[Fiend]

No particular reason but I was just thinking of posting a comment somewhere with a typically crude exclamation "jesus's fucking bellend" or something like that, and wondering if anyone on here would get offended by blasphemy, and then wondering if anyone on here is actually religious because it seems a pretty outdated and unfashionable concept amongst modern liberal 30-somethings, but then again you never know who is calmly lurking with their faith.

So far I vaguely recall 3-9 having some sort of religion, as you can obviously tell from his cancer-supporting and charity-hating posts, Nike Air was Christian in an interview, I estimate Johnny Brown as being spiritual, and errr, I'm pretty sure Slackbot fits into one of the poll options but I can't for the life of me remember which one.

Like the election thread, bonus points for anyone who happily discusses / explains their perspective when it is flying in the face of the general trend on the poll result.

[Oldmanmatt]

As long as you refrain from impugning our Lord and Saviour, who is the Flying Spaghetti Monster; I have no problem with you disparaging the imaginary friends of others.

They might, however.


As I recall, Cheque is a man of faith?
And, in all seriousness, I think we should respect the beliefs of others, as long as they fall within the (I think) generally accepted bounds of human rights.

There are a few belief systems that fall well outside that criteria and therefore constitute dog poo to be scraped  from the shoe of humanity.



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[tomtom]

Maybe a better set of answers might be yes/no/maybe/pinkAnasazi?

I am probably atheist/agnostic - but to me atheism implies you strongly disagree it's a firm no. Whereas I'm more of a not bothered no...

Plenty of scientists past and present who believe in God too - so that was a bit of an odd category.

Sorry fiend - I seem to have unintentionally deconstructed your survey. Probably because I'm an agnostic/atheist scientist.

[Fiend]

Well I like my set of answers I definitely wanted spiritual in there, and I thought I'd got the "Strongly Disagree" option in as well as the "Mildly Disagree".

[mini]

Born, christened and confirmed Christian as a kid.

Pretty much atheist.

Closest to Buddhist.

Appreciate that most religions offer some comfort / answer / reasoning to the shit that life offers despite being bollocks in my opinion.

Extremism withheld.

Simples.

[Three Nine]

I'm Roman Catholic. Nike Air is a Jehovah's Witness.

[lagerstarfish]

I'm a winner

want to make something of it?

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Well I like my set of answers I definitely wanted spiritual in there, and I thought I'd got the "Strongly Disagree" option in as well as the "Mildly Disagree".

Ah, I get it. This is just a ruse, so you can start giving yourself bonus points.

I suppose you've got to find some way of believing that some good will come your way - rather than punterring off every problem you set foot on from here on in.
Did Father Christmas never reply to your wish lists when you were a kid? He's real you know.

Religion just seems to be some sort of consensus on bigotry, as far as I can tell; my set of beliefs are higher/truer than yours, which I'll permit you to have.

So no, I'm not religious.

[lagerstarfish]

shit, Dave, I thought you were a firm believer of The Crimp

[DAVETHOMAS90]

shit, Dave, I thought you were a firm believer of The Crimp

Nah, sloper heaven for me 

[lagerstarfish]

if I really believed in some sort of religious thing, I'd be putting all my effort into helping other people to understand it - unless I thought that their lives (and after-lives) would be better with ignorance. So I kind of appreciate religious folk telling me what they believe. I even understand that I would be much happier if I believed in an after life or heaven or some such, but I just can't seem to do it on pure faith. I envy people with bigger beliefs. I used to feel superior, but now I just feel unlucky.

[Oldmanmatt]

I was raised as Sunday school attending, fire and brimstone, Wesleyan Methodist. My mother's church.

My father, being a Copper and former engineer; was an absolute atheist (famously, within the family, he had once attended the C of E Sunday school at Buckfastleigh; aged around 6.
Once.
He returned home and stated a clear intent to never to return , so ardently my Grandmother never again asked; based on his stated reason that "That Jesus bloke never showed up and if he can't be doing with me, then I can't with him").

