What religion are you?

[Sako]

Re: What religion are you?

Saco, I can't respond to your posts in a way that is pleasing to you because you demand that I recognize your assumptions as true at all times.

I don’t demand and you don’t answer at all so stop with the excuses, it doesn’t work too well. I never asked you to talk pleasingly because I didn’t myself. Whatever I say, I do in action. I don’t just say something and do something else.

This is not a pleasing endeavor for me, specifically because I disagree with your pessimistic attitude towards the enterprise of living on Earth without believing in the afterlife or in God.

First of all, you’re as pessimistic as I am, and second of all, the problem with you is that you accept everything that happens but don’t accept the most important fact. I accept the afterlife because I know that I’m going to die soon, I’ll be able to find out anyways so I don’t blindly say it doesn’t exist. If there isn’t an afterlife, what happens after death? It’s logic. There are so many people that have gone through that through clinical deaths. They were just dreaming? That isn’t the entire proof though, there is so much more, but you choose to become the pessimistic scientist who HAS to prove it to understand it. I am the one who accepts he can’t understand everything but nonetheless should try and not forget that he is here for a limited time. And just for your info, I could explain how all this works much more easily then you ever could and not just through concepts. You could do this too but you decided to throw a bandana over your eyes and not read or try to understand anything. Your blind and yet you come to me and say that the sun doesn’t exist. Fact is, my points till now were so simple and you couldn’t even answer them so stop taking the humble route because you couldn’t say anything. I’m not even explaining difficult scripture or science, its pure logic.

A lot of your ideas suggest to me that you are not an advocate of free will.

I’m freer then you will ever be, not because I’ve read books, lived half around the world, and gone through things you couldn’t imagine right now, but because I don’t create concepts in my head. I don’t create an illusion for myself or try to understand something difficult to understand with my mind alone. You never can. I have read through many religions, seen different people, got the experience, and understood the whole point of religion and life. After that I felt myself changing, looking much easily at life and at everything else. I began to naturally do the right thing without even trying a lot of the time. My fear of everything drained away and I became a much better person physically and mentally. The people I work with, my friends, my way of thinking, of understanding, of living, makes me more free then I could be if I simply said God doesn’t exist and did whatever I wanted. We can but we should exercise caution and learn. There is so much to accept and learn so stop creating your own concepts.

I'd say we dynamically create judgments that best apply to our subjective values on the Earth which can change and become more refined overtime.

My views have been refining for years, don't worry. But we don’t only base our judgments on concepts created by us but on knowledge itself that has been passed down. That knowledge is not difficult to understand too. All just make it harder for themselves, trying to walk through the streets ad understand life.

You instead come off as one who demands that we should abide to a static set of rules and regulations in order to make the right decisions in life.

We all have to abide to some rules whether they be spiritual or material, whether they are static, dynamic, etc. And YES, you become a better person. THAT has also been proven, face it. I’m presenting you with facts; you choose to go with your weird concepts, open your eyes for God sakes. Don’t you realize I’m not evening mentioning God? I’m talking about pure logic here. But no, you’re clouded; I’m not saying you have to go with extremely strict rules that don’t make sense. What do you take me for?

This implies that our subjective values must be static, which just doesn't seem natural at all to me and though your subjective values at the moment might be pleasing for you, they certainly don't apply to everyone else and they won't necessarily apply for you in the same way, in the future.

You don’t know what my values are and you didn’t understand the simple point I was stressing throughout my entire last post. My values are global just like love is universal. I’m not saying something strange and I never said your values will be static and neither are mine. What seems natural to you is that you live completely free and do as you like that’s why things will always be “static” to you. Humans must learn how to abide by certain rules otherwise they will be animals. It’s proven too. These rules are as simple as counting from one to three but they even refuse to abide by them. In time, their views change and soon they realize EVERYTHING is changing.

You already recognize that there is much for "us" to learn, I'm glad that you show some degree of humility, but you will also recognize overtime that the manner in which you construct your arguments and their content will change overtime, so long as you are interested in hearing out the ideas of others and detecting fault with your own schemes for understanding the world (another very natural phenomenon amongst humans).

You ask me to do what you don’t.

