Shenmue Dojo

I was raised in church. So I heard the gospel from an early age. I can't remember the moment I came to Christ but I know around the time. I was about 6. It's not like I ever did anything really bad but I understood right from wrong and knew I couldn't go to heaven unless I asked forgiveness for the wrong I had done in life. So I made the decision to call on Jesus. My life since my salvation hasn't been perfect. I still deal with stuff I know I shouldn't do. But I know God loves me and I'm eternally forgiven.

One of my biggest frustrations is not knowing how to answer the tough questions people ask. I try to defend my faith the best I can and give an account for the hope that lies within me, as the Bible says. I have a lot of questions to ask God when I do get to heaven because as it stands now I'll die without getting all of my questions answered here. ;)

One of the greatest journeys in my life has been studying the Bible. It seems the more I learn about it the more I see it fit together from cover to cover. There's so much in there that couldn't be authored by someone without existing from outside our time domain. It's a beautiful book.

^ I feel sorry for you. And you're creeping me out. I guess you didn't have many options being raised that way, but I still hope you'll manage to see through those things someday.

He [Jobs] said, “ Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s 50/50, maybe. But ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more, and I find myself believing a bit more, maybe it’s because I want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated, somehow it lives on.”

Then he paused for a second and said, “Yea, but sometimes, I think it’s just like an On-Off switch. Click. And you’re gone.” And then he paused again and said, “ And that’s why I don’t like putting On-Off switches on Apple devices.”

Exactly how i feel about it.

I have been everything from Judaeo-Christian religious to fully atheist to skeptically agnostic to neo-pagan to Buddhist over the years.

At present I do have a more structured spiritual belief that is probably closer to religion than not, and I have chosen to believe as a personal choice, but I have no desire to persuade anyone else to share my faith or judge anyone for not doing so, or for what they believe. I'm just a flawed, limited human being like everyone else on the face of the Earth.

Sufficed to say, I believe in love, compassion, forgiveness, and live and let live. I respect all religions, atheists, agnostics, spiritualists, and everything in between, whether I agree with them or not, so long as no one is doing harm to anyone.

I believe at the end of the day, even the belief that life means anything or, indeed, that anything matters at all, is a belief for which there is no compelling evidence or proof, and that in that sense, everyone engages in either some degree of faith, or at the very least, a natural, innate degree of cognitive dissonance.

I searched long and hard, and could never find any proof that any of this means anything so... believe what you will. And I have chosen to believe what I do, and it is a specific belief system, but I have no desire to force it on anyone or chastise anyone for not sharing it. If someone specifically asks, I'm happy to share it with them in a very civil and laid back manner, but beyond that, I just let people do as they will and do the same for myself.

I believe it is not my place to try to persuade anyone to believe, or not believe, anything.

^ That's a very reasonable and healthy way to look at things, I think.

Anonymous81 wrote:I believe at the end of the day, even the belief that life means anything or, indeed, that anything matters at all, is a belief for which there is no compelling evidence or proof, and that in that sense, everyone engages in either some degree of faith, or at the very least, a natural, innate degree of cognitive dissonance.

Yeah, that's how I see it, too.

I personally don't believe there's a meaning to any of this, which at times can feel frustrating, but most of the time gives me a great sense of freedom and even comfort. I'm also of the opinion that everything that happens is pre-determined, strictly deterministic. Nothing else really makes sense logically I think. Also, this:

The fact that Shenmue 3 is happening proves that there is a God because my prayers were answered.

How on earth can you be 'Judeo-Christian religious'?

beedle wrote: How on earth can you be 'Judeo-Christian religious'?

elaborate

Riku Rose wrote: If I say it's stupid that people believe in God I'm told I should respect what others believe.

If I said I believed in Santa I would be told to grow up and stop being an idiot despite there being just as much proof.

I've never understood how people can just use 'I have faith' as an argument. It just comes across as someone who doesn't want to do some thinking because they can't handle the reality that none of this matters and they aren't important.

'I have faith' is basically another way of saying 'I believe in this, and you can't prove otherwise, so I'm going to continue believing in this'. It's a full-stop to any criticism in their minds and a catch-22 in the minds of those who don't have 'faith'.

south carmain wrote:

beedle wrote: How on earth can you be 'Judeo-Christian religious'?

elaborate

Either you believe that Jesus was the messiah, or you do not.

beedle wrote: How on earth can you be 'Judeo-Christian religious'?

Assuming you're referring to me... I meant that originally I was raised in a Christian household, then later in life explored Judaism instead. Among the many spiritual paths I explored as outlined in my post (neo-paganism, Buddhism, my own completely invented spiritualism, total atheism, agnosticism, and even total nihilism) over a 20+ year period. Eventually working my way back around to more or less where I started. (Much to the chagrin of those who view such as complete intellectual failure and inward collapse. Which is part of why I choose not to discuss it much unless directly asked, though, or in the presence of those who share my beliefs.)

If people ask, I'll happily (and respectfully) - albeit privately - share my beliefs, and won't deny them if questioned... but I choose not to force my views on anyone or get into debates about them, precisely because of what I said in my post; faith implies something less than verifiable proof. If there's proof, then it's knowledge, not faith. There will never be 100% proof of anything anyone believes that isn't empirical, (and even that's arguable, given subjectivity, incompleteness, the differences between perception and underlying reality, information theory, emergent behavior, the limits of even our most rigorous measuring tools, etc.) and people will believe what they want ultimately.

For me, part of having faith is saying, "I could be wrong, but this is what I freely choose for myself to believe, and (if they ask, in private,) this is why, but I don't expect that to persuade anyone else that I'm right, and I'm okay with that," rather than, "This is what I know with absolute certitude to be true and I can prove it (I can't), and therefore I demand that everyone else believe it too, or I will condemn you." (Especially since condemnation isn't supposed to be something I do according to my faith, unless I'm a hypocrite in my eyes.)

That's fair enough.

To me, god is a concept we've come up with inevitably due to those feelings we all have mutually gotten from the start of our species when we do certain things (that we learn from the knowledge we have gained from the current environment around us, using all of our senses) that when repeated will leave us with nothing but a pathway towards the a very distressing death, or a very pleasant one (maybe even an afterlife hehe!). God seems like that part of our biology that sends us into seemingly unending madness when we're not (or at a conscious level being convinced we are not, which seems to edit our biology) functioning as a benefit to the species.

Oh yeah and religion (or law) exploits this aspect of our nature to create order in large masses of people. It always gets better with science!

I want to continue this post but it'll get to weird, i like where it's at now.