I lost my faith in '79.

The local Minister, a wizened and bitter old git, came to provide comfort to my Mother on the death of her father (a stalwart of the Methodist church and many charities) by explaining in agonising detail the tortures of hell that awaited my Grandfather for the sin of consuming alcohol (we're talking a glass of wine at Christmas here, not even a regular tipple).

I recall my Father displaying incredible self control and hardly hitting him at all on the way out of the house, down the garden path or for several yards up the lane; though he did assist the old Reverend with his walking.
In fact, I don't believe the Reverend's feet touched the ground more than once in all that way.

I watched the crying.

I thought about things.

The Reverend was "retired" shortly after and replaced with a "Happy clappy", guitar strumming Minister; fresh from missionary work in Zambia.
He had a young family (in fact they were called Young) and I became (and still am) friends with his Son David (who, amongst other things designed the new Bailey's label, most of the covers of the Scotsman and The New Statesman magazines).

That never rekindled any faith in me and life and learning have pulled me further from Agnostic to utter Atheist.

That learning part, can be summarised quite succinctly:

Croatia/Bosnia.
Ivory Coast.
Nigeria.
Lebanon.
Kuwait.
Cancer.



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[dave]

I am probably atheist/agnostic - but to me atheism implies you strongly disagree it's a firm no. Whereas I'm more of a not bothered no...

Apatheist? Ditto.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

if I really believed in some sort of religious thing, I'd be putting all my effort into helping other people to understand it - unless I thought that their lives (and after-lives) would be better with ignorance. So I kind of appreciate religious folk telling me what they believe. I even understand that I would be much happier if I believed in an after life or heaven or some such, but I just can't seem to do it on pure faith. I envy people with bigger beliefs. I used to feel superior, but now I just feel unlucky.

Ah, you're just really jealous 

shit, Dave, I thought you were a firm believer of The Crimp

Oh, and anyway, I thought it was generally accepted that, having spent 7 days on his first project, the Lord said "Sod this - though thow shalt not" , and instead, taking pity on us, sent us the drag, so that mankind would be for ever more, saved from the Hell of the Crimp.

I think Andy was having a crap in the Heather at the time, and missed that bit.

[petejh]

A sort of atheist is a sort of believer - an acceptance of the possibility of a God or spirit. Matt's 'Utter Atheist' is a good label for my utter non-belief in any deity or universal spirit. There's a test of how comfortable your mind is with atheism, scientific n shit. Many show a subconscious stress response:

From here

Do you believe in God? How confident are you in your view? Let’s put your belief (or lack of it) to the test.

Read aloud the following statements. Don’t just think about them or mutter them to yourself – shout them out:
I dare God to make my life miserable.
I dare God to make my home catch fire.
I dare God to turn all of my friends against me.

If you found it easy, then you think of yourself as a true atheist with the courage of your convictions (Richard Dawkins would be proud). But, admit it – didn’t saying these things still make you feel just a little bit uneasy? A study conducted at the University of Helsinki found that reading these statements caused even avowed atheists to sweat just as much as religious people (literally – they were having their sweat levels monitored).

If you can’t do it, you’re either a confirmed believer or someone whose head says they’re an atheist but whose heart can’t quite accept it. Or maybe you’re just superstitious and think that talking about something bad makes it more likely to happen.

Try reading out equivalent statements that don’t mention God (for instance: “I dare all of my friends to turn against me”). The atheists in the Helsinki study found these statements stressful but still less so than the versions that did mention God.

Without having my sweat glands wired up to know for sure, I'm totally comfortable loudly proclaiming all the above statements about god (who I think is a concept we have a natural in-built psychic mechanism to want to create to make life bearable and give patterns to chaos). I believe in physics - that's fantastically inexplainable enough for anyone and doesn't require idiocy-fueled slaughter of other physicists.

[SA Chris]

I am probably atheist/agnostic - but to me atheism implies you strongly disagree it's a firm no. Whereas I'm more of a not bothered no...

