meaningful degree, when was the last time you heard of a terrorist being dismissed from that religion ?  even posthumously in the case of suicide attacks ?  

16 minutes ago, transam said:

My religion....."What goes around, comes around"........🤗

mine?   do unto others , before they do you

11 hours ago, transam said:

My religion....."What goes around, comes around"........🤗

 

Buddhism teaches that .... 

 

Here's a good religious book. 

 

Don't Be An <deleted>!: Creating a Better World through Self Awareness, Common Sense and Decency

 

I was saving up to be Jewish, but I love a bacon sandwich in the morning, and it would have meant no Saturday morning football practice.

Delete

12 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

But what if God is real and we took away all the other false religions and deities, thinking and fighting over it? Wouldn't there be more peace in the world? Yes, the devil surely exists, and it's in some people. It is hard to understand why a God would allow so many bad things to happen, but what if he is real and this is just a test? 

 

Here, read this.

It was written by a Rabbi with a background in "Kabbalah" (whatever that means)

 

 

 

The title should read: "Which delusion have you been brainwashed into when you were a kid?"

 

When we can say with a high level of certainty which is your delusion, just by knowing where you were born and raised, it supports no other title...

 

-The 2.2 billion of Christians

-The 1.5 billion of Muslims

-The 488 million de Buddhists

-The one billion of believers in Hinduism -

-the 28 million believers in Sikhism

-the 13 million believers in Judaism

-the 104 million believers in Shinto -

-The 4 million believers in Jainism

-and lesser known religions 

-without forgetting the 189 members of the Flat Earth Society.

 

All of these delusions are mostly linked to a geographical location. Leaves no room for personal choice of your own.

I ended up believing in none of them...

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

 

I got into Buddhism many years ago.

It wasn't about God at all.

Or I guess God is addressed at some point, but you can lose yourself in a lot of Buddhist teachings and not really have to talk about God much. 

It's more of a philosophy than a religion, actually. 

 

There is no "God" in Buddhism although there are gods in Buddhist cosmology.  But god worship has nothing to do with Buddhism.  And although I'm Buddhist, I'd actually argue that it's a philosophy in action based on morality and meditation, and not a religion, as their is no "god" central to the practice.  Buddhism is solely about putting a permanent end to suffering.

1 hour ago, dinsdale said:

Atheism isn't a religion. 

Exactly - it's a-religious.  But if I didn't include it, the atheist crowds would be clamoring about, "Where's the selection for atheism?" 

21 minutes ago, Andre0720 said:

The title should read: "Which delusion have you been brainwashed into when you were a kid?"

Easy!  Start your own thread.

2 hours ago, connda said:

That's called Atheism.  People pretty much equate Atheism (A - without; theism religion or a god) A-theism - without a religion or a belief in a god.

🤣🤣🤣 If u think none = atheism, you are either uneducated or willfully ignorant.

2 hours ago, connda said:

 

@mikebike @Jingthing
There is now a "None" category by popular demand.

It's not "popular demand"... You realised your world view, your "overton window" was more than a bit too narrow 😉

11 hours ago, connda said:

There is no "God" in Buddhism although there are gods in Buddhist cosmology.  But god worship has nothing to do with Buddhism.  And although I'm Buddhist, I'd actually argue that it's a philosophy in action based on morality and meditation, and not a religion, as their is no "god" central to the practice.  Buddhism is solely about putting a permanent end to suffering.

 

My understanding is "No God" turns a lot of people off from Buddhism. 

Most (or many) people seem to want or need a God of some sort in a religion.

So one Buddhist author I read (from US, who studied in Japan) did talk about God in one of his books. But I never got into that part too much. They sort of dance around the God issue in a poetic way, as shown by the title of this book "There is No God, and God is Always With You". 

This is from the guy who studied Buddhism in Japan. 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

But what if God is real and we took away all the other false religions and deities, thinking and fighting over it? Wouldn't there be more peace in the world? Yes, the devil surely exists, and it's in some people. It is hard to understand why a God would allow so many bad things to happen, but what if he is real and this is just a test? 

Great, Shiva will be happy to hear that you are converting.

3 hours ago, Will B Good said:

If you observe what happens in this world there is a much stronger argument for the existence of the devil than for any God.

 

  In the interest of discussion, if you can make an argument that the "devil" exists, doesn't that mean there's an argument for the counterforce to the devil, i.e. "God"?

3 hours ago, G Rex said:

I am a follower of my football team.  -  does that count?

Are they in urgent need of The Almighty's help?

I am a practicing Catholic, practicing because as I get older I realise, God knows, I need to practise!

2 hours ago, HappyExpat57 said:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Just because we can't explain in doesn't mean it's a miracle.

I meant things like people dying and coming back and telling what they've seen. A Burmese monk was dead fro three days, and came back and said he saw hell, and Buddha was there. Children telling stories of things they would never have any knowledge of. That we can't explain what some things are can also mean they are miracles.

12 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

I meant things like people dying and coming back and telling what they've seen. A Burmese monk was dead fro three days, and came back and said he saw hell, and Buddha was there. Children telling stories of things they would never have any knowledge of. That we can't explain what some things are can also mean they are miracles.

I work on the basis, (and I know that people will say it is a cop out) that there are more things in heaven and earth than we mortals can explain.

 

Catholicism has it's mysteries, acknowledges them and accepts them. I find that a comfort. For example, I cannot explain the Virgin Birth, nor the real presence of Our Blessed Lord at the Consecration at Holy Mass, nor the Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary, but I can believe in them. As for death, well as the prayer holds, love is eternal, and death is but a horizon, and a horizon is nothing more than the limit of our sight.

 

Heavy stuff, but you ( the OP) did ask...

Suprised you didn't include Mysticism as that's still popular, but not as much so as in the late 19th and early 20th century.

5 minutes ago, JAG said:

I work on the basis, (and I know that people will say it is a cop out) that there are more things in heaven and earth than we mortals can explain.

 

Catholicism has it's mysteries, acknowledges them and accepts them. I find that a comfort. For example, I cannot explain the Virgin Birth, nor the real presence of Our Blessed Lord at the Consecration at Holy Mass, nor the Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary, but I can believe in them. As for death, well as the prayer holds, love is eternal, and death is but a horizon, and a horizon is nothing more than the limit of our sight.

 

Heavy stuff, but you ( the OP) did ask...

There are many questions I have but all we can go on is faith. I see this as just a passing, that very few lives much past 85, and that forever doesn't compare. I'm sure some things in the Bible have been misinterpreted but if God can make a universe from his mind, anything is possible, and I'm hoping heaven has some of the things we have here without all the crapola.