Political: libertarian center left. At least the last time I took a Political test. But I do have some left positions that even a card carrying communist will think is crazy. As well as some right positions that even a far right Christian conservative will think is crazy. So I don't know if I'm “left” or “right”. Or are all your beliefs illusion?

Religious: Spiritual Christian. Your typical church will kick me out for belief in chi, chakra centers, and other spiritual concepts deemed eastern philosophy or gnostic. And certain “heresies” that demand logical consistency and not this bipolar “god” that many churches believe in. I will unapologetically say though that Jesus is Lord.

There is fundamentally a definite difference between spiritual people and religious people; you seem to be one of the few who actually gets it.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
There is fundamentally a definite difference between spiritual people and religious people

Not really. Not unless you're talking about people who mainly go for structure and tradition vs those who simply believe.
In reality there's no clear distinction, people can be more of one and less of the other.

I thought J_Scarbrough was referring to Kyupol's habit of drawing from different traditions. ‘Spiritual’ people will collect the bits they like from any number of different religions and philosophies, along with a large number of shiny stones and crystals.
'Religious' people will tell them they are going to hell unless they change their ways, because there is only one god - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. That's what I was taught anyway and I still haven't managed to make sense of it yet.

I kinda want to chime in with my obnoxious ‘uh aktsually’ moment and suggest that definining religiousness like Ironscarf did (telling people they'll burn in hell if they don't believe in the Holy Trinity or any other deity of choice) is not very accurate. I'd say those who do that are displaying religiosity and pedantic religiosity at that.

I'm of the opinion that a truly religious person will not say such a thing. And in the case of Christianity, at least as far as orthodoxy is concerned it's an outright sin to dare to presume to tell anyone they will or won't go to hell. But even if it weren't and we were more of the pre-Jesus persuasion, someone who is safe in their own faith doesn't go out meddling in what others believe like that is a frigging threat.

The thing of it is, a lot of the far right Christians have clearly missed that memo, and seem to be of the belief that they have to thump the Bible to get that message across that if somebody don't believe in and/or accept the Lord as their Savior, they are bound for Hell, and they will discriminate against anyone who doesn't, or anyone who is of a differing faith or religion (ironically, even Catholics). They also have this preconceived notion that if you don't fit a particular mold they envision of what it means to be a Christian, then you can't rightfull call yourself a Christian. For example, I once worked for a pastor who outright said that even if a gay person has accepted Jesus as their Savior and is a Christian, they'll still go to Hell because they're, “willfully living in sin.” I've even had a former friend of mine on the opposite side of the political aisle ask me how I could even possibly call myself a Christian if I'm a liberal, because, to him, to be a liberal Christian is a contradiction in terms . . . but let's be honest here: Jesus Christ Himself was the O.G. Bleedin' Heart liberal.

As a Jesuit trained student, I learned that we are all born with a will that is free to choose between treating others as we want to be treated or being totally selfish. Organized religion is very corporate wishing to grow in stature and control followers of a “leader with personality”.

The Golden Rule is “Mind Your Own Damn Business”.

https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Bloodwing_Fire_Fist_Angel/

A key error we make is extrapolating from our own experience. I mean it's understandable because how else do you easily evaluate things? But it doesn't give you an accurate picture of things like “organised religion” because that is VERY different depending on the religion, the sect, the place, and the point in time.

Another thing is that “organised religion” is actually where religion comes from.
We think it's from a holy book and our idea of the religion can be more pure VS the institution. But that's a fantasy. Religions ONLY exist because of those ongoing structures and all the generations of people and culture in between us an its inception.

All the interpretations, practices, influences, images that influence how we see it and most importantly the very existence of it at all. If not for the organisation the religion would be dead.

Now you might bring up the concept of revived religions like Druids, or Wika or “paganism”. but none of those are anything at all to do with any real historical spiritual belief that people practised. They're all basically to religion what Twilight is to vampires or what Rachel Gun is to break-dancing.

——-

Active religions are not objective, external things that we can get a truer, more accurate view of by looking at them from new angles. They're living cultural institutions that consist of a complex relationship between their founding documents, their history, the cultural products, their current followers (and the generations of previous ones), as well as their impact on the secular world they exist in.
People thinking they can get a better understanding of them by just going back to a holy book is as stupid ad thinking you can get a better more truer understanding of a person just by looking at their skeleton.

