All fun stuff aside, there is only one true religion, of course:

FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!!



More info on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster

Are you a pastafarian yet?

Sorry, this is very long and, since I'm don't speak english as well as this subject would need, it may be very mixed up.

Whatever you believe, there really ain't no reason not to be nice

I'll try to explain why:

I guess there are two major perspectives the existence of time. Either there once was a beginning of the universe and probably some kind of ending or it has always existed and will always exist...

If there was a beginning, as we would see it, to all this there should be a "reason" for it to exist. Something like a thought or force that created us and everything around us. I feel that if there was a beginning there has to have been a conscious decision or something like that. If we are a creation there has to be a creator. Let's call it God. I like that word. Since we can not find out the real reason for God to create us there can not be any religion with the answer.

Maybe love really is all those things we sing about. Maybe love is the reason. Maybe God created us for the same joy it should be for us to see our children get born and grow up. Or maybe it is as Pain of Salvation suggests on "BE" and as it has been suggested on a lot of places, that we really all are images of God and that "He" is really trying to figure Himself out by watching us. Maybe our differences and conflicts are all projections of His divine divided mind. Or maybe He just enjoys watching us fucking everything around us up as we do in Sims.

Now, if God loves us and created us out of love, the only rational and true action are those of love. If we are an image of Gods inner self, our struggle to be whatever we want to be (good, powerful, evil, loved, hated or whatever you want). If we struggle to be good, it actually is God trying to be good. As a part of one soul, I'd like to bring that soul peace.

And if God is just fucking with us, I say "fuck you, I'll live like I want to live, thus trying to bring and get joy."

If time is endless or a circle it would mean (according to me that is) that we are all, each and everyone, built of the same one mass of material. The same energy or whatever that has existed forever and always will exist. Thus, we are one.
Our bodies are built by what we eat etc. and as we die our bodies will return to nature sooner or later in one way or another. We are all made out of the soil we walk on. We are one as we are all part of the same system. Let's call this One system "Soul". We are all part of the same Soul.

If we are one, if You are Me and I'm Them (they're You), hurting someone would be the same as hurting yourself. Beating someone up is pretty much an emo-cutting-wrist thing.

If you think about it, this really appeals to sayings like "To love someone and to be loved for real, you have to love yourself".

I believe in God and i believe in a Soul. Which shape and reason those have, I don't know, but whatever reason we have, or don't have, to be here I reckon love as the only reasonable action. It's the only thing that works for me and it's the only thing that is a reward in itself.

It's hard to love, especially yourself, but it's worth it. No one will lie on their death bed and say to themself "Thank God I didn't waste any love in my life."

Interesting post, thanks Joch.
On the matter of belief, I read a story the other day that suggested that our world, or the way we perceive it, is the dreams and nightmares of "our" God. There are millions of Gods, all with different dreams, and so millions of realities. The only way to end our world is to find God and wake him up. Simple, right?

[JuZ]

Sorry, this is very long and, since I'm don't speak english as well as this subject would need, it may be very mixed up.

Whatever you believe, there really ain't no reason not to be nice

I'll try to explain why:

I guess there are two major perspectives the existence of time. Either there once was a beginning of the universe and probably some kind of ending or it has always existed and will always exist...

If there was a beginning, as we would see it, to all this there should be a "reason" for it to exist. Something like a thought or force that created us and everything around us. I feel that if there was a beginning there has to have been a conscious decision or something like that. If we are a creation there has to be a creator. Let's call it God. I like that word. Since we can not find out the real reason for God to create us there can not be any religion with the answer.

Maybe love really is all those things we sing about. Maybe love is the reason. Maybe God created us for the same joy it should be for us to see our children get born and grow up. Or maybe it is as Pain of Salvation suggests on "BE" and as it has been suggested on a lot of places, that we really all are images of God and that "He" is really trying to figure Himself out by watching us. Maybe our differences and conflicts are all projections of His divine divided mind. Or maybe He just enjoys watching us fucking everything around us up as we do in Sims.

Now, if God loves us and created us out of love, the only rational and true action are those of love. If we are an image of Gods inner self, our struggle to be whatever we want to be (good, powerful, evil, loved, hated or whatever you want). If we struggle to be good, it actually is God trying to be good. As a part of one soul, I'd like to bring that soul peace.

And if God is just fucking with us, I say "fuck you, I'll live like I want to live, thus trying to bring and get joy."

If time is endless or a circle it would mean (according to me that is) that we are all, each and everyone, built of the same one mass of material. The same energy or whatever that has existed forever and always will exist. Thus, we are one.
Our bodies are built by what we eat etc. and as we die our bodies will return to nature sooner or later in one way or another. We are all made out of the soil we walk on. We are one as we are all part of the same system. Let's call this One system "Soul". We are all part of the same Soul.