When you say man was born on this world for a purpose, I respond "Man must provide himself with a purpose"

He already has a purpose and CAN add other purposes to his task list but he must never forget his primary task.

When you say that when people can't prove something, they begin doubting it exists but don’t accept the fact that you can’t understand everything, I respond, "1. You're black. 2. I can't prove it. 3. I'm probably wrong. 4. I don't understand the fact that I can't understand everything, maybe you are black afterall."

That’s your weird answer but not everyone thinks like that. I wasn’t only talking about you.

Finally, when you say that there is nowhere on this world that you can do anything you want which proves again that this world has a purpose, I respond "You can do anything you want, so long as you're able to bring yourself to doing it."

And what’s the point of that I might ask? You don’t understand what this life is that’s why you’re so confused. You look at it as something that just takes place.

Obviously we are two very different people and I'm not interested in converting you to use my logic

I’ve heard much better logic from even atheists so you couldn’t convert me even if you wanted to. You are living in an impersonalist concept with a lot of good morals.

besides, the idea of thinking like me must seem very repulsive to you.

Wrong again, it just seems … pointless, dull, absolutely un-firm, and a waste of time. I’ve heard better excuses for not believing in God or the supernatural.

Believe what you will my friend and just be a good person whether you believe in God or not. That was my point. The rest are just quicker ways to reaching the goal of life and no matter what you do or what you accept, you will end up on the mountain top in the end. Some just get there much, much faster. Choose your path, mine is already chosen. One day, you will see what I was saying when you stop thinking I’m your enemy. I’ve gone through all, if not more, then you have gone through and I know how it all feels. That’s why I’m constantly writing mostly to you instead of giving up on you. This was my last attempt and I wish you all the best, again. You aren’t wrong, your method is simply wrong and your concepts cloud you sometimes. That’s what this world wants you to do. To create your concepts and stay here, birth after birth. Once you give it all up, you laugh at how people complicate their lives so much.

[Anonymouse]

Re: What religion are you?

That depends on the time, circumstance, and the people you talk with. Every time we talk, something new pops up. For some reason, J thinks that I'm the one that needs to read and understand and he understands everything. I'm not upset at all. But when I beat down everything he says in every way possible, he types something awkward and bows out in the middle of our conversation and pisses me off. That's why I answer EVERYTHING he asks and look at everything he says in every possible way so MAYBE he'll get what I'm trying to say. I've tried saying it the simple way but when he challenges me, I don't back out. He isn't the first nor the last. If his eyes hurt from reading my posts then I can imagine how many books he's read in his life so let him stop saying everyone besides him is iliterate because that's what his words say. I pity him if he thinks that way, which I pretty much doubt, I don't think he's that far down the rabbit hole, lol.



I'd love to know which part that is. J also wrote long posts, that's no excuse. I answer everything in an orderly fashion, forgive me if it's too complicated.



Difficult, but I'll try, bro. These are pretty much my last words so please read them from top to bottom before commenting. It's more on point but if you don't want to, my last paragraph is the review of everything I said, my overall point. I'm not going to write long posts on this subject anymore bro so lets at least read this last one properly for once.

