[aschismatic]

I agree, the fact that we can observe so much order in the universe through math, physics, and chemistry leaves me with a feeling that there must be some reason such order exists. I don't know if that necessarily translates to the existence of a builder, a creator, or a god, but I do believe it means something. And it's interesting to wonder if that something is internal or external to our universe.

You mention the old testament and the Torah. What draws you to the scripts of religions that are monotheistic?

What do you think about older religions that are not monotheistic? For instance, Greek mythology and the Greek pantheon is an interesting case in which there are many deities, in particular because those deities, among others, are all very human in their nature. They experience love, hubris, envy, and hatred. The full spectrum of human emotion and behavior. Much of religion is human-centric, and I think what that truly reveals is the hubris of humankind. I think that's the main reason I tend to look toward philosophy and religion more for the values they espouse and the interesting contemplation they inspire, and less for worship. In relation to our universe and any possible god or gods, I believe that humans are dust in the wind.

[kls]

Sorry this is going to be long, as a general rule I don't discuss religion, but I think I can avoid it becoming a hot topic in this answer:

I don't discount the fact that it could indeed be a race of creators, the issue then becomes if there are more than one, who created them. In my mind it would still turtle down to a singularity where all power and creation came from a single source of energy if you will.

I took the time to study a handful of religions when I had my moment in doubt in agnosticism. I actually took interest in eastern ones first such a Buddhism, Taoism, and Jainism while I think they are great works for humanity to better themselves they tend to be more philosophical than religious in their nature. Many American Indian religious beliefs parallel eastern thinking like this. Hinduism would be the one exception from the eastern regions. In portions of it's teachings it leans towards strong and supernatural gods but then tends to fable and saga them. Kind of the equivalent of modern day superheros. The stories read more like that to me, as stories about gods and not as god instructing people on why they where made, why we are in the position we are in, and what to expect.

This is the same reason I tended to discount, relatively dead religions such as Odinism, Greek Gods, Roman Gods as they tend to be Sagas about the gods to tell fanciful stories and moral tales that inspire people. I think they are great works, but in my mind I don't think they would be the types of work that a creator would leave as an instruction manual.

The Baháʼí Faith was interesting and I really liked it, but I found it inconsistent in trying to tie all of the world regions into a single path.

Funny enough I had an unrealized bias against the Bible due to the fact that I was raised in a Judeo-Christan country. Being immersed in the culture and seeing the hypocrisy had cemented in my mind that people did not practice what they preach. The problem was up until this point I had never really read the Bible (Old Testament) myself, and was taking other peoples words for what it said at face value. I was under the impression that the entire religion was about hating other people, the Muslims hate the Jews, the Christians hate the Muslims, the Jews hate the Muslims, the Christians hate everyone who is not like them. What I failed to realize that this is a cultural anomaly and not a religious one.

Funny enough I was at an American football game, and watched one guy hit and hospitalize another guy with a baseball bat, literally over the fact that his team lost at the other guy was wearing the wrong jersey in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was that incident that made me face my bias and realize people will hate people in the out group no matter how trivial the division is. It's human nature.

So anyways I read the old testament and was really surprised at the message, it was not a bunch of kill gay people, hate this other guy. Don't get me wrong God instructed the Jews to conquer people and other unsavory stuff, but there where justifications for doing so. What I found was a message of universal love, a promise of restoration and examples of no matter how we as humans try or barter for a different system we will fail due to human nature. Because if there is no god, a human is going to try to fill that spot and we see that all the time. Humans trying to play god.

I find it interesting that originally power of god resided in the tabernacle with the people, the argument was basically this is too hard with you right here we need a human proxy that understand us. To which the Kings where appointed culminating in David the best among his people followed by his son Solomon the wisest among his people. David fell short in Killing his friend by sending him into Battle because his ulterior motive was to bed his friends wife Bathsheba. Solomon was a fool when it came to women and was led into bad decisions.

Finally a messiah was promised that would be the sacrifice to take the blame of all sin (punishment for sin is death). What this set up was the final in a trifecta of lessons, as with a messiah every man became accountable for himself and was directly in charge of their spiritual path.

