What religion or belief system are you?

[Tory]

Choose which religion or belief system you go by. If you know, please discuss and share it with us. Options includes Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and more. I am curious to know what are the results on Smogon. I haven't seen a subject like this one in years.

I identify as agnostic, believing that God, divinity, supreme being, or any supernatural power existence is unknown. I have became irreligious since 2009 after find out about false translations, contradictions, and misconceptions.

I believe in a philosophy viewpoint called freethought. I don't support in having authority over other believes. Examples are certain traditional religious practices, forcing males and females to behave a certain way, body modification or removing any parts of someones organs without their consent. After all, I am not looking for revelation to find a higher power, I rather seek for scientific evidence. I will stand up for myself and fight against any kind of dogma that stances against me. I will challenge enfored laws that goes against my freedom by using online advertising for human activists groups, and use internet marketing towards petitions for freethinking related organizations.

Note:
*Protestantism includes Baptism, Lutheranism, Methodism, and Calvinism.

**Orthodox includes Modern Orthodox Judaism, Haredi/Charedi Judaism.

 

[Don Honchkrorleone]

99% of this site licks Dawkins' balls imo this thread is a waste of time

I'm openly a Christian (more specifically a Presbyterian from the scottish side) and everyone in this site who knows me probably knows that. That said, while I do believe in the God of Abraham and that Jesus is his son, I'm not opposed to influences from other types of faiths, such as Buddhism and Islamism, which also help me confront some of the more "dogmatic" aspects and give me a less closed mind. As a Christian, I'm already under the soteriological plan, so the best thing to do with my faith is to try comprehending more of the entity that created me and my world.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL EDIT: Why the fuck is pantheism characterized the same way as atheism and agnosticism in the poll? One believes, the other don't believe/are not sure...

 

[Ninahaza]

i am atheist, but since my name is Jesus, English pronunciation/African descent, i have to back that miracle dude with the sweet beard from thousands of years ago.

/Yeay! thanks mom

 

[Cresselia~~]

Technically I'm a pentecostal Christian.
But I'm not devoted enough to go to church every Sunday.

I'm also not against of evolution/ the big bang, etc, and actually love science.
I DON'T believe homosexuality is a sin.

 

[jrp]

I'm a devout atheist, I go to atheist church every tuesday

I am against evolution, Atheist god created the earth and made it flat

Homosexuality is punishable with death


real talk, I went to church as a kid, but I'd rather trust my own eyes to determine what the truth is rather than hearing stories passed down over time.

I try to keep an open mind, if I experience something that could change my mind, I'm down for whatever life brings, but I can't believe that a God exists because some old guy in a church tells me so

 

[BP]

I'm a Nondenominational Christian. I go to a catholic church and try not shoot myself every Sunday because my parents make me go. I believe how I think god would run the universe because that's how I'm choosing to see God.

 

[Rugi]

Like most Jews I dont actually believe in Jew

 

[Magii]

I would identify as United Methodist Christian, even though it’s largely my parents choice and I’m not sure what I would believe in otherwise. (I’m pretty sure I would still attend church if they were agnostic, though). Our specific Methodism is more lax than some other (hem Catholicism and Baptism) branches of the religion, and that’s what drew our family to it.

Unfortunately I’m gay and the denomination doesn’t allow it but w/e

 

[AM]

Agnostic.

Until a golden unicorn swoops down and provides me a big booty Brazilian chick, 10 million dollars, and makes me 5 inches taller at least I’m inclined to think no higher power exists.

 

[BetaDog]

I would say I'm a Christian. I would go to church every Sunday as a kid, but I rarely go now.

 

[BP]

I would identify as United Methodist Christian, even though it’s largely my parents choice and I’m not sure what I would believe in otherwise. (I’m pretty sure I would still attend church if they were agnostic, though). Our specific Methodism is more lax than some other (hem Catholicism and Baptism) branches of the religion, and that’s what drew our family to it.

Unfortunately I’m gay and the denomination doesn’t allow it but w/e

Fuck all that gays go to hell garbage. Its my belief that If you believe in any kind of religion or if you are agnostic I believe you will go to heaven. After all, God is supposed to love all of his children right?

 

[HailFall]

I was a christian, then around 14-15 I became an extremely edgy atheist who was also a complete asshole. Later on i stopped being a complete douchebag and stopped being quite as militant. Now I'm agnostic, I would say. I'd like to believe there is something after this life, but I don't know what it is.

