AS and religions

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I would just like to know how religion runs between us AS people

I ticked the "I am religious" option, but I probably need to qualify that a bit.

As I mentioned recently in another thread, my religious views are very much steeped in theological categories. I'm in the Reformed (Protestant) camp, and so I'm not the kind of religious person given to believing things merely on the basis of "feeling." I'm not particularly emotional about my faith, but I am geared towards exploring propositional religious truths. A lot of people today say they're "spiritual, but not religious." If anything, I'm almost the opposite of that - preferring doctrinal statements to subjective personal experience. I self-consciously buck the postmodern religious trends prevalent in many churches today.

My own experience has taught me that operating on subjectivity leads to all kinds of cultic and bizarre religious activity.

Since there is no option for "I hate religion", I selected "I don't know".

Not religious ≠ Atheist

Agreed. I am not an Atheist, I just hate religion.

I'm an agnostic with atheistic tendencies.

To be precise, I am agnostic. But most of my views about the possibility of any sort of divinity are congruent with atheism.

Nevertheless, I think the spiritual side of human beings is important. Certainly the psychology of faith is something that one must take into account when considering the patterns of human cognitive and emotional development.

I have enormous respect for the physical and mental meditative techniques developed by Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist practitioners, while reviling the layers of hocus pocus that each of those traditions brings to it's core mental and physical exercise practices. Vipassana is great, but you can keep Ganesh, thanks all the same.

I find some cultural value in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, though as often as not in a cautionary way. I recognize the profound role that christianity played in the development of the European culture I am rooted in, and I enjoy the resonance between biblical language and the great works of my culture (e.g. Faulkner and Shakespeare.)

The bible was a special interest for a number of years and my experiences having been immersed in the study of that lead me to believe that the memes associated with those faiths pose an inherent danger to rational thinking, something would be rational apologists for those faiths generally fail to acknowledge.

In any case, I can't turn off my faculties of reason or critical thinking, so that kind of faith is not an option for me.

If I had a god, it would be identical with the underlying patterns of energy that form the universe and are currently best known to us through the Standard Model and General Relativity. It is in the interplay of forces described in these models that we live and breathe and have our being.

When I learn about cosmology or particle physics, I feel a sense of awe, delight and wonder that seems identical with the numinous perceptions described by religious people.

Atheist. Because looking at the evidence, there is none for any of the 3,000 or so created gods and goddesses and plenty of evidence against.

I find that when taking the term "god" to it's literal definition, there is a rather small amount of empirical evidence (that people would accept, that is) to support the idea. However, considering how old the texts are in most cases, you also have to take into account that who wrote them may indeed have seen something, but their lack of understanding of modern science would obviously lead them to assume some all-powerful force is behind it all, and there is a TON of evidence to support that idea.

To answer the poll, yes, I consider myself religious, just not so religious as most people. I have my own beliefs and that's good enough for anyone (because my beliefs have nothing to do with anyone else).
Also, I want to state that belief in a religion does not mean you have to give up, or turn off your critical thinking. I find the assertion that you would need to do so, to be distasteful and asinine. Faith in something does NOT require blind belief, nor does it require a lack of critical thinking. For instance, I believe there is something more powerful than I, out there, somewhere. Do I expect it to be some mythical creature? Not necessarily, it could be a supremely advanced and unknown civilization of people for all I know. I personally wonder precisely what it was that made the ancients think they saw god/a god/other ultimate being.

I can't see any button to edit the post so unluckily I won't be able to add on the first post, I'll add here.

In those options, the RELIGIOUS is a person that believes in some "official church", catholic, christian, protestant, hindu, muslim, no matter what: if you pray and believe that god is watching you somehow, you are religious.
If you don't, you are not religious.

If you fall in the non religious category, then you can be atheist or agnostic, or... you simply don't know.
I preferred to put atheists and agnostics together for ease of reading, and it doesn't matter for the scope of this poll.

If you aren't atheist and you aren't agnostic and you aren't religious then you clearly don't know what to think on the matter, and the mid option is the right one for you.

The option "I hate religions" falls inevitably in the atheistic/agnostic cathegory.
In fact, if you hate religions, you clearly don't follow any of them, and you can be either sure that no god exists (atheist) or unsure if god exists (agnostic), but it's really sure that you are not religious.
So "Don't know" doesn't apply, here.

Uh and last thing... I wouldn't see this topic as the n.N diatribe on religions, if god exists or not, even though I'm atheist, this is not the scope of this thread
You can still add your motivation for the vote of course, but please don't begin endless arguments against other users

I said "religious." By "religious" I mean I do Hindu and Buddhist spiritual practices. I look for similarities between all peaceful religions rather than differences. I don't center on institutions unless they are helpful. I believe in God as a spiritual experience and beyond that as well, although the form God takes may vary from person to person. My doubts are more to do with myself than God. I don't think it's necessary to have a concept of God to have a spiritual life. I think it depends on the person. When it comes to spiritual things, I believe in people experimenting to find what is meaningful to them.

OUTS1DER reported this post and said "I think your opinion is more matching the atheist/agnostic value " so i think he pressed the wrong button.

Feel free to use "quote" button

That was a mistake, as I'm used to have the quote button down there, sorry

It's something about the new layout.

I make the same mistake all the time, but I think I always catch it when the "report" screen pops up. I think this could be seen as an error in user interface design--there is nothing wrong with the new interface, but if you were accustomed to the old one, the position of things in the new interface promotes this error.

I am new to this forum but I've posted in MANY other forums and I was web designer as well, I can say this interface isn't very friendly.
The report button shouldn't be so visible and placed in a spot where it looks like you would use it every day... REPLY and QUOTE should be there and big, and the REPORT, PROFILE and PM buttons should be smaller, as they are used less often.