It's interesting because the original issue at hand was that their was a rebellion of thought that basically went like this: "You don't have the right to create us, give us free will and then demand that we serve and worship you" Once a question like that is asked there is really only one way to answer it, without any doubt and that is to let those with rebellious hearts, participate in their rebellion and see the results. The part that I find interesting is that it follows a very logical path of when it fails to materialize we as humans tend to make excuses and change the goal posts. Which is exactly what happened, first there was the tabernacle for direct guidance, then there was a proxy in the kings and then every wo/man was made the king of their own destiny. The reason for this is clearly articulated that it is to show after restoration that there is only one path and to answer the question for all times.

2 of the religions that rely on that text do not believe that messiahs has come, 1 does. The books they all 3 agree on, clearly point to a coming messiah so the question becomes did Christ fulfill the prophecies as laid out in the books that they all agree on. In my personal opinion he did which is interesting because the old testament really focused on the why the things the way they are. While the teachings of Jesus focused on what is to come and how we should view the world with love. I was surprised at how strong the message of love was given my experience growing up in a "Christian" culture. Reading his parables they where directed at people exactly like that, time and time highlighting how a hooker is more righteous than the people that would not help. Or how the beggar who prays next to the priest and says lord make me an upright man like the priest here and the priest prays lord tank you for exalting me and not allowing me to be lowly like that beggar.

Funny enough after reading the works I walked away going no wonder they killed him, the guy was an anarchist of the mind. I have no doubt if he where her today, he would eat dinner with gay people he would rightful tell them, it is not the way we where designed but that the world is infected and he loves them in-spite of their particular sinful nature. See I always though you, accept Christ, renounce you sin, and then you never ever sin again. So it was striking to me that his message was you are infected with sin, you are going to do bad things every day, I am going to provide cover for that, but try to love other people and use my words as a guide to try and stay on the best life path you can. If the New Testament is true, there are going to be a lot of gay people in paradise along with a lot of murderers, thieves, adulterers etc. That's the thing when people tell you what is in the bible they tell you about the sins called out. But when you actually read his words he minimizes them because he did not want his message of love to be drowned out.

In reading his words for myself, I felt like the Old and the New Testament flow well into an explanation of why we are in the situation we are in, what we should do while we are in this situation and what is to come next.

There are a lot of stories and parables but to me the flow of the reason is fairly simple and fairly clear. There are a lot of people with hateful agendas that blur the simple lessons that are to be learned.

I accept the possibility that it could be wrong and a work of fiction, created by hopeful thinking but I also think there is enough there to have faith that it could be right. Finally I came to the conclusion no matter what, Jesus was a really awesome, kind, loving and wise man, even if he was just a crazy guy, he is a pretty good person to strive to be like. So that's how I ended up where I am at on my thoughts on god.

[aschismatic]

Thanks for taking the time to write about so many of your thoughts! I used to be atheist when growing up, but over time I've become agnostic. I'm not sure that's even really the best term for how I feel and what I believe, but it's the best term that I know. In that way, I found it compelling to read the path you took to your current beliefs, because I know that when I find the inspiration to read more deeply into religion, I will also likely start by reading more about religions with origins in the East. Mainly because, as you said,

> they are great works for humanity to better themselves they tend to be more philosophical than religious in their nature.

Right now, that's what resonates with me the most, and the closest I can envision myself to becoming spiritual. At least, at this point in time. As a result, I can't say there's a lot more I knowledgeable enough to respond to with regards to Judaism, Islam, Christianity (and its various offshoots). I've read a few stories from pieces of the Bible in high school, but I can't remember which ones specifically, and we approached them from a literary perspective rather than a religious one. I actually remember being unreasonably disgruntled at having religious texts assigned for reading. I like to think I've become much more open-minded since then, and hope to continue to develop in that positive direction.

I was going to say something about understanding why people believe in god or God, and why that is, but I realized it actually sounded condescending when I don't mean to be. All I can really say is, I have a very hard time taking leaps of faith, and with respect to God, I'm not ready now and not sure I ever will be. But I really appreciate your taking the time to say so much about the path you took to get to where you are with your beliefs today. I also really love your perspective on Jesus. Thank you!

