Topic: Preference...

[Chris Johnson]

(I need to work on my topic names...)

In my time browsing this forum today, I've been viewing the topics.  The first thing on my mind is finding topics on Three-Dimensional Chess.  Eventually I got bored finding no results, but decided to browse the off-topic forums for a change, rather than the general forum or SFC Models forum, browsing interesting topics, such as a theory as how our solar system is unique...

Well, I knew this for a while, but it recenty sparked my mind...

Ever since I was a kid in Okinawa, I was a fan of Star Trek.  I grew up with the TNG crew, then the TOS crew, then DS9, then VGR and so on.  Star Trek brings out all kinds of fans from all over the world, and obviously, people with different beliefs, especially those from Gene Roddenberry's original "teachings" through Star Trek.  My relatives outside my family are no exception.  My family--whether you look at the relatives of my dad's side of the family or my mom's side of the family--is a religious one.  My Uncle Berry works for a Church.  My Uncle Bryan runs one, as a Pastor (sp?).  I noticed many here are religious themselves.  And as I grow wiser from childhood--becoming one of the newest adults from the block (pun from a band I never cared about intended)--I am confused.

Religion is a touchy subject for me.  It really is.  When I got into Star Trek, I got into Gene Roddenberry and his teachings.  I'm pretty sure most of you knows that Gene Roddenberry had a lack of faith in any religion; as in he is an atheist.  Growing up with a show with morals and adventures, etc... *sigh* I don't know.  You could say that, thanks to the show's teachings over the years, I've been close to being stubborn as Gene Roddenberry was on religion.  But I've had a slight disagreement with him.  I may be an atheist, but I don't condemn religion, I respect it.  That's another teaching from Gene and his optimistic vision of the future I believe would happen one day; Tolerance.  If I did not practice this, I wouldn't have friends I do not regret having, especially a very close friend of mine; she's religious herself.

Let me drop to the point of the subject: I noticed that in the religious area, although I am uncomfortable discussing with it, I felt like expressing my own belief, or lack there of, without trashing other's beliefs.  I wouldn't care if you believe the Goa'uld exists and is a threat; it's a belief I'd respect.  I do not want a debate or argument over religion; I want to see how many believe in something, and express their belief in it.  This could be helpful to me, and probably others, to know people better, and respect whatever they believe in any subject, without insult.

So please, I'd like to know if any of you believe in something.  Express your belief, but please don't challenge or discuss about other's beliefs.  I just would like to know what your beliefs are.  Keep in mind, I will respect them.  I wouldn't care if you're a Jew, or Christian, or Shintoist, I would respect you like I would respect someone similar to my beliefs.  We're all good people, aren't we?

(I hope I worded this out correctly so others would understand and won't be insulted... Insulting people is not my intention.  I'm sorry if I have insulted you...)

[Clark Kent]

I'm a christian, born, raised and fully believing in it, however I don't go to church much.  I have several disagreements with the teachings that I run into at the churches I've visited, and it would appear that christiansdon't get along so well with people who have a penchant for philosophy.
On a side note, i like to debate religion alot, and try not to offend people too much, but do a little since it's required for a decent debate that challenges my perceptions and faith.

[AlienLXIX]

I am a Wiccan

But I am a solitary practitioner.  The closest I have ever come to a coven is having some friends that have about the same beliefs over for some drinking and LARP/table-top games.  OH wait Ferret and I were handfasted by a Priest and Priestess of the Gardarian (sp?) Order a few months before we got legally married.

I believe in tolerance and I try to practice that every day of my life.  I also think that there is a balance of good, evil and neutrality and it's all out of whack right now.  There are miracles that happen every day you just sometimes have to look for it.  I believe in Fate and Destiny but a lot of times you have to work for it anyway. 

Confusing?  Good!  I don't want to be a book where you can figure out who and what I am just by reading the first few pages.  (Gods I hated reading Lord of the Flies, who didn't figure out the end by the 4th chapter?!)  Even Ferret can be surprised by me!

[dragoon]

I admit that I was hostile towards ALL faith's. I would argue with my grandfather on the evils of being willingly ignorant. He was a catholic from Ireland!!!. After he died I looked again, and found that one must have great strength to believe such things in a world that constantly seeks to prove them wrong. I mellowed my views but still disagreed with it.
  Then I met the woman who I wanted to marry and have children with. Granted we broke up recently and made me very grumpy, but she was a christian. I find that if I could feel that way for a christian then I can feel that way for anyone. Faith is only really important to the person who believes, if you don't believe then at least care for or respect that person for who they are. However I think that people with faith should keep that faith to themselves and not try to "convert" people. Thankfully my religious friends don't do that, but when these people knock my door I let them know politley that I have no interest in buying or investing in their product. However they are often the ones who push, which to me is what creates that negativity amongst non-believers.
  I may have lost the point somewhere so sorry. As you can tell I have no faith, I believe that each person is capable of "good" but if they aren't then as long as they don't do "evil" against me or my family they can live as they see fit. The thing is I have the same gerneral moral sense as people with faith, but it annoys when religious people feel that I don't because I don't believe. Anyway, it all comes down to respect which is something EVERYONE has to give.

[Capt. Mike]

Chris, I'm Lutheran, currently of the ELCA sect (you Minnesnowtans and Wisconsonites know where I"m coming from), been with the other variations...It's kinda hard to explain...the sermon today explained/talked about how everyone has recieved the Spirit, but it is how you understand/communicate not only with God, but with others...there will be conflict, as there is with myself and my oldest son..we don't always see eye to eye (he's an AF brat, born in '76 and hates that we moved him around so much)...but I still love him, and always will.

Usually, you have to work out your own relationship with God, a higher power, or whatever...but don't give up, talk with a lot of people, and I mean one on one, in person..the internet is great, but you have to be with people...as I'm sure you can see, while many of us can joke, rile, and annoy each other, we have friends and family around us (ducks as wife found new guitar  )..

Take care, and let us know what's going on..

Mike

[Clark Kent]

I got in an argument with a hard core baptist girl once.  After talking to her about religion a bit and agreeing, she went off on an uber conservative view.  I told her that while I believe in Jesus (Jebus), and etc etc, those were my beliefs, and while I also believe his word to ultimately be the truth, those too were just my beliefs.  I also told her that that was one of the points that true faith hinges on: believe what you will, but ultimately you have to accept the fact that your beliefs are not fact and that you could turn out to be wrong in the end.  As such, it
's very important to challenge your beliefs in order to come to a wel founded concluion about existence and religion and to continue to challenge yourself throughout your life in order to build a stronger faith.
I once had a Jewish prof who took a similar view, but to an extreme.  he was incredibly bitter towards the germans from WWII, and towards all of christianity.  Don't ask me what he was doing teaching at a Lutheran private