Osler's Razor

I got sent to a private school to keep me out of trouble in third grade. I was raised Lutheran. The school sucked. The pastors all just said that only this belief is right. In response, I gave religion the finger. I prayed for my grandma a few times but I don't believe in religion. The more they tried to show they were right, the farther I distanced myself. Everyone else bought it hook line and sinker but I just couldn't accept it. If there is a God, I don't think he cares what religion someone is or even if they have a God. I think its more important how you live than what you believe in. Plenty of horrible stuff has been done by people based on religious beliefs. If there is a heaven and they are there and I'm not allowed, I don't think its a place I'd even want to be. Praying and things like that don't make you a good person. I personally believe it must be more about the heart and actions than about the faith and professing a love for a certain diety. If only one religion gets into heaven, its probably not that great of a place because its close-minded. Thats what I realized in 7th grade.
 

LDT-- Though obviously I disagree with you on the big picture, I would concur on the following:

1) Pastors telling you what is "true" is not very convincing;

2) Plenty of horrible stuff has been done (and still is done) in the name of religion;

3) Praying does not (in itself) make you a good person.

It always amazes me what a bad job some people do of talking about God-- those Pastors obviously described to you a God who was all judgement and no love, and I'm pretty sure that my faith would disagree with that.
 

I was raised in a Baptist home, but became an atheist in college. The more I learned about science, history, mythology, and the Universe, the less convincing religion became. Like Tyd says, you can't force yourself to believe in something that doesn't make sense to you, so I finally stopped trying to convince myself. I harbor no ill feelings toward religion itself, and contrary to what many theists try to convince me of, I'm not "mad at God" (a contradiction in an of itself for an atheist). I simply don't believe that it's true based on the evidence I've become aware of. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, not valid in Alaska or Hawaii.
 

LDT-

You say, "If there is a God, I don't think he cares what religion someone is or even if they have a God." I don't understand this assertion. Why should God recognize a person who doesn't recognize him?

Next, I am not sure what you mean by "If only one religion gets into heaven, its probably not that great of a place because its close-minded." I am not sure if you mean "religions", i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as compared to "denominations", i.e. Lutheran, Methodists, Catholics, Baptists. If you mean "religion", then to address your assertion would be very time consuming and in-depth, which I won't attempt here. If you mean "denomination", then I might disagree with the initial proposition that only one denomination gets to heaven. I think the proposition is too simplistic and anyone who proclaims that really has only a tenuated basis for the assertion.

Last, religion in general. As a disclaimer, I was raised in a very, very conservative congregation within the Church of Christ. In that congregation, some believed that only members of the Church of Christ are going to heaven and only if they do x, y, and z. As I grew, moved away, and matured, I realized that those beliefs are entirely too simplistic and that really a lot of gray areas exist. So to some extent, I can understand why you would be turned away by over-zealous religion because you start to see that some people proclaim things that are too simplistic and not completely accurate.

Concerning religion generally (not denominations), I have learned that religion only works when two elements are present. First, an individual must have a personal relationship with her diety. Second, the individual must have personal relationships with other people, with a loving servant attitude included. Too many people focus on one without the other, and in that instance, religion does not work. In your comment, you isolated each relationship without the other. That will never work.
 

I used to believe in God. I never could explain what it was that made me believe. I didn't believe in God because my parents told me to or because all of the cool kids in school went to church. Instead, it was some just strange sense I had that there was something else out there that had control of the situation, someone that had done many great things and that I could feel safe when I was in his presence.

I stopped believing in God when he decided to start "testing" me (at least that is the term that Christians use when they can't explain why things are going wrong). In Church we were always told that God will not give you more than you can handle- everything he does is to make you stronger. I was able to hold on to that belief through multiple deaths occuring in a short time frame and the first two times that a family member sexually assaulted me.

I prayed everynight that things would get better but they didn't. Eventually I stopped praying that things would get better and started praying that he would either kill me or give me the strength to kill myself. At that point I decided that if God existed and actually loved me he would not put me through that- he would not "test" me that much. Now I find it hard to hear any person tell me that God will not give me more than I can handle because I know that he will.

I know that the traditional Christian response to this is that obviously God didn't give me more to handle and he does care about me because in the end I am still alive. However, I feel this is a cop out on the part of Christians to justify something they cannot explain. All of that was to say that I, like Tyd, have a difficult time having a relationship with a God who was never there for me when I needed him most.
 

For what it is worth, I have never understood the "God will never give you more than you can handle" assertion, either. I know a lot of people who have gotten well more than they could handle, and it was really tragic. I don't know if God did that, really-- if God for some reason decided that terrible things should happen to that individual at that time. It's one of the many things I don't know about God. But still, I believe.
 