Man, in itself, was born on this world for a purpose. If he was born simply to enjoy, he wouldn't have to go through pain. I think we all agree with this fact. This leads us to a question. What is pain? Is it just some feeling we feel or a method designed to learn lessons in life? Most, including scientists, believe that you reap what you sow. The Indians believe it is called Karma. Others believe God is the one that punishes us. Others believe it "just happens, you know". But the majority believes that everything has a cause and pain is what leads us forward. Without pain, joy wouldn't be as great and this is a proven fact. Pain is what teaches us lessons, not joy. That’s why, even a kid could understand that this world is built for us to learn not to enjoy. This has led people to understand that we aren't here to enjoy but live instead on proper guide lines and not just be "free" because this world is entanglement in itself. In jail, you can walk around it at times but you can’t come out of it whenever you like. This is whether we believe in God or not. It's proven. This world wasn't built for happiness. Period. It was built for us to learn our lessons and get the hell off it, which we do in a very short amount of years whether we learn our lessons or not. This leads to the next question. What happens after we die? Say, I was a great person, not making mistakes, what happens then? It seems like I’ve just been being good for no reason. This leads to people thinking this is the last life they will live and begin doing whatever they want without realizing that even if this was the last life and there was no God, there are still proper, good, and bad actions. There is nowhere on this world that you can do anything you want which proves again that this world has a purpose. The interesting part is that illusion is what holds us back. The illusion that we will DIE OFF and everything will end. The illusion that all we see belongs to us. The illusion that even God doesn't exist sometimes. But let's forget about that for a second. My point when it comes to illusion is that we forget our purpose and instead of understanding that purpose, whatever it may be, we begin to try and understand this world and make it better for us which has destroyed as much (if not more) as it has aided us through the years. That is why this world was created. To hold us back. It’s like you go to jail but instead of behaving and finding a way to come out, you scratch the walls and see what the jail is built of. It’s simple fact. I don’t need to quote God even once. Man doesn't want to accept the fact that he can't understand everything no matter how many scientists, no matter how many tools, how many geniuses, etc. there are in the world. People fear what they don't understand and try to understand the world then. That is what we are NOT supposed to do. I’m not saying science hasn’t helped. I’m saying that it has made us over confident and has made us forget why we are in this world. Just like a kid who goes to school but stares at all the chick’s everyday instead of learning and studying to finish school and go on to college. This world is a school, and a very dangerous one. We get the experience and then the lessons. This world, when you look at it, is perfect. It teaches us all we need to know but we choose to learn those lessons or not. Those that don’t learn properly die and come back until they are prepared to move on just like the kid who studies properly gets an A+ and the kid that ran after all the chicks fails and goes through the same class until he passes. It is as simple as that whether you look at it physically or mentally and it takes basic knowledge to understand.

Life is a discovery but we don’t usually try to discover what we need to discover. In math class, you need to learn math and after that, you can go do what you want on the playground, still keeping to the rules though (hope you get the metaphor). Man breaks all rules and forgets that there are rules for everything, whether you look at it spiritually or materially. Going to the mountains, becoming a saint and all, etc. are choices we can make (like staying after school and studying) to get off this world sooner. Again proven by scientists and people in general, I can prove that too. This world has its rules, it’s natural. Our body abides by the rules but our minds confuse us. It’s easier to control the wind then our minds. That’s why rules are there for everything otherwise even you would be surprised at what you could do. We are blessed and cursed because we can choose to break the rules and life is very fragile, throwing us into problems when we least expect them. Many ask why that happens but when they get an answer, they don’t want to believe in it. We shouldn’t think they JUST HAPPEN though, but learn from them. A mistake is making the SAME MISTAKE again.

Soon, men realize they can't understand many things, including God and even fear him soon although he was supposed to be our rescuer, even IF he was a created concept. When people can’t prove something, they begin doubting it exists but don’t accept the fact that you can’t understand everything just like a man in jail can’t understand what’s going on outside because he is inside jail or like a kid in 5th grade that can’t understand how to do eleventh grade arithmetic, science, etc. Einstein, before dying, remarked, "I know only one thing, that I don't know anything". He accepted the fact, even as an atheist, that there are things men will never understand, things he even didn’t understand. But we, who don't know half of what so many great people know, puck up and say God doesn't exist. Being agnostic is more of less OK but completely saying that GOD DOESN'T EXIST isn't right and shows our ignorance.

Going back to guide lines. Just like when we go to school, we have to follow the rules. This world has its rules and God gave us the ability to follow them and we know very well, agnostic, materialistic, atheistic, or spiritualistic, the consequences. We go through them everyday and out of the pain, we don’t understand what is going on and begin doubting God exists or even blame him like a kid who doesn’t study but wants to understand the lessons in class, blaming the teacher for his/her own personal messed up misunderstanding. The student doesn’t want to accept the fact that he DOESN’T UNDERSTAND.

