well said ourmaninthenorth.

Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Jew and Buddhist, with a few Jains

Reminded of Donovan

and the odd Zoroastrian – that would be Freddy Mercury then.

Faith and religion are poles apart.

Religion is something you are told to do. It is structured and often carries threats about what will happen if you don’t follow the “rules”. Religion is also heavily manipulated by those seeking power or seeking to hold onto power. It is often used as a tool of oppression. There are some very decent people in most major religions, and there is no question that some people draw an enormous amount of comfort from their religion. However there are many who seek to improve their own position at the expense of others. Sacred texts are interpreted or twisted to mean the complete opposite. This is the big problem. As someone said earlier, the teachings in the New Testament are pretty sound really. It’s all about love and respect for fellow humans. A good chunk of tolerance and forgiveness in there too. The Catholic church seems to have missed the point entirely. Millions starve, yet the Catholic church is an incredibly wealthy organisation. I don’t see how they can reconcile this. Likewise suicide bombers being promised more virgins than you can shake a stick for an eternity of debauchery in paradise doesn’t quite fit with my understanding of Islam.

Faith is completely different and has nothing to do with happy clappers or suicide bombers. Faith is something inside you that you “just know”. It can’t be proved, hence the name. I don’t particularly have much truck with “organised” religion but am quite comfortable with my own faith.

A proper troll if I may say so!

If you want to go and find your god, keep it to yourself, there’s a good chap! 😀

the study of sanskrit texts, by its own construction, is designed to be personally translated. this is totally accepted in india. i’m sure the same should be applied to any religious writing.

talk to people, yes, I do that, but often I find that it only helps with the symptoms and not tackle the cause.
Sometimes life presents choices, often the easiest ones are the worst possible options and in moments of weakness it can be to easy to succumb to your personal failings.

Now as an example I have in the past seen myself fall towards the easiest, most harmful option, not because I wasn’t aware that what I was doing was both wrong and harmful but because I felt lost and wanted a quick fix.

In a faith, currently of my own learning (as mentioned I’m not being preached to or blindly accepting anything, I’m questioning everything!) I do feel as though I could have the strength to do better, to live better and to ultimately be better.

But as I have already said, this is a journey, one of my own, one step and one day at a time, its bound to get rough sometimes but its better than the alternative!

have you got your eyes on a few alter boys then…

The only thing Roman about me is my nose, and that’s cos its roamin all over my face!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY6dIxQTaf8[/video]

I strongly suspect there is more to life than the mundane world we see around us, but I’m never going to believe that the meaning of life, the universe and everything was exclusively revealed to some bloke in the Middle East to be passed on to the rest of us second hand.

There are many religions or faiths. Don’t just pick the one with the best marketing.

oh I’m not, I understand marketing and can see through a lot of smoke n mirrors, this is a path, a life long journey I would expect, I know I have Faith, I just need to learn more to determine what is right for me. It’s probably one of the most interesting challenges a man can take up…

what tires for God? Holy Rollers? 😉 😀

Try exploring Humanism.

Spongebob +1

I strongly suspect there is more to life than the mundane world we see around us

Dont know who you mean by “we” but dont count me in. Its anything but mundane to me.

TSY I find that my faith in humanity tends to be toppled on a daily basis!

Its anything but mundane to me.

Quite.

And if you’re an atheist, fair enough, I’d be interested to know what you do when you simply can’t MTFU?

I’m an atheist and I just tend to take the attitude that if I don’t MTFU nobody else is going to do it for me. If this sounds over simplistic I can only say that I certainly don’t think that a faith in some wider spiritual belief system will help me out of hard times. Good luck and hard work are all that counts when things are stacked against you.

I don’t have any experience of organised religion having skillfully avoided it all my life so I wouldn’t want to make any sweeping comments about the relative merits of different religious views. All I will say is that religion has always appeared very alien and very very outmoded to me. Witness the Popes recent comments regarding his tacit acceptance of condoms and the oppresive treatment of women that some religions seem to tolerate. Religion seems to be a very ancient social and political control mechanism that struggles to find a place, or value, in the modern world.