 

[kilometerman]

"I'm spiritual, not religious. I'm an agnostic, but if I had to choose I would probably be buddhist!"

 

[rau]

I believe in God the Father and Jesus His Son. Would also say I'm pretty adamant on my faith too. I dont believe that church is necessary to maintain a strong faith and that studying the Word and having a group to share and develop your faith is just as effective.

Recently I've been looking to reinforce my relationship with Him since I feel it has weakened. Decided to look for some books on the matter and settled on one called Crazy Love written by Francis Chan.

re: Magikingdra Broken Phobias
God indeed loves all His children; I assume the conflict comes from how homosexuality is depicted in the Bible as an inmorality. Regardless, religion should not be used as an excuse for hatred against anyone for their homosexuality and the "all gays go to hell" crowd is just hateful and a shoddy example of Christianity.

 

[Ninahaza]

 

[OLD GREGG (im back baby)]

This is not an easy question for myself to answer, mainly because I am still searching for my creator. I can say with a decent amount of certainty that anything intelligent enough to create life probably doesn't care if you pray to it or not. I believe organized religion is the work of men and devoid of any sort of true holiness. Organized religion is idol worship which dictates that you cannot worship idols...

 

[Ashaebi]

I'm a Christian and I believe Jesus came to save us from our sins!

There are so many reasons why it's next to impossible to convince me to convert to atheism. One being scientists insist the big bang is science but in retrospect the big bang is just as a religious belief just as when God says 'let there be light'. The core concept is because you need energy to cause a massive explosion or to cause matter to move/cause a reaction. But if energy, time and space didn't exist yet prior to the big bang then how can the big bang be formed? And even IF the big bang theory is true then what are the odds that we have such a sophisticated and well organised universe? We are just coincidentally by luck and by chance that the earth is at the perfect distance from the sun to support life and that countless species can thrive on the planet with us. The earth's gravity pull again by chance and by coincidence is exactly 9.81 meters per second squared enough to keep us from drifting towards space but not too strong that we feel crushed. Human DNA just so happened to be complex and possesses the right amount of information to allow us to do basic tasks like run, jump, talk, communicate and all other sorts of work. The sophistication of this world is more than enough evidence to convince me that an intelligent designer did this rather than it all happened by chance.

Then Atheists tell me well you need to take the probability theory into account. Even though the probability is vanishingly small, it's still not impossible. If there are enough big bangs, eventually one of them must be the perfect universe. Which I then reply:

If I have 5 paint colors, the three primary being red, blue and yellow along with black and white mixed together in a bucket. I then pour the paint onto a peace of paper. Do you believe a picture of the Mona Lisa will appear? How many times on average will I have to repeat this step until one of them becomes it? If one can do this task I love to meet him.

 

[cookie]

If I have 5 paint colors, the three primary being red, blue and yellow along with black and white mixed together in a bucket. I then pour the paint onto a peace of paper. Do you believe a picture of the Mona Lisa will appear? How many times on average will I have to repeat this step until one of them becomes it? If one can do this task I love to meet him.

just because something is vanishingly improbably doesn't make it impossible. remember, HUGE selection bias at work here. If god created a shitty universe where the fine structure constant was slightly off, so that stars could never shine, we would not be here to question god's decision. it's like all those self-made millionaires who tell you how to get rich, you never hear about the millions of dudes who crash and burn because if you give a shit about their opinion it's because they got rich...

 

[Ashaebi]

just because something is vanishingly improbably doesn't make it impossible. remember, HUGE selection bias at work here. If god created a shitty universe where the fine structure constant was slightly off, so that stars could never shine, we would not be here to question god's decision. it's like all those self-made millionaires who tell you how to get rich, you never hear about the millions of dudes who crash and burn because if you give a shit about their opinion it's because they got rich...