If we are one, if You are Me and I'm Them (they're You), hurting someone would be the same as hurting yourself. Beating someone up is pretty much an emo-cutting-wrist thing.

If you think about it, this really appeals to sayings like "To love someone and to be loved for real, you have to love yourself".

I believe in God and i believe in a Soul. Which shape and reason those have, I don't know, but whatever reason we have, or don't have, to be here I reckon love as the only reasonable action. It's the only thing that works for me and it's the only thing that is a reward in itself.

It's hard to love, especially yourself, but it's worth it. No one will lie on their death bed and say to themself "Thank God I didn't waste any love in my life."

Thanks for sharing that! Love is a great thing, and it what keeps me going each day. Just for the sake of discussion, I thought I might offer up this, just... well, just because! :

If there was a beginning, as we would see it, to all this there should be a "reason" for it to exist.

There has to be a reason?

Why?

I've always had difficulty understanding this idea. And that's IF there was a beginning. It seems logical to us (within our limited means of understanding things) that there was a "beginning", as we can only relate to things within the framework of our own existence. In our reality, things are quantifiable... they have a beginning and an end. But we don't "know" so much about the limits of our existence. I find the idea of the infinite to be a mind-bender!

But I'm cool with that. To paraphrase someone smarter than me, I am but an ant on the back of an elephant in the middle of an African plain. I can barely comprehend the idea of an elephant, let alone the stars above my head. With time I may learn these things, but while I'm working on that I try to keep my mind open to what might be out there (as well as what might not be).

I've always had difficulty with this differentiation between how I see the universe and how many belief systems do. They so often seem to come back to this basic idea that there "has" to be a reason, or there "has" to be a creator. There "has" to be an afterlife. There "has" to be "Good" and "Evil".

But hey, that's the thing... you might be right. I guess that, given that we just don't know what's going on around us, there's just as much chance that there is a God as not. And if there is and it's listening, bless all my family and friends, give all the starving children food, end all wars and bigotry, and put lots of money in a shipping container in our backyard please. Oh, and stop taking hair out of my head and putting it in other places on my body. It's gross.

There has to be a reason?

What I meant was that if there ever was a start, as we know it, I guess something ought to have been started it, right?

If time is like a straight line, so to speak, some impulse has have to been there to "ignite the flame".

It's purely hypothetic of course. I see where you coming from and I agree, but this was just a theory among the other ones.

cheers!

Just found this:

i dont think religion even deserves a thread of its own

Everything deserves a thread. Doesn't matter what the subject is, even if it is about superstition and impulses from a thousand years ago.

[Blazingmonga]

i dont think religion even deserves a thread of its own

Of course it deserves a thread! I mean, it means you can choose not to post in it, if it has its own thread. If everything was in one big thread then we all might get a bit confused. I might get confused. Me! Confused! Aaaah!

[JuZ]

There has to be a reason?

What I meant was that if there ever was a start, as we know it, I guess something ought to have been started it, right?

If time is like a straight line, so to speak, some impulse has have to been there to "ignite the flame".

It's purely hypothetic of course. I see where you coming from and I agree, but this was just a theory among the other ones.

cheers!

Cool.

I certainly didn't mean that as an attack... more just a gut reaction based on what's going on in my head at the moment.

Um..... METAL!

i dont think religion even deserves a thread of its own

thats a stupid thing to say. Yes im a Christian, and i understand that you have your own beleifs so ill respect yours and you should respect the beleifs of others instead of making a statement that makes you sound like a 13 year old goth kid.

perhaps you misunderstood me and thought i cared about your quality of christian.

that you believe in christ, jesus, or yahve is none of my concern, and you're entitled to believe in whatever entity you deem apt, just as i am entitled to make that statement.

so perhaps you should process the words you type instead of uttering such inane phrases that make you look like a frantic zealot?

its still a stupid statement mate. I just thought id point out that im a Christian so youd see why id find that to be a stupid statement. Im not going to argue to see who has the most articulate english either. Its a close minded thing for you to say. I dont say athiesm or any other religion are ridiculous or shouldnt be talked about because its not worth it.

Ive got a thesaurus if you need one

then do take a look at it, the word is atheism, my overly clever friend

and you fail to comprehend me again. calling something stupid merely because you consider it an attack to your religion, that is how a zealot would react. moreover i was not referring to your hability to manage the language, nor would i do so since its your native idiom.

aaaaaaand youve made it into an argument to see who has the larger vocabulary...

and i do see it as an attack on religion, i still find it to be a stupid thing to say