My view is that the most important decisions in life are normally the hardest ones to take and the easy answer or solution to any problem is very rarely the right one. If you want to be a better person the simplest thing you can do is be more open minded about the opportunities that you come across and to be more accepting in your dealings with other people. Why not try some voluntary work? Its a vastly under rated way of doing some good in some small way and it is very rewarding on an emotional level.

MrNutt – it may be all there is though…

MrNutt

Now as an example I have in the past seen myself fall towards the easiest, most harmful option, not because I wasn’t aware that what I was doing was both wrong and harmful but because I felt lost and wanted a quick fix.

If you want absolution for making decision that you know at the time are wrong and harmfull. Then religion may be for you.
On the other hand I try not to make those poor choices however the responsibility for these choices is mine alone.
It sounds to me as if you are looking to be rescued from things for which you have responsibility.

Meaning of Life?

We are engaged in an endless Darwinian relay race with the object of handing the baton on to our offspring with the biggest advantage we can give them. No more no less.

Of course advantage is a word that open to all sorts of interpretation 😉

“at 36, as a debauched “sinner”, whom for years has felt at odds with the world, who has sought solace in drink, drugs, women & and pretty much everything else available in excess, I actually think I am taking the first tentative steps to heal the scars and become a better man.”

I have no religion. I set (within the context of the society I live in) my own rules and standards. I decide who I wish to be. Some people believe you cannot have standards and decency or be a good or better person unless you have a religion. The expectation is to need to have a god to fear or to please so you ‘have’ to keep to the rules – or go to hell when dead etc.

Its not true. Anyone can be a good person, a better person, without a god. Its a question of choice. Who do you want to be? Set your own rules and be a decent person just for yourself, for your own satisfaction and pride.

Many people seem to turn to a god when leaving additions of drugs, alcohol, abusive situations etc (not implying you are one of these). Maybe it works for them, but its exchanging one addiction/obsession for another and finding another place to hide, rather than dealing with the ‘why’ of why you do things you are not happy with and having the inner personal strength to step away from them without still leaning on a prop.

Whatever, I hope your life goes well.

maybe, but if what gives me strength to make the right choices turns out to have been but an imaginary friend then I’ve not lost anything, wouldn’t you agree?

if you’re an atheist, fair enough, I’d be interested to know what you do when you simply can’t MTFU?

I used relax by going to my allotment and tend the vegetables, but the guy who owns the plot next to me has started digging up my spuds and claiming their his, and it’s all got a bit fraught.

what gives me strength to make the right choices

You have to admit that its a bit of a worry if yer imaginary friend tells you to start buggering choirboys though?

surfer & goon

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mundane

mun·dane? ?
[muhn-deyn, muhn-deyn]
–adjective
1.
of or pertaining to this world or earth as contrasted with heaven; worldly; earthly: mundane affairs.
2.
common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative.
3.
of or pertaining to the world, universe, or earth.

I used the word as number 1.
I share your opinion that the world of natural wonders doesn’t fit with number 2.

maybe, but if what gives me strength to make the right choices turns out to have been but an imaginary friend then I’ve not lost anything, wouldn’t you agree?

Maybe your dignity and intellectual backbone but thats up to you.

I used the word as number 1.

contrasted with heaven? oh ok then 🙄

“Maybe your dignity and intellectual backbone but thats up to you.”
Why do threads like this always come down to condescension and petty abuse? If someone expresses faith or a belief in something that you dont share, why does it make them intellectually inferior to you? Live and let live FFS.

If someone expresses faith or a belief in something that you dont share, why does it make them intellectually inferior to you? Live and let live FFS.

I didnt actually say it did. I answered this question.

maybe, but if what gives me strength to make the right choices turns out to have been but an imaginary friend then I’ve not lost anything, wouldn’t you agree?

Which I stand by and applies to anyone who is prepared to “cover their bases” in such a way.