This is where the double standards kicks in from atheists. They insist they believe in science and math claiming theists are believing in blind faith believing a fairy tale of a man in the sky when in reality a causeless, spontaneous and random big bang caused such an ordered and sophisticated world is anything but mathematical and scientific. You got issues including what caused the big bang, how can life arise from non-life. How can you create an explosion/expansion of matter without first having energy inputted into the system? If there is energy prior to the big bang then that means the big bang isn't the beginning and the entire theory self destructs. You mentioned probability which we don't know the exact number but it isn't zero, fair enough but doesn't that technically make you an agnostic or theist since by math the probability that an intelligent designer is infinitely more likely than a world that started with the lack of one? Doesn't the big bang defy the law of entropy? I mean if you think buying the Powerball is a waste of money and effort but you insist this universe can truly be created randomly, spontaneously and by coincidence then you should really question yourself do I actually have a double standard here considering winning the Powerball is infinitely more likely than the world existing by chance.

This is just my thought but scientists better rewrite science books if they are bold enough to truly claim life can actually form from random spontaneous floating particles let alone intelligent life.

Btw how is the Mona Lisa example a selection bias? You can create all colours with the 3 primary and black and white to adjust each colours contrast. Why isnt it a legit comparison and what does this have to do with millionaires?

Let's be honest here chances of this world existing by chance is not just vanishingly small but absolutely zero. If this world does have the slightest probability to exist by coincidence you better convince me how life can start from non life, how random molecules can turn into proteins which form into DNA and RNA, where human coincious and feeling can come from nothing and how information can exist without having a writer, programmer or composer. I simply don't have that much faith no matter how hard i try.

 

[earl]

This is where the double standards kicks in from atheists. They insist they believe in science and math claiming theists are believing in blind faith believing a fairy tale of a man in the sky when in reality a causeless, spontaneous and random big bang caused such an ordered and sophisticated world is anything but mathematical and scientific. You got issues including what caused the big bang, how can life arise from non-life. How can you create an explosion/expansion of matter without first having energy inputted into the system? If there is energy prior to the big bang then that means the big bang isn't the beginning and the entire theory self destructs. You mentioned probability which we don't know the exact number but it isn't zero, fair enough but doesn't that technically make you an agnostic or theist since by math the probability that an intelligent designer is infinitely more likely than a world that started with the lack of one? Doesn't the big bang defy the law of entropy? I mean if you think buying the Powerball is a waste of money and effort but you insist this universe can truly be created randomly, spontaneously and by coincidence then you should really question yourself do I actually have a double standard here considering winning the Powerball is infinitely more likely than the world existing by chance.

This is just my thought but scientists better rewrite science books if they are bold enough to truly claim life can actually form from random spontaneous floating particles let alone intelligent life.

Btw how is the Mona Lisa example a selection bias? You can create all colours with the 3 primary and black and white to adjust each colours contrast. Why isnt it a legit comparison and what does this have to do with millionaires?

Let's be honest here chances of this world existing by chance is not just vanishingly small but absolutely zero. If this world does have the slightest probability to exist by coincidence you better convince me how life can start from non life, how random molecules can turn into proteins which form into DNA and RNA, where human coincious and feeling can come from nothing and how information can exist without having a writer, programmer or composer. I simply don't have that much faith no matter how hard i try.

"I do not know why this happens, therefore the logical conclusion is that we were made by god"

I dislike the black-and-white way people try to argue religion, there could be any number of other explanations and all of them have just as much merit as an intelligent creator, which is 0. The only evidence I ever see in favor of an intelligent creator are subjective arguments such as how the earth is in the "perfect place" (variance in the position of a planet in relation to its sun is still perfectly possible in terms of supporting life, evolution would naturally adapt to slightly higher/lower gravity, temperature, etc as long as there is liquid water) or other shaky arguments such as how beautiful the world is (which is subjective as all hell and very self-serving). Science is slowly working its way through the big bang (and has a track record of iterating upon this type of stuff) and I'd rather put my faith in that than a book written 2000 years ago.

Or whatever. I don't quite care enough at the end of the day, although I would hope that if we do have a god that he isn't petty enough to damn you to eternal suffering because you said "fuck" one too many times

 

[Surgo]

While racially I am Jewish, I am what's known as an apatheist. Stolen from somebody's Quora answer on what an apatheist is:

"An Apatheist is someone who is not concerned about god's existence/non-existence. This is because they think that God's existence/non-existence is irrelevant to them as far as their lives are concerned, and either way their lives would go on pretty much the same. An apatheist is also someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do not exist. In other words, an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to his or her life."

Overall, it fits in with my nihilist viewpoints.