[kls]

A few of the wow things that I found out after I read the bible , that where completely inconsistent with what people told me was in the book, are:

It never mentions hell, it is extremely clear that the punishment for sin is death and that the dead know nothing. It talks about a lake of eternal fire in revelations, but every single reference to eternal fire in the entirety of the books when referring to eternal fire refers to something that has been burnt up and will never return. I became interested in where the doctrine of hell came from and it was introduced in the early dark ages, by Catholicism. Early Christians did not believe in a place of eternal torment for sinners, which would be logically inconsistent with the overarching message of the entirety of the books which is restoration with no sin in creation, hell would be a part of creation thus a pocket of sin would remain. The doctrine has been thoroughly refuted as inconsistent and not supported by the texts but it is still a major doctrine point of many of the organized christian religions. This was my absolute #1 issue that caused me severe bias against Biblical religious, before I took the time to read the book. How could a loving creator be such a sociopath to torment people forever. I was really surprised to find that there was no support for this doctrine.

The second was that humans where created/evolved/whathaveyou on earth to be shepherds and care-tenders of the earth. This has always been the plan, the bible does not state that we as humans go to heaven, it says we die until judgment, if we do not accept that the only way forward is to work inside of the framework of gods plan, we receive a second death at that time, where we are erased from history, literally like we never existed. I don't think the intention here is cruel but I look at it like a system with a malfunction, you fix the malfunction or you remove and replace the part entirely. After this, heaven and earth are destroyed, the human body is restored back to what Adam and Eve where free from genetic defects and are returned to a restored earth, which was the original plan and rebellion did not change that plan. there is some debate about how long we have to accept submission to god, but my personal belief in reading Christ's actions is that forgiveness is available to the very last minute, possibly even at judgment. I think this was the point of when crucified the thief Gestas asked Jesus to remember him when he enters his kingdom and Jesus responds that he will be with him in paradise. I believe the symbolism of this is that redemption is available to the very last moment and is broadly available.

These two things really contrasted with my experience of being told you are all sinners and going to hell. Both are completely opposite of what the texts actually say.

I am not going to try to convert you, or save you, but you seem genuinely interested in positive messages about life so won't just say read the bible and all will be reviled (or some other hocus pocus), I encourage you to explore the offerings of religion that I did (especially Buddhism I think it has a lot of level up as a human value), but I would urge you to read the parables that Jesus told, these where stories he would tell to help people see right and wrong, and are more philosophical in nature than they are religious, they are really powerful and they give a really good overview of how Jesus loved and was a devout pacifist. They require little biblical context and honestly the less context you have to more clear they are as you will tend to read them and not infer other context into them.

My personal favorites are:

Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is a great story about the fact that no one is beyond redemption, but human nature is to judge and insist that others are not worthy of redemption. Basically the human nature of I am good, they are not.

Parable of the Good Samaritan, In context Samaritan where disdained and looked down on. That part is not clear without other context from other texts.

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, this one has to be hands down my favorite. It highlights how we can be forgiven, but we will hold others to a higher standard than we ourselves believe we should be forgiven for.

Parable of the Two Debtors, another really good one that contrast the importance of love over everything else.

Again, not trying to force anything on you or turn this conversation into a get saved message, I just know how the parables helped me see things differently. I think these stories are profound and give the best insight into what a man of peace Jesus was. If anything I think people should see him from his own words and not the actions of some of the people that claim his name. He is like the Free Hugs guy X 1000.

I totally understand on leaps of faith, I am a evidence based person for the most part so I totally understand that you can't make the connection with faith. I 100% get that. I still have my issues with it and I abandon it from time to time, but then I get right back in the same circle of this damn thing is designed, who designed it. So my only resolution is to keep as much faith that is possible for me personally. Even doubting Tomas (a disciple of Jesus) had doubts in faith and Jesus talked to this extensively. He also experienced it when god had to abandon him at crucifixion to pour out the grapes of wrath on him. I think if it is true, then our creator can completely understand that us being disconnected from him makes it hard to make leaps to faith and I think this is why doubt in faith was highlighted among many of the disciples. Peter is also highlighted here as when he takes his eyes of Jesus and experience fear he falls into the water and I think these stories are there to let us know that if even the people that walked with, ate with and communed with Jesus had doubts from time to time, that it is perfectly reasonable for us to have them.

Finally, for anyone that might find the discussion of religious doctrine offensive, I apologize it was not my intent. I find the subject interesting and enjoy the what-if scenarios of it. My intent is to highlight those what-if's and not serve as a sermon or an attempt at conversion.

[keiferski]

I appreciated your comment, thanks for writing it.