This world, as a whole, is not a pretty place to live in. It is filled with problems, with confusion, with illusion, and most importantly with time. We get confused and become fearful of everything, even the people we are close to, and go deep into the darkness. Knowledge is the light and just by a glance at it, we judge it by its cover. There are explanations for everything in this world. Very practical explanations too. We choose not to believe them though, thinking it’s a bunch of lies. Reading one book is not enough. There are many religions because there are different people in the world with different understandings and God gives us chances to understand in different ways. Like different schools. There are many roads to the mountain and whichever you take will get you there except some are difficult and some are easy. Some don’t believe there is a mountain to climb and that we are just here to live and die. That is absurd not only spiritualisticly but materially as well. We have no purpose then and this makes us ask questions such as “Why should we die” “Why should we eat, breath, etc.” “What is the point of life” This leads to the question “Who decided how this world should work?” And that is where we get the idea that everything has a creator. There is new proof I won’t dwell into of things that are almost impossible and unknown to us. Against science COMPLETELY. This has confused the world and has made people think about their views overall.

The review of all I said, your three to four lines (although its a bit longer, is this. Do not doubt what you don’t see because there are many things like that. The simple things in life are difficult to prove so stop analyzing and start learning. Do not judge the book by its cover. Agree with the fact that you can’t understand EVERYTHING in this world, and whether you are a believer in God or not, do to others what you would do to yourself and be a good person before being anything else because that is the first step forward and the ultimate lesson of life. There are people who aren’t believers although I wouldn’t trade them for many believers I know because they are first great people before anything else. Last but not least. A person who follows the rules always wins so if you are a good person, you have nothing to be afraid of whether or not God exists. We all have to die one day, it is inevitable. Let us die good, WORTHY people, instead of simply wasting our lives. Death isn’t something to be afraid of. It is simply the beginning of something else. Even if God doesn’t exist, following a spiritual or at least proper set of rules, easy or hard, still heeds better results then doing what you like. I’d like to wrap this up with a great quote. When you were born, you were crying and everyone else was joyful. When you die, make sure YOU are the one with a joyful smile and the rest are crying after you. All the best guys and forgive me if I offended anyone or complicated anything. And J, forgive me if I offended you especially. It is out of all that I have learned and my will to help out if I can that I wrote for such a long time. Believe me, I have faced much greater oponents in life and they have been proven wrong not only by me but by much greater andsmarter people, scientific and spiritual. The questions I read here are basically ones I've heard millions of times and they have been proven wrong even more times. Your concepts are nothing but natural and being a good person means you have passed the test of life. Even if you understood one thing or anything I said helped you in any way, I feel my posts weren't just a waste of time and I feel much better a person. I learned a bit as well and always look forward to again and again. A man should be like a bee, looking for necter in every corner, even the dirtiest. Wish you all the best.

I asked for 3 sentences. The essence and breadth of what you are trying to say. Not a novel.

If you have that much to say, and happen to live in Glendale, you should look into having your own Armenian TV show and preach.

[ara87]

Re: What religion are you?

So I wanna start my own religion/philosophy bs, get on oprah and sell millions of books, but I can't think of a name. Somehow i don't think people will be attracted to something called Ara-ism

[Sako]

Re: What religion are you?

Anonymouse, I'm sorry if my answer wasn't proper enough for you, no pun intended, and I live in Yerevan and I was just giving my view, I didn't mean to preach. I hope it didn't offend you or anything. It was long and I confessed that but said that my last paragraph (in my new post as well) explained what I meant overall. Three lines aren't enough to explain such a difficult thing so forgive me. I explained everything much more simply then before and in a more orderly fashion, if you will, but if anyone didn't understand me AT ALL then haskatsoghin mek, chuhaskatsoghin hazarumek. I apologize if I bothered anyone and all the best in the future whether you are a believer or not, again. I'm not a fanatic. Spirituality comes from the heart and if someone doesn't feel that yet, he'll never understand. Spirituality cannot be artificially felt or shown. It has to be understood and there are people, I'm not talking about anyone on this forum, who don't feel anything even after reading or anything. This world is complicated, let's not complicate it anymore for us and just be good people and smile when we look in the mirror and not only to others, at least if we aren't believers or anything.
___________________

One more thing. Hey kid, from Kidderminster, United Kingdom, you gotta try much harder then that to get into my account, dumbass, lol.

[jgk3]

Re: What religion are you?

I do feel spirituality and God, I just don't do it the way religion prescribes it, and I don't deny the validity of your feelings either Saco, I am just opposed to this idea that you have found the only way to feel spirituality and that my approach is flawed and shortsighted.