I also really hope this doesnt turn into the usual STW bashing.

Mr Nutt I think its really refreshing to see such honesty, perhaps thats why the threads been quite mature!

Id echo what Xc-Steve has said, having just been along to an Alpha Course i think they are a good way to find out for yourself. They are of course run by people who believe what they say so there is a level of bias from that point of view but ive found that the hardest thing to argue with is peoples own experiences. I really enjoyed learning about people and their own journeys. It was a good place to help work things out in my own mind as to what i believe, or what id like to find out about more.

have fun, and try not to get too bogged down with stuff! Ride that bike.

Too literal ?
OK, I’ll try again.

Anyone can see and touch the mundane, or physical, world around them.
Many people, including me, suspect that there might be a bit more to it than that.
It might be a god or goddess. It might be nature spirits, or Gaia.
It might be that there is no more to it and what we see really is all there is.

Whatever it is, I don’t trust anyone who claims to have some sort of exclusive access to the answer.

You might also have a quick look at these The Big Silence 3 recent half hour programs – I’ve seen the first and got the other two recorded – facinating stuff. You may not go for the the God bit, but I think the idea of the ever increasing wave of “noise” of all sorts blocking out whatever’s buried inside us – soul call it what you will – makes sense.

a convinced sceptic..

Too literal ?

Quite the opposite. You are using a definition that appears rellevant to something that doesnt exist.

What you said, surfer, was that by choosing to explore his ‘faith’, then he stood to lose his dignity and intellectual backbone. I think that was fairly clear.

What you said, surfer, was that by choosing to explore his ‘faith’, then he stood to lose his dignity and intellectual backbone. I think that was fairly clear.

I’ve made it as clear as I can I cant make it clearer for you.

You dont need to make it any clearer.

What you said, surfer, was that by choosing to explore his ‘faith’, then he stood to lose his dignity and intellectual backbone. I think that was fairly clear.

That may be what you read into what surfer said but I read that anyone who bases their religious belief/faith on Pascals Wager does lack a bit of backbone. Please don’t read this as my saying that all those who have relgious belief/faith are lacking in backbone as that is not what I’m saying, nor is it what I think that surfer was saying.

Fair enough…

If someone expresses faith or a belief in something that you dont share, why does it make them intellectually inferior to you? Live and let live FFS.

When did anyone suggest that the OP was intellectually inferior to anyone? I think suggesting that the discovery that ones belief system is constructed round an imaginary friend as being inconsequential by the OP is quite reasonably picked up by myself with real life pitfalls, and by surfer with slightly more nebulous potential problems. That is not the same as calling Mr Nutt intellectualy stunted or a philiosophical pygmy…… personally I find it difficult to understand why the sole argument propogated when the lack of logic or reason behind religious belief is challenged is that somehow by disagreeing with that belief in fairy tales one is lacking in objectivity or wit.

Oh right then, your comments ‘buggering choirboys’ and ‘imaginary friend’ were objective and witty then?

Oh right then, your comments ‘buggering choirboys’ and ‘imaginary friend’ were objective and witty then?

There is overwhleming evidence that the former was commonplace within the Roman Catholic church and the term “imaginary friend” would appear, again based on evidence (or the lack of) to be an accurate description.

Witty is open to interpretation.

Read the post Mitch

The Op said:-

maybe, but if what gives me strength to make the right choices turns out to have been but an imaginary friend then I’ve not lost anything, wouldn’t you agree?

To which I pointed out:-

You have to admit that its a bit of a worry if yer imaginary friend tells you to start buggering choirboys though?

Which in case you missed it is a real and current concern directly involving one of the largest organised religions in the world. i.e. yes harm bloody well can be harm done! Seems to me poignant and appropriate in the circumstances of the debate. More so in that the OP is obviously seeking some form of direction in his life. I think it would be more than slightly unhelpful to avoid mentioning some of the obvious pitfalls and precipices that he would appear to be heading for.

So whats your point?