Quote:
|
Originally Posted by knox
i haven't been baptised or taught any kind of religion.
|
Then you are in the best shape, your mind and heart are free from the cultural and historical baggage which most people disguise as their religion. Religion is a feeling of the heart, not a matter of the intellect, and in this regard, your heart is free as your mind is not cluttered with thousands of years of other peoples' bullshit
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by DeadDiscoDildo
Which makes me agnostic
|
Same for you
people like me need to spend a lot of time systematically dissassembling all the bullshit I have inherited in order to see past my mind, and feel with an open heart.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by akprodr
What do you mean by 'orthodox'? In my understanding its more of an adjective than a religion.
I think pretty much all popular religions have perverted God (with a capital G).
Me, I'm a lapsed Roman Catholic now more of a pagan/pantheist/atheist. I believe there is a god but its role in the universe is limited. Lucas' Force is as good a description as another.
The reason I think there is a god is because things like The Big Bang and black holes (at least were) called Singularities. By definition, you can't tell what happened before. Has this changed? I think that LHC was designed to tell us about pre-Big Bang conditions? Or just bring us closer to the moment of the BB?
|
Orthodox Church is the original Church from the second and third centuries, and is generally the ethnic church of Slavs, some Romanians, Armenians, Georgians, Russians, Coptic Egyptians, Syrian/Jordanians, Ethiopians, and also of course the American Orthodox (which is non-ethnic).
I especially agree with you belief in God based upon the sophistication of the Big Bang and other cosmological arguments, after all, the Goldilocks Principle is very convincing from a scientific perspective, all religious sentiments aside.
The purpose of this thread was to see where all of the SYG folks are coming from across the spectrum of Christianity, and perhaps for us to have an opportunity to discuss these things with each other.
Essentially, much of what we call religion, is in fact socio-cultural
baggage, prejudice and even bigotry.
For protestants, God is in the Bible. For Catholics, God is the Church. For Orthodox, God is in the heart, but in reality, can God somehow be limited to any of these places or any place in particular for that matter? Is God limited by any of
our own weaknesses?
I wish Christians would get it together, and fellowship as one communion, rather than let our
mutually exclusive cultural, sociological and psychological histories corrupt our ability to see each other as equals.
Ironically, I have MUCH better religious discussions with self-proclaimed Atheists and agnostics, because unlike religious people, they are not so close-minded as to believe they know anything at all, let alone everything. Where as Christians in particular tend to be bitterly close minded and fragmentary..
The true heart of Christianity is that we are ALL equal in our sin. We
all are fallible, weak, petty, arrogant, in a word, sinners. We are all
equal to each other in that we will all fall short of anything near perfection. The problem, is that many Christians, in a wave of
self-righteousness, tend use the concept of sin, not to build bridges of mutual equality, but rather divisions and separations and judgment...
What are any of your experiences with this problem? What affect do you think that particular nuances of your religious denomination's baggage has had on these experiences?