Anyway, I've had enough of this myself, I don't like coming off as an atheistic or agnostic person and all this arguing with you and Stark leads to obsessiveness overtime of trying to sound right and convincing to others in very unrewarding debates, something which to me is not all that satisfactory in the long run. When I entered this discussion, I thought it would be fun because I hadn't gone this far into one in years. As it turns out, it didn't really get anywhere and I came out a bit confused in the end as to why I spent so much time on it.

[Sako]

Re: What religion are you?

J, I think we both relaxed and I think we both understood each other a bit better in the end. You didn’t waste your time, bro, don’t worry, a lot of people understood something from our discussion, including us, don’t doubt that.

I do feel spirituality and God, I just don't do it the way religion prescribes it, and I don't deny the validity of your feelings either Saco, I am just opposed to this idea that you have found the only way to feel spirituality and that my approach is flawed and shortsighted.

I feel bad already, bro, please don’t say that. I said that there are different roads to the mountain and yours is a road, just a different road. Whether it’s bad or good, let God decide that. There are no wrong roads. If you are a good person, and I mean proper, not just a guy who smiles, then no one will forget you. Tall grass won’t be growing around your grave. Yours isn’t a bad route, it’s just a route that could confuse you in time and you might hate God and yourself in time because your route is in itself cloudy sometimes. There are religious people that give it all up soon and they were more religious then you were, including me. When you say you don’t follow prescribed rules, you still do. You create rules for yourself and follow them. That’s why man will never be completely free. That’s not wrong; it just makes everything more difficult for you in the long run. There are such simple rules out there and instead of following them, they feel they are being controlled or thrown in a cage and create their own rules. That’s why they hate religion. Religion is a school of learning, not something you do when you’re free or when you like but it is never late. It is school and once you finish it, you understand what its point was. These questions you ask come from not going through religion and simply saying it is pointless, questions I’ve heard millions of times. And no one will be able to make you understand until you try without malice, without disgust, without mockery. You don’t know what rules I follow. There aren’t many. Did you ever ask that question? You don’t really imagine what I’m saying or in what way I’m saying something, or who I am anyways. When I say all this, I talk because I’ve passed through religion and I may not understand everything, I never will, but I’ve understood what the point of religion is from reading, from living, and going through religion all my life. That’s what the point of religion is. You don’t have to live on strict guidelines your whole life just like once you go through first grade, you don’t have to do it all again. You look at religion like a cage. It’s not, bro, it makes you look at the world in a different way and eventually you understand why you went through it all, just like you have to understand the basics first to then understand the advanced.

Anyway, I've had enough of this myself, I don't like coming off as an atheistic or agnostic person and all this arguing with you and Stark leads to obsessiveness overtime of trying to sound right and convincing to others in very unrewarding debates, something which to me is not all that satisfactory in the long run.

I’m sorry if that is true, I didn’t mean to argue or offend you in anyway. You don’t have to convince me bro, I understand you completely, don’t even doubt that. You just don’t understand why I continue and not give up. I’ll tell you soon. And you are NOT AN ATHEIST OR AGNOSTIC. You are a bit impersonalist which isn’t a bad thing, I assure you. Don’t look at that word in a bad way and don’t let anyone make you feel inferior and I assure you, I’m not even thinking of doing that.

When I entered this discussion, I thought it would be fun because I hadn't gone this far into one in years. As it turns out, it didn't really get anywhere and I came out a bit confused in the end as to why I spent so much time on it.

Many times, we make it confusing for us but yeah, this thread got far down the rabbit hole. It was interesting nonetheless and I hope it helped you even in the slightest way, I know it helped me, at least a little. A person can learn from anywhere, any place, and any person.

J, you know why I kept talking to you, again? Why didn’t I talk to Stark instead of you all this time? You are very different, your views are different, and you have faith no matter how much some of your words confuse the situation and you yourself. Stark doesn’t pretty much believe in anything, no offense, so don’t even think of arguing with him, you didn’t really even argue, he doesn’t care about anything really. I don’t hold back from saying the truth. He has a long way to go before he can talk to you in anyway regarding religion.