Especially since that many holy books were written to preserve and codify a tradition of practice.
We got this thing going on, but people are straying in their practice. We gotta write it down. And of course we strengthen the message with a mythology saying that it's always been this way.
It's been done any number of times.
Christianity is big into conversion. Read those Pauline letters and acts of the apostles. The “going back to the Bible” is the typical Christian response to advancing modernity and especially in America with its series of Great Awakenings Some historians say we're into our fourth or fifth one. Every time secular world view advances there's a reaction and we get another wave of evangelical fervor. Last century there were resurgences in the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s.
The 20th century ones all take their pattern from work done in late nineteenth century with a series of works on The Fundamentals hense the term: “fundamentalism”
Growing up in the 1980s it fascinated me especially when I came across works on creating a religous-political movement based on evangelical Christianity.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
For example, I once worked for a pastor who outright said that even if a gay person has accepted Jesus as their Savior and is a Christian, they'll still go to Hell because they're, “willfully living in sin.”

Ugh. That's disgusting of the pastor to do that. Also really effing bold of him to feel he's above being judged by the same measure of “willfully living in sin” because I bet he's engaging in some activities that qualify a lot more than someone being gay.

Ozoneocean wrote:

Active religions are not objective, external things that we can get a truer, more accurate view of by looking at them from new angles. They're living cultural institutions that consist of a complex relationship between their founding documents, their history, the cultural products, their current followers (and the generations of previous ones), as well as their impact on the secular world they exist in.
People thinking they can get a better understanding of them by just going back to a holy book is as stupid ad thinking you can get a better more truer understanding of a person just by looking at their skeleton.

Amen to that!

I'm not anything in particular, I'm too lazy and curious to be a atheist.
My feeling on religion is its something mankind made up to explain the world they were living in because they didn't know science yet.

The funniest thing is all the other major fields in our world have evolved and developed over time except religion. science has evolved, medicine, music, writing, literature, cooking everything has evolved except religion.

we are still reading these thousand year old books written by people that didn't know about the rest of the world, didn't know about the planets and stars, didn't know about germs and atoms.

religion should be something to help you live a better, moral just life but most religions tell you if you don't live a certain way you are going to hell, one set of people are better than others, and stories from the past attributed to a god or gods.

There's one thing I can never help noticing in this kind of discussion: in a way it's as much about semantics as anything else. It makes sense, too. Religion is a very personal thing, or it should be. Faith goes down very deep. Or it doesn't, depending, even if I wouldn't call it faith in that case. So no two people will end up with quite the same idea of what religion is, actually. I wouldn't separate it from spirituality, for instance, but rather say that spirituality is religion with your brain switched on, and bible-bashing is religion with said brain on standby - but that's just my simplified personal opinion.

I would strictly separate religious experience and what people do with it, though.
How much is being institutionalised or organised necessary for it all to be a proper religion? Some people need it more than others. People often like to be led by someone, even if they'd never admit it. And then, there is nothing so good it can't be horribly misused, and if it can it generally will be. Organised religion is necessarily flawed, because it's a very human thing, so the trick to achieve a real faith is to try and see past these flaws as well as you can. You can't dismiss it altogether, though, because both traditions and a community are important. Getting religion - what I call religion - isn't easy. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I consider religion essentially a kind of spiritual language you need to learn. To do that, you have to try and speak that language, practise it, and for that you need others who do the same. Like all living languages it is also very dynamic and constantly evolves with the mindset of its speakers. That's why I like what Oz said the other day.
The trick is separating those who honestly want to keep the spiritual language alive from all the others who just want to make you do their will for various reasons (usually either money or bashing someone's brains in, this being typical goals of all human beings with an unhealthy fixation on power, which is unfortunately shockingly many - I just don't blame religion for it, I blame them and the people who unquestioningly follow them).

The pastor J_Scarbrough used to work for and hundreds of generations of priests that came before him would probably passionately disagree with much of what I said here.
I'd like to believe that when he passes one day, he'll go to Heaven, meet Jesus and His disciples, who embrace him and then invite him for a drink and dance at what they tell him has been their favourite place for ever since the Black Whale in Ashkelon closed 1900 years ago. So they go in, the lights go on, and it turns out to be… the BLUE OYSTER BAR (yes, the Police Academy one, and the mandatory tango starts to play).
Unfortunately, my faith isn't as given to childish fun ideas as the rest of me, so I'm kinda limited to just thinking he got it all wrong.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I once worked for a pastor who outright said that even if a gay person has accepted Jesus as their Savior and is a Christian, they'll still go to Hell because they're, “willfully living in sin.”.