I went to church for the first 16 years of my life, and for a few of those, considered myself fairly faithful. I've retained an abiding interest in theology and religious studies, but I can't say that in that time where I routinely attended services that I have ever had a genuine religious experience. It's not that I discount the possibility, but rather looking back on 16 years of Christianity I never seemed to feel what everyone else did.

In the year and a half after that wherein I attended UU Midland, I met a lot of nice people from different faiths (Bahai'i, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, etc.) but despite my honest sincerity in taking part in their rituals, I have never felt anything remotely spiritual or a connection to something beyond me and there here and now.

In fact, the most moving experiences of my life have always been on reflecting on the beauty and majesty of nature and the achievements of humankind's intellectual endeavors -- science, art, philosophy, music. By way of illustration, when I stood on Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland and surveyed the beauty of the countryside below me, I marveled at the fact of human existence, that we toil away as one small speck of a planet in the far-flung spiral arm of a minor galaxy clustered away in a universal backwater, totally isolated (as far as we know) for hundreds of light years in any direction, cut off from potential neighbors by such unforgiving things as the laws of nature... and yet we build cities! Whole communities of living, breathing, thinking things banded together for common purpose. We climb tall mountains wherein we see, inscribed in memorable German: Kommt hier und sitzt mit des Werkes Gottes, so wünderbar ist. (Roughly translated: come here and sit with the works of God, so wonderful they are.). The very possibility of God, we believe, isn't reflected in the supernatural of the divine, but rather in the beauty of the mundane. Philosophically, this is striking: if the world we experience is bound by the conditions of our subjectivity, and it is precisely in the beauty of the empirical world that we see reflected the glory of the divine, then perhaps looking for external validation or subjective experiences of religiosity is like looking in a maze of mirrors for a reflection of what's inside us.

So while I remain open to the possibility of a genuine religious experience, I'm quite positive that I have never had one, and until I do, I cannot, in good conscience, admit to religious beliefs.

On the other hand, I think that the modern insistence on the irrationality of religion leaves a sour taste in many peoples' mouths. Even if materialists such as myself don't share religious beliefs, we ought to at least try to understand the subjectivity of them and that, to others at least, these beliefs are not only real and manifest but important. And in the end, a greater understanding of our fellow humans is a good thing.
 

Lane--

How interesting that you had that revelation on a mountain named for Pontius Pilate! I'm not sure what to make of that. I suppose he was someone who was deeply conflicted. He actually is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox church, and by some accounts converted late in life and fled to Vienna.
 

There are colorful legends surrounding Pilate and Mt. Pilatus (all lovingly narrated by Schweizerin as you ascend the mountain in trolley cars). My favorite was that the storms that come down seasonally from the mountain were the restless ghost of Pilate washing his hands of the blood of Christ.

Strangely enough, the pre-Christian legends all involve dragons, but the dragons have morphed in to Pilate since the Christianization of Europe.
 

I love God, and I am a faithful member of a Baptist church. However, the older I get, the more I realize that I will not ever have the kind of relationship with him that other people seem to be able to find...namely, the other members of my family. My dad, the Baptist minister, my mom, the church secretary/teacher at a Christian school, and my sister, also a teacher at a Christian school, have all chosen to some degree to completely remove themselves from the secular world (my mom and sister the most). I'm ok with that...they are sheltered and easily upset by the evils of the world. I'm thankful that they have the opportunity to fully devote their lives to ministry. I, on the other hand, chose to be a prosecutor. I realize that what I've chosen in life is no less a ministry, but it doesn't allow me to separate myself from the bad things of the world. Instead, it forces me to deal directly with them. Its easy for my mom to rationalize bad things, evil things, by saying "The Lord has his will and all works together for good if you just love Him enough". Its much harder for me to look at a 3 year old who has been raped by her father to the point of emergency surgery and still be able to say that.
I have faith. But the times that I've needed him the most, He wasn't there. I will freely admit (before anyone asks otherwise) that sometimes He wasn't there because I shut Him out. I got past those particular issues and reestablished a relationship with God, but I still struggle with the repercussions of those events. It seems to me that God just chooses to ignore me when I need Him the most lately. The difference is that now, I'm actually trying to find Him in the mess.
Despite all my issues with God, I still have my faith. I'm coming to realize that I don't know answers, but God doesn't mind me asking questions. I do know, though, that there must be a plan, and there must be a God, because at least in my mind, if that wasn't true, there is just absolutely no hope.