 

[cookie]

This is where the double standards kicks in from atheists. They insist they believe in science and math claiming theists are believing in blind faith believing a fairy tale of a man in the sky when in reality a causeless, spontaneous and random big bang caused such an ordered and sophisticated world is anything but mathematical and scientific. You got issues including what caused the big bang, how can life arise from non-life. How can you create an explosion/expansion of matter without first having energy inputted into the system? If there is energy prior to the big bang then that means the big bang isn't the beginning and the entire theory self destructs. You mentioned probability which we don't know the exact number but it isn't zero, fair enough but doesn't that technically make you an agnostic or theist since by math the probability that an intelligent designer is infinitely more likely than a world that started with the lack of one? Doesn't the big bang defy the law of entropy?

ok let me stop you right here. What is the "law of entropy" and why does the big bang defy it? Don't you also realise that a God has to have come from somewhere, too, by the same logic? Theists always skirt over the small kink in their worldview that impose the requirement that the universe should come from "something" and yet don't hold god to the same standard. And here's the kicker: in the current model of the universe, what was "before" the big bang is still unexplained. You seem to be attacking science for not knowing all the answers when it has never claimed to do so. Science purely weeds out theories that contradict our observations.

I mean if you think buying the Powerball is a waste of money and effort but you insist this universe can truly be created randomly, spontaneously and by coincidence then you should really question yourself do I actually have a double standard here considering winning the Powerball is infinitely more likely than the world existing by chance.

This is just my thought but scientists better rewrite science books if they are bold enough to truly claim life can actually form from random spontaneous floating particles let alone intelligent life.

Btw how is the Mona Lisa example a selection bias? You can create all colours with the 3 primary and black and white to adjust each colours contrast. Why isnt it a legit comparison and what does this have to do with millionaires?

The mona lisa example isn't subject to selection bias, but that's not what you're trying to refute: you're refuting the idea that the universe can come about at such low odds. I don't need to deal with an analogy when I can refute your argument about universe creation directly.

Let's be honest here chances of this world existing by chance is not just vanishingly small but absolutely zero. If this world does have the slightest probability to exist by coincidence you better convince me how life can start from non life, how random molecules can turn into proteins which form into DNA and RNA, where human coincious and feeling can come from nothing and how information can exist without having a writer, programmer or composer. I simply don't have that much faith no matter how hard i try.

"let's be honest" - you think anyone is lying about this? Just because you can't comprehend it doesn't make it false. It's easier to believe a story and ignore the inconsistencies in it than to get to grips with a framework that admits it doesn't have all the answers and is based upon layers and layers of knowledge. Scientists also never claim to have the actual answer. But what any good scientist does do is not hold on to a belief or theory if it has been falsified. There is neither evidence nor utility to the idea that god created the universe. And worse, it introduces inconsistencies in our current understanding of the universe, like physics, computer science and biology.

 

[koista12]

stuff.

You seem to have a 1950s understanding of cosmology, especially the Big Bang. The going ideas (not 100% settled but the most popular among physicists) is that the Big Bang is what's called a inflation event where, due to the fluctuating value of a certain type of field, gravity becomes a repelling force, pushing space apart, and the the matter and energy we see today is the result of that field fluctuating back to a normal value and negative pressure. Under this model the Big Bang didn't create all of space, but was an event in space, merely creating the space in our vicinity.

Like others have said, just because you can't believe that the odds would allow for a universe that can support life would come to exist, doesn't mean it isn't the case, and certainly doesn't mean that a conscious entity created the universe. There's plenty of research being done as to why the universe has the properties it does, and none of the research simply gives up and proclaims it to be too hard to solve and just goddidit. That's lazy thinking right there.

Edit: Broken Phobias well that's entirely different, in that it isn't lazy thinking, its your particular theological/philosophical belief. It'd be inane to say that belief in God and understanding science are incompatiable.

 

[BP]

There's plenty of research being done as to why the universe has the properties it does, and none of the research simply gives up and proclaims it to be too hard to solve and just goddidit. That's lazy thinking right there.

But I mean it may be lazy thinking but like what if like you believe that god made the universe that way because he just did and made it that way for our understanding.

 

[DurzaOffTopic]

if the agnostic is right, both the agnostic and the christian are just corpses 6 feet underground at the end of the day
but if the christian happens to be correct, when both of them die the christian ends up in heaven and the agnostic goes to hell for eternity

take your chances