According to Catholicism, people who divorce and then remarry are also “living in sin” and will presumably go tho hell (e.g. they can't receive the communion), so it's not really just against gays. On the other hand, often practicing catholics are quite ambiguous: there are a lot of divorced and remarried people who still say they are catholics.

1) Living in willful sin doesn't make you go to hell. It makes you BECOME hell. Root of sin is ego. The individual sins mentioned are just the branches of the tree. The symptoms of the disease.

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
(Psalm 9:17)

___

2) Jesus is neither conservative or liberal. His kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. (John 18:36)

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. (Matthew 4:8-11)

And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.
When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way. (Matthew 22:20-22)

marcorossi wrote:
there are a lot of divorced and remarried people who still say they are catholics.

I.e. Susan Sarandon.

The Catholic church does recognize civil divorce (thank you Napoleon Bonaparte) but prohibits remarriage without an annulment. Also considering that the Catholic church doesn't recognize marriage outside the church a Catholic can divorce a non Catholic and remarry because in the eyes of the church, the person was never married to begin with.
The Church looks the other way. Pay enough amd they always have.
Once or twice when they refused, heads of state just started their own church. So it's not as huge a problem as it used to be, Reformation and religious wars amd all that. Millions dead in the 16-17th century kinda relaxed enforcing the rules a bit.
A great example of religion being an entity of culture and not entirely of faith.

Evangelical Christianity started as a faith based movement but it drifted into culture more and more starting around the turn of the 20th century and coalescing around the Scopes trial in the 1920s. By the 1980s it was totally political. Carter tried to keep his faith private but that led to the New Evangelical Christian Right in the 1980s and now we find ourselves facing Christian identity politics with its veiled white supremacy.

I put all this into the drawer marked “Stuff people don't know about and that I'd rather not know about ” “The Handmaid's Tale” setting has a very firm basis in reality. Heinlein wrote about it in the 1960s.

All part of my path from agnosticism to atheism. No deity that would allow this in their name is worth my faith. Ergo, there isn't one and never has been because it all goes back to the beginning. And no “foe” questioner would be responsible for such things on their own without the head one's permission. After all the Big G is omnipotent and omniscient yet allows all this? Then they're quite limited and again not worthy of worship. Sure a nice service is comforting but it is the stuff of humans and their faith and community with no deity looking down from on high.

I can't debate it anymore any more than I debate about the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. Live and let live and treat all as you would wish to be treated. I've been called kind and gentle many times. Must be all those years watching M*A*S*H and emulating Hawkeye Pierce.

Technically the Catholic church accept the marriage between a catholic and a non catholic, the catholic just has to (A) ask for a dispensation and (B) do a cotholic rite marriage. The problem of the “living in sin” for divorced people is different (in the theory): according to catholic dogma, marriage is a sacrament (like baptism), and therefore cannot be undone: people who are married in catholic rite are supposed to be married until death. Since the church doesn't accept civil divorce, a guy who marries as a catholic, then divorces and remarries, from the point of view of the church is still married to the first wife and cheating on her, hence living in sin.
The Catholic church has “annulment” for marriage, but it is not the same thing of divorce: the idea is that there was some vice of sort in the marriage from the beginning, so the marriage never was real from the beginning (e.g. imagine that a girl was forced into marriage by her family, later she could say that she never really consented to the marriage to begin with, and then the church would consider the marriage void).
So in theory “annullment” can only happen to marriages that had some vice from the start, but in reality people who had enough money/power managed to have the church “annull” their marriage when they needed it. Also the concept of “vice from the start” is quite dubious, IIRC an unfertile coulpe can ask annullment on the idea that if God is not sending kids then presumably God does not accept the marriage (a “vice from the beginning” from the RC church point of view, a judgment ex post fro other people's point of view).
I used to be a Catholic, if anybody is wondering.

Tantz_Aerine wrote:
I kinda want to chime in with my obnoxious ‘uh aktsually’ moment and suggest that definining religiousness like Ironscarf did (telling people they'll burn in hell if they don't believe in the Holy Trinity or any other deity of choice)

It's not my definition, it's my experience of how it was defined by others, specifically in church, as well as at the Church of England school I attended. That's John 14:6 'Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'

I seem to recall there was special dispensation for those who hadn't heard of Jesus, but for the rest of us you either went upstairs, or you went downstairs. I'm sure there are other versions of Christianity in different places and at different times. A few hundred years ago here they would chuck you on the fire for believing the wrong version of Christianity, which was especially tricky as they kept changing their minds about which one was right.