I know what you’re going through and I saw myself at some point in you. I’ve been through that and I know how it feels, believe it or not. That’s why I began to talk to you much more. You don’t have a long way to go, bro, you have understood some of the most important things you just have a few strange views on life but overall, no one can say your wrong. Neither was I. We said the same things in different ways and you don’t have far to go on the mountain, just stop confusing yourself and don’t try to prove everything. Once you do that, much will be proven to you automatically and then you will be talking to guys on forums who will ask the same questions you asked now.

I have a question, is there a religion that you say feel more close to then others? I don’t care which religion. God is one. If you do but all the same don’t like religion and all that and the way it sounds. Try to forget what everyone says, go alone one day to a religious place you feel more inclined towards and spend some time alone. Religion has to be close to your heart so that you can advance in it just like in college, you can pick the subjects you like the most. You take one step towards God, God takes 2 towards you but if you don’t you or anyone else will never understand. Everything will seem pointless from the beginning. You live in a nice thing called pointlessness, no pun intended, so just try, how bad could it be? Try to understand that religion and not the people following the religion, they make mistakes many times and it makes you feel less inclined to go on. Most importantly, try to understand YOURSELF; the point of life is self realization in the end. You have no idea how fun and simple it is. Those that spend hours only on religion want to advance faster but you don’t have to. Just feel good and take a step forward, you don’t have to live in the Himalayas to be religious or spiritual but only following your mind could make it confusing for you. Your mind could be your worst enemy or your best friend and until you learn to control it at least to some extent, things will always be difficult. Practice is the key to success and mistakes are meant to be made so don’t worry about it. Religion is where people are supposed to make mistakes to go on and leave the xxxx behind but when there is no religion, no spirituality, and just sense gratification, man forgets everything, his purpose, and even his material tasks such as his/her job, studies, etc.

I hope my words weren’t poisoned knives to you. You don’t need to explain yourself or anything. If my words had any meaning to you, I’m happy, and if they didn’t it still doesn’t matter. You don’t become this evil kid in my eyes. Life is a discovery and I wish you all the best and I hope our views didn’t change our relationship in the long run. Thanks for everything and good luck to all of us.

[jgk3]

Re: What religion are you?

I hope my words weren’t poisoned knives to you. You don’t need to explain yourself or anything. If my words had any meaning to you, I’m happy, and if they didn’t it still doesn’t matter. You don’t become this evil kid in my eyes. Life is a discovery and I wish you all the best and I hope our views didn’t change our relationship in the long run. Thanks for everything and good luck to all of us.

Yes, your words did have meaning to me, I decided to read your last post more carefully this time and it was much easier I guess because we're not trying to argue anymore. I appreciate this and thank you.

So, since I don't know your particular beliefs or what you make of your path, why don't you make it explicit by sharing? I'd like to know what beliefs someone like you holds close to their heart.

In my case, I think part of my problem with finding a particular religion I find comfort in is that so many of them have create ideas and morals, however, it is not a question of which religion has better ones but instead, how well an individual can interpret those ideas to bring about a happy transformation in their lives, which will consequently end up being shared with the people around them. You could say that I am interested in every religious practice (discerning what underlying messages it and its followers have to teach which lead to happiness), unless I forget this understanding which seems to occur in debates in which I argue agnostic points of view, usually started because of debates about God existing or not, which I continue to find to be wasteful activities because the endeavor of trying to proving such a thing has no place in one's feeling God in their lives.

I would like to clarify something about pointlessness however. First, I will ask you a compound question, have you heard of Zen and if so, what do you know about it?

[Azad]

Re: What religion are you?

My religion is Hayastan, Armenia for the rest I just don't care about religion at all.

My religion is our history. Christianity is part of our history.

[MrHyeSev]

Re: What religion are you?

Why would anyone follow religion (which is man made rules)?
The diffrence between Christianity & all other religions is that Christianity is not a religion. its a personal relationship with you & Christ.

[Azad]

Re: What religion are you?

Why would anyone follow religion (which is man made rules)?
The diffrence between Christianity & all other religions is that Christianity is not a religion. its a personal relationship with you & Christ.

Religion is a behavioral rule for a society to function. For us Armenians to thrive we should base our religion on our OWN past experiences.