What do you believe?

[Mark]

A friend of mine currently is in a YouTube fight with someone who claims to be Christian and who makes magic tutorials because he lives by the words of God which are that liars (and thus magicians, so he thinks) should be exposed. Funny fact is that this guy uses quotes from the Bible which are contradicting his actions for they say the Lord is the only one to expose liars and frauds.

However, stories aside, it made me wonder: what do you believe? Do you believe in the Lord or a bigger and unknown force? Were you raised to believe but don't you anymore? Etc, etc.

I'll answer the question myself later.

[Jordan]

I'm someone who has to be given evidence before I start to believe something. And I just haven't seen enough evidence that there actually is a force much bigger than humans.
I wasn't raised to believe anything, which I believe is the right thing. Because once you're old enough to think for yourself you can choose for yourself. But if you're brought up believing something - it's like you've been brainwashed to believe that fact, to be blunt about it.
I don't care what other people believe - but if they rub their religion into your face; that's when I get rather annoyed. I know they're trying to be a good christian, muslim, bhuddist etc, but I can't help it.

[Travmang]

I was raised in a family where religion was nonexistent. I'm not religious at all, I do not believe in god. But thats not to say that god doesn't exist. I'm very open to everyone's religious views, and judging a person based on their beliefs, in my opinion, is not right. For people that live their lives for the lord, in their mind, their actions are justified(What I mean by this is, what some people think is rational, others may think its irrational.). A problem is formed when a person of different religious beliefs considers someone else's religious acts "crazy" or "insane." I hope that makes sense. I personally believe that I am in control of my own life. I choose to think that I control my own fate, with day to day decisions(both conscious and subconscious). However, if someone believes that their path has already been chosen for them, I can understand that. That is their own choice, and I respect that. I'm also not saying that religion is necessarily a choice, or that its like a light switch where its either 'on' or 'off,' but rather it be a free decision with endless views and choices. Anyways, I think I've gotten a bit off topic, and perhaps I delved a little too deep on the subject, but hopefully this paragraph makes sense and doesn't offend anyone, because I know religion can be a touchy subject for some.

And lastly, a smiley face to lighten up the mood a bit:



Edit: To mess with sentence structure and to clarify a few things as I don't want to come across as disrespectful.

[la0o9]

I personally am an atheist, my don't believe in the force that is "God", my family support the teachings of Buddhism, and i sometimes practice them as well, but i don't believe in a greater force than our own.

However, i believe myself to be quite gullible, saying that i believe everything you say isn't completely off the mark( if it sounds rational and the speaker have a tone of confidence, i'll believe it). I am both an Idealist and a realist, so even tho i view the world as is, i'm secretly hoping that magic actually exists


In short, i think religious beliefs are but nonsense( sorry if i offend anyone, but that's how i see it), but i still believe in a force humans can't explain.

[Albert]

I'm actually a born-again Christian myself and I believe in God. But to be completely honest, it really gets hard to believe in the bible itself.

What Mark's friend is encountering is what I call people who act like a church and is not really a true believer in God per say.

I accept everyone's views in their own respective rights, regardless of if the existence of a God is bullcrap or not. I just don't accept it when people start to spout nonsense and fixate their position as the correct position. We can't prove or disprove God at this moment 100%. I've found a lot of miracles happen in belief of Him and that's why I choose to believe in God. That's not to say that he doesn't exist; I don't know if He does for sure. I just want to believe He does.

Going back to the topic of Mark's friend, he really has no right to be forcing his belief on others. It's a choice. It will be great if people willfully accept the existence of a superior being due to them going through their own experiences. But that's all that is.

I believe there's a difference between a innocent lie and fraudulent or negligent lie. I don't know if the God I believe in accepts any lie or not at all, but I want to believe that innocent lies to improve the enjoyment of people and to make them smile, lies that will not hurt anyone at all, and lies that are done for the benefit of all are forgiven.

I think I've rambled on for quite a bit

But that's what I think.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Albert

Going back to the topic of Mark's friend, he really has no right to be forcing his belief on others. It's a choice. It will be great if people willfully accept the existence of a superior being due to them going through their own experiences. But that's all that is.

Hey now, my friend hasn't forced his belief on anyone. Or were you talking about the other guy because what he does is getting a lot closer to that, lol.

But yeah, I personally do believe in a bigger force unknown to mankind, and either the moment we people get to know about it or the moment we figured out the secret of life that comes along with it is the moment the world is coming to an end. The reason I believe this is because there still are too many things to question about our existence and I believe there is an answer to everything, yet I really doubt anyone would be able to handle an answer to all questions. Maybe the bigger force I mean is just the force that comes with that answer.

However, I personally think that this force isn't in control of much that happens, really. But I have witnessed some people achieving way more by actually believing in it so it can definitely be a support to those who need or want it. The only problems I have is when people either stuff their belief up anyone's throat, when they don't allow others to think differently or when they blame the force for whatever goes wrong.

I was raised as a Catholic because my nine year older sister wanted to be one at the age of seven so I didn't have much of a choice. I do understand my parents their decision though but when looking back at it I'd rather have had the same choice my sister had cause then I would've decided differently. However, I haven't practiced the religion all that much, especially not after I turned 11.