FWIW, a longtime friend of mine who is openly gay has been battling the Church of England over their closed-minded views on homosexuality, and the oppression he dealt with growing up. He's actually a published author on the subject now, both non-fiction and fiction; you can check him out some time:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bringing-Me-Back-Matthew-Drapper-ebook/dp/B096YMZ8NF

https://www.amazon.com/Lesser-Light-Matthew-Drapper/dp/1399939572

People like him were instrumental and intergral in helping me shed my own homophobia in years past.

Ironscarf wrote:

Tantz_Aerine wrote:
I kinda want to chime in with my obnoxious ‘uh aktsually’ moment and suggest that definining religiousness like Ironscarf did (telling people they'll burn in hell if they don't believe in the Holy Trinity or any other deity of choice)

It's not my definition, it's my experience of how it was defined by others, specifically in church, as well as at the Church of England school I attended. That's John 14:6 'Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'

A question of dogma versus faith. One is what the organized church says it means and the other is what it means to you. There are all types of interpretation of scripture and one that has grown since the 17th century is “what does it make you feel” That evangelical escatic faith led to the explosion of Protestant sects and eventually fundamentalism.

And now they just ridicule each other rather than take up arms. Burning was never good. Used up too much kindling and fire wood and created martyrs. And Christianity if anything is all about martyrs. There's evidence that early Christianity was spread through martyr stories. Actual martyrdom may have been rather rare but the stories just spread and people believed there was something very special about a religion someone was willing to die for. That was something that was the exact opposite of paganism of the first centuries CE where all gods were just adaptations of others and live and let live. All very much functions of culture and how people create institutions and practices.


So where's the ecstatic faith? Gimme that old time religion. Time for a revival.

For something OTHER than religion related:

Traditionally the catholic church (and other sects did as well I think, at lest informally), had a thing called an “indulgence”.
This was when instead of confessing sins or whatever you simply give a gift of money or property or some item to the church instead. Or you just do it as a way of guaranteeing you place in heaven…

Of course the REALITY was that the true purpose of these sorts of things was to increase your status in your community and or get more political leverage with the church etc. There are always other reasons for things like this than just airy fair belief stuff.
-Though of course belief was STILL a big part of it.


The reason I mention this though is that Climate Change “off-sets” and greenwashing related to climate change have become the exact same thing as church indulgences.
I am firmly behind the scientists on Climate change and global warming, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the fraud, sneakiness and advantage taking that has risen up around it, seeing it as an opportunity for benefits.

Just like church indulgences where people make up for NOT being good people and following the teachings of their faith, replacing it with a pretty gold statue, people use these “off-sets” as a way of completely avoiding reducing their carbon footprint and instead pay a token amount for a mythical treeplanting service they trust will happen -with ZERO investigation into whether it's real or will last forever as it's meant to- Remember these plantings are not just to grow trees till they mature, a climate off-set has to be permanent LOL!
If not there has to be an established cycle- cut them down and replant etc…
But what's the bet these plantings if they even happen don't even last 5 years before the land is sold for farming, housing, mining etc.

I am firmly behind the scientists on Climate change and global warming, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the fraud, sneakiness and advantage taking that has risen up around it, seeing it as an opportunity for benefits.

Yup, there's far too much profiteering off everything. It taints so many things. I could go on a rant but I'm sure I won't be saying anything people don't already know.

Indulgences was one of the things that set off the Protestant Reformation. Get into trouble, just endow a monastery. At least it left a paper trail of primary sources for historians to follow. Endowments and indulgences actually provide time and location for people. So and so was here and signed as a witness to the payment. Sometimes that's the only record we have for people. So it was bad for religion but good for prosperity.

Ozoneocean wrote:
For something OTHER than religion related:

Traditionally the catholic church (and other sects did as well I think, at lest informally), had a thing called an “indulgence”.
This was when instead of confessing sins or whatever you simply give a gift of money or property or some item to the church instead. Or you just do it as a way of guaranteeing you place in heaven…

I think that you still had to confess your sin, and the indulgence was actually the penance. People tend to forget it, but catholic confession actually leads to a penance that the sinner has to do in order to get the pardon. In modern days, for normal things is something like “Yeah say 50 Hail Marys and we are ok”, but in older times there were other forms of penance, so the “indulgence” was more like a fine. Also, before protestantism/counter-reform, actually making money as a merchant was a sin from the point of view of the catholic church, so fundamentally rich people paid indulgences for the sin of being rich.

