Do you still follow the religion you were raised with?

[JustKate]

^ All I can say is that I've never learned any science that contradicted my faith. Maybe I haven't learned enough science, but I don't think that's the reason.

Same

Oh, and I should have added that the reverse is true as well - science doesn't contradict my faith, and my faith doesn't contradict science, either. They simply look at different kinds of truth - or at least different kinds of issues (for those of you who believe religion has no truth ).

 

[msbae]

A funny video about Radical Islam...

http://www.killsometime.com/animations/animation.asp?ID=152(Link deleted)

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Keep that stuff in TNZ.

 

[msbae]

^^ Keep that stuff in TNZ.

Where is this TNZ anyway?

 

[JustKate]

It's short for The Neutral Zone. You have to apply for permission before you use it via your user CP. There's more information here:
http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=81941

I am not a member - I've so far held off because I don't feel I need any more pointless arguments in my life.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Actually, you don't need to apply anymore; just go to your CP and click on "Group Memberships" under "Networking" and sign yourself up.

 

[TGTheodore]

TNZ, sponsored by Maalox and Valium.

--Ted

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

I was raised Catholic...it's hard to explain my religious beliefs but they have expanded. So in a way I am still following the religion I grew up with but on the other hand I do not.

 

[Aurian]

I have pushed whatever religious beliefs I have had aside, and am focusing on real life.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

It's just my opinion and I know a lot of people disagree, but I think there is. One of the dangers of the theory of evolution to religion was it made belief in the concept of the human soul much more difficult. There are problems when you start to view religions as strictly metaphorical, it tends to eliminate important aspects of them. Science did a lot in forcing people to view religions as metaphorical.

I honestly don't see why evolution invalidates the idea of God or the human soul, why we could not have been shaped over billions of years. Even the evolutionary "failures," to my view, are not without their usefulness or purpose: we learn from them what does and does not work in the creation we live in.

I think it does make the traditional view of the souls as something that survives the death of the body and will be rewarded or punished based on one's actions here on Earth problematic. Either all living things have souls or you have to try and figure out exactly where in the several hundred thousand years history of human-like beings the soul developed.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

By the way, I agree wholeheartedly with this:

There are problems when you start to view religions as strictly metaphorical, it tends to eliminate important aspects of them.

It's nice to see people realise and vocalise it. [/QUOTE]

Even though I am atheist I have always believed the increasing liberalism of religious dogma is to the detriment of religion. It makes it something so vague and general it loses any real meaning whatsoever.

 

[Mark de Vries]

I think it does make the traditional view of the souls as something that survives the death of the body and will be rewarded or punished based on one's actions here on Earth problematic. Either all living things have souls or you have to try and figure out exactly where in the several hundred thousand years history of human-like beings the soul developed.

That's indeed a question that can be asked, and I don't think anyone has the answer. Not yet at least. We don't even have a proper idea of what the soul is and where (and if) we can find some physical evidence of it. So, it asks new and different questions and forces us to rethink some of the theories and facts about both evolution and religion that have become commonplace.

And who knows, maybe there is something like an evolution of the soul from one kind of creature to the next.

 

[Daneel]

^^^^^
Hmmm... The "evolution of the soul" is an interesting concept. I for one make no claims as to knowing whether or not I have a "soul", but assuming something like it did exist, it kind of makes one wonder about how it fits in with the evolution of humanity. What about the earliest humans -- the prehistoric homo-sapiens who hadn't quite achieved true sentience yet (depending on your definition of the word, I suppose), who acted more out of instinct than intelligence? And what of our simian ancestors before that? Did they have souls?

I know from my experience with the Catholic Church that it doesn't consider animals as possessing souls -- when I learned that, the first thing I wondered was how one would explain that to a young child grieving the loss of a beloved pet. Are you going to tell them that, according to your belief system, he or she will not eventually get to see their pet again in Heaven, like they will their friends and family? Good luck with that. But again, I think it can make you wonder about ancient man -- did souls just appear at some point in our species' evolution, or did they "evolve" along with us? I'm probably over-thinking this, but it does kind of go back to the idea of whether science and religion are necessarily in conflict with each other.

On a side note, I'm glad to see my thread here still pops up every now and then after all these weeks. I'd hoped that it would spawn some interesting discussion rather than degenerate into name-calling and ranting (which is one of the reasons I put it here instead of in TNZ... plus I thought I'd get a more varied response here). It looks like my hopes were fulfilled.

Thanks people!

 

[RJDiogenes]

What good is a Heaven without Pets? If I was going to believe in a Heaven, there would definitely be Pets.

 

[Tomalak]

I was raised by a Christian family (my father is a Vicar), but I can't remember at any point actually believing any of it. It just seemed very far-fetched.

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

Yes, to a degree. I was raised Jewish, and still observe some things, like not eating ham or shellfish, but I gave up others like synagogue attendance.

 

[Freakness]

I think it does make the traditional view of the souls as something that survives the death of the body and will be rewarded or punished based on one's actions here on Earth problematic. Either all living things have souls or you have to try and figure out exactly where in the several hundred thousand years history of human-like beings the soul developed.

i don't know if it's that difficult...in Judaism, at least, the soul isn't one thing but composed of various levels. there's an "animal soul" that all living things possess, there's a human soul that only humans have, there's a mid-level soul connecting the two, and there are a couple of other more esoteric levels. looked at this way, the creation of Adam story in Genesis looks a lot like the advent of the first real human being, the first creature possessing a human soul.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

What good is a Heaven without Pets? If I was going to believe in a Heaven, there would definitely be Pets.

I'd be surrounded by all the cats we've lost.

 

[TrekNut87]

I went with other. I was raised Christian, and I still follow the faith to a degree, but I consider myself much more spiritual than religious.

 

[RJDiogenes]

What good is a Heaven without Pets? If I was going to believe in a Heaven, there would definitely be Pets.

I'd be surrounded by all the cats we've lost.

Exactly.