Apart from the force as described above, there is not much for me to believe but scientifically proven facts and things I witnessed for myself. I don't believe much of the stories within the Bible either, although the deeper meanings to it are and should be very valuable to everyone. It's just kind of funny to me that pretty much everything Jesus did or witnessed was already described by way older religions. To me, that's close to evidence that the stories and miracles are all just a figure of speech. Jesus probably wasn't much but a great talker for his time. That's just my take on it, please don't take it too serious if it offends you and I'm sorry if it does.

Sorry for the whole lot of text.

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Mark

Hey now, my friend hasn't forced his belief on anyone. Or were you talking about the other guy because what he does is getting a lot closer to that, lol.

I should have clarified; I meant the guy harassing your friend about it

[TheMisdirectingHand]

I'll be brief. Freedom of religion should be allowed, no matter where we come from. Magic is not related to religion at all; it's just an art. I believe in whatever happens next.

[TheMisdirectingHand]

You have great logic, and I do not disagree with you at all.

Except one thing that I am curious about... what do you mean by this "bigger force unknown to mankind"? Everything we do affects the outcome of how we live. When we wake up in the morning, we can decide to go to school, or not go to school. Once we make that choice, there are branches and branches of outcomes that can happen in the form of a map. I don't think this greater force could affect it...

[Mark]

Like I said, I don't believe that this bigger force is actually in control of anything. I think it's just the reason for the universe's and our existance with whatever kind of creatures live in it. That is, not just on planet earth. I find it impossible to believe that our little planet has the only living creatures in such an insanely huge universe.

[Kevo]

I strongly believe in God but I'm not forcing my religion to anyone.Everyone has the right to choose his own path, his own religion or just not to have one.By the way I've never seen this guy with the tutorials(never heard of him neither).If I see him somewhere in YouTube I would like to convice him to stop.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Kevo

I strongly believe in God but I'm not forcing my religion to anyone.Everyone has the right to choose his own path, his own religion or just not to have one.By the way I've never seen this guy with the tutorials(never heard of him neither).If I see him somewhere in YouTube I would like to convice him to stop.

Just curious, but what do you think of the Bible? I allow whoever to believe whatever they want so it's okay.

[Kevo]

What I think of it?Well actually I have read only the New Testament, not the whole Bible.For me the Bible is not just a book that you can read and understand like you are reading a comic book for example.You need to read it multiple times to get what is in there and try to understand it, not just using some quotes from it, that even you don't understand and claim that you are right for something(like that tutorial guy).

The Bible teached me a lot of things in various ways, lets say how to behave with people, to be tollerant, to help someone who needs help, etc.The Bible also teached me my main moral and ethics (my parrents teached them to me too lol).For me every right choice is in the Bible.

Too bad that there are people out there who claim that they are religious, but they aren't.Sometimes these people use the Bible and the religion for their own porpoises(such as donating your house to them in the name of God, getting all your money, etc.) which makes me feel bad.I feel like this guy(tutorial man) is the same, never seen him, but still I have such a feeling.

So thas quite all I think about the Bible.

[la0o9]

Frankly, i think the Bible is a book that utilizes the art of cold reading at it's earliest stage and took hundreds of years to come up with, i admire the art used, but i don't particularly like what was written.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by la0o9

Frankly, i think the Bible is a book that utilizes the art of cold reading at it's earliest stage and took hundreds of years to come up with, i admire the art used, but i don't particularly like what was written.

Errr.. could you please elaborate? I don't really get the cold reading in it.

And let's be honest, living by the book isn't all that bad because the rules are quite ordinary in current societies. The only thing is that I'm pretty sure there is not a single person who truly lives or lived by the book.

[Albert]

From what I've learned, especially the old testament, it isn't really to be taken in literally for every single event that happened. I remember someone telling me that what's more important in the bible than the actual small details are the lessons you can learn from it, which I believe is very important.

[la0o9]

you know what cold reading is don't you Mark? they are general lines that is used to seemingly predict the future but are actually correct for everyone, imo, the Bible is full of those lines, but instead of talking about a person, they talk about a period of time and they talk about basic... philosophies, i could be wrong, but that's my impression of the Bible

[Mark]

Originally Posted by la0o9

you know what cold reading is don't you Mark? they are general lines that is used to seemingly predict the future but are actually correct for everyone, imo, the Bible is full of those lines, but instead of talking about a person, they talk about a period of time and they talk about basic... philosophies, i could be wrong, but that's my impression of the Bible

I know what cold reading is and I can do it myself too, but predicting the future is definitely not a part of it. Cold reading is that without any knowledge about anyone or anything you say personal things about them. They usually aren't the same for everyone but you are indeed searching within the average, at least before you could take bigger risks.

But yeah, prophecies have nothing to do with cold reading, it's just logic and probability. For instance, I can now predict that there will be a third World War and sometime in the future I will be right. If not, the world came to an end too soon.

[la0o9]

lol, i messed up, it was quite early in the morning so instead of " seemingly read you mind" in my head i typed "seemingly predict the future"( English is my second language, so things sometimes gets tangled up in my head). It's just like that time i mistook a double face card for a double back card in my head( cost me an HOUR arguing back and forth with a friend before i realized i mistook them for the other one)

[s13zeTheDay]

In my opinion the bible is a great work of literature. It took many real stories and documented them. Though many stories have been found to have been exaggerated, it is based in truth (e.g. historians believe that when moses "parted the red sea" he led his people through a shallow during low tide and the egyptian chariots got stuck because of the mud and they had to give up the chase). I don't really think that the bible is as much cold reading as it is teaching lessons.