Basically the problem of “indulgence” is that it is rather natural to think that if you do a donation for the poor or other worthy cause, you are doing a good thing and so this helps you go in paradise. Luther was pissed off by this because it meant that rich people could go to heaven more easily than poor people, but then he had to accept the idea of “predestination”, he basically had to say that good acts do not sent you to paradise, that also is weird.

More generally the problem of the indulcences came about because the early catholic church developed in the early middle ages, when commerce was almost inexistent, so the church could say that becoming rich was sinful, good people were poor farmers, and noblemen didn't count as “rich” because theirs was considered more like a social role, not that they were very rich because they owned all the land. But then in the late4 middle ages/early modern era, commerce restarted so many important people were rich persons, or relatives of rich persons, and not just traditional warrior/aristocrats, so the whole logic of “making money is sinful” became difficult to mantain.

The indulgences really objected to were those done for the dead. Someone died and people paid to lessen their time in purgatory before going to heaven. There was often no confession involved, just the payment. Afterall, how does a dead person confess after death when they were absolved for sins during the last rites? And Holy Mother Church was past the money is sinful. It was the greed and desire for money, but you could be as wealthy as you wanted. After all clergy were all busy enriching themselves so much it was necessary to enforce celibacy so wealth had to left to the church and not passed to legitimate children though there were always plenty of nephews. There are paper trails for a lot of this and it wasn't just the complaints of reformers. But those complaints were repeated generation to generation by so many there was some truth to it.

And once there was the Reformation the Protestants never let anyone forget any of hypocrisy and corruption of Holy Mother Church. There are Protestants today who insist Catholics aren't Christians. Awfully ignorant but then that is what some sects are all about. Just faith and feelings and no thought at all. Any doubt is sin. Knowledge leads to pride and that is sin so the only thing to be read are the scriptures and that is part of the fundamentals. I've actually read some of the 19th century works that are the basis of modern evangelical Protestantism. Well meaning people gave them to the poor deluded atheist. I read them because I'm fascinated by these things and how they twist history.

@bravo: I have no doubt that the actual existing Catholic church liked money very much, but formally “making money from money” (i.e., being a merchant or a banker) was considered a sin until the counter-reformation.
It is the sum of these two things that created the sense of hypocricy: if the Church didn't denounce wealth, there would have been no hypocricy in the Church being rich. Luther, on the other hand, by essentially saying that being rich was not a problem, was much more acceptable to the growing mercantile class of the early modern age. Therefore, Weber famously claimed that Protestantism caused capitalism (my opinion is the opposite, that an increasingly mercantile society caused Protestantism). IMO.

Hahaha! There goes my thing of trying to transition away from religion XD

It wasn't a direct cause so much as Protestantism flourished because of the promise of wealth to those who couldn't access it before. The centers of existing wealth remained Catholic. The places that were creating wealth or who had little and wanted more became Protestant. So making money was inherently sinful, not having it. But if the church was given a cut absolution was readily available.

As long as humans feel, we can never escape faith. It's a question of what that faith is in. Is faith in earthly things or is it in the numinous? Does someone believe in deities and the supernatural or do they believe in themselves and their own abilities and potential?

A lot of climate change deniers also deny human agency to actually change the environment because their faith is with the supernatural and not the natural.

religion: Look up atheist and you will find me there. I have never believed in a higher power or even Santa Claus. There are things we don't understand, but none of that is “spiritual” in origin.

political: Libertatian Centrist. Someone has to build everything and pay our wages. The gap between the right and the poor is outrageous though. If the government can't figure out healthcare for everyone why do they exist? He who will not be named just wants to shut it all down with no replacement in place.

LGBTQ+: The government should be protecting human rights, not telling people who they can love. If you want to stop abortion give women agency over their bodies and stop treating them like criminals. Reform the foster care system so that it is not a sentence of poverty and abuse.

You can be male, you can be female. you can be both male and female, but you can not be neither male nor female. As for sexuality, some lady wants to marry the Berlin Wall, but I don't believe people who say they have no attraction to anything.

Racism: Is stupid. I have many reasons not to like a person. None of it has to do with their skin color.