Apatheist? Ditto.

Indifferentist?

[tomtom]

I recon you doth protest too much Pete. Cmon, you're a Beleiber on the sly non?

^please note smiley

[petejh]

Haha yeah but who isn't, really?

[rginns]

Interesting discussion!
I fall into the liberal Roman Catholic category.
It's helped me a lot in the past but I don't preach to anyone.
On the whole I don't have an issue with any moderate religion or non-religion, it's a personal decision.
I don't like militance of any kind though, the world could do with more tolerance on all sides.
It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're kind to people,  as I keep telling my kids 

[slackline]

Is this a trick question?

[psychomansam]

Your survey isn't academically rigorous and doesn't cater very well for non-theistic religions, e.g. some strands of Buddhism. I'll forgive you. I voted, it appears, with the majority.

There is weak evidence to suggest that religious people are slightly happier overall. This evidence relies on self-reporting - massively suspect. When I was an religious extremist I would probably have self-reported my happiness as higher than it is now. But I'm much more at peace now, feel more grounded and have a stable identity without having to fight off the shadows of cognitive dissonance. I take a skeptical perspective, but I still feel massively lucky to be where I am and to be free from religion. A receptionist I intermittently see when visiting somewhere for work commented recently that it was nice that I always seem happy. But I expect I would self-report lower happiness now - after spending the best part of a decade de-brainwashing, since I don't believe that I have to be happy because praise be to him who saved me.

I'm an atheist. Technically, I'm agnostic (I'm afraid Dawkins says the same). As in, we can't prove there isn't a divinity and it isn't mathematically impossible. That said, the chances of any one religion having the one accurate picture of the nature of a divinity is, I would estimate, considerably less than the chances of me simultaneously winning every lottery in the world at once. And it's immeasurably more likely that aliens exist than that god exists, especially as by most concepts of god, god is a subset of aliens. Also immeasurably more likely than the existence of a divinity is the possibility that we are living in a simulation (e.g. The Matrix) (http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html). I disbelieve all of these things.

I disbelieve in all objective meaning, value and purpose. Life is what we make of it. For most of us, the 'we' is very important. Other people tend to be monks, psychopaths or considered as mentally abnormal. But that's subjective.

Life is what we make of it, and here's a subjective reflection: there's a vast amount of work to be done to make it better. Most of this work has almost nothing to do with what we get paid for. Can we live in a wealthy society like the UK, without feeding off the oppression and subjugation of billions worldwide? I hope so. Can we end vast global inequalities and bigotries? I hope so. Can we live without wars? I hope so. Can we live in balance with our ecosystem? I hope so. Can we advance our knowledge of the universe without using that knowledge to do harm? I hope so. These works are hugely important, though I greatly doubt any will be achieved within our lifetimes or those of our children. Still the contribution we make to these works are one useful measure of the value of our lives. And those of us who agree on that, religious or not, need to work together however we can with a focus on what unites us, rather than on what divides us.

The major reason that some religious people are thought to be happier has nothing to do with their religion: it is down to being part of a community. For most of us, forming an inclusive and welcoming community is an important step to happiness. For all of us wanting to take on the aims & works listed above, it is an absolute necessity.

[cheque]

As I recall, Cheque is a man of faith?

Nope, I'm a (non-militant) atheist. Can't remember ever mentioning religion on here! I'll have said that I'm teetotal at some point but that's not for religious reasons.

[tomtom]

Is this a trick question?

That depends....

[lagerstarfish]

this thread is a set up for a second pogrom-gate scandal, isn't it Fiend?

I'm not falling for it

[slackline]

Your survey isn't academically rigorous and doesn't cater very well for non-theistic religions, e.g. some strands of Buddhism.

   This is a forum, predominantly about bouldering, and this survey is posted in the Shooting the Shit section.  It isn't attempting to conduct research to a standard required for publication in an academic peer-reviewed journal.   

The rest of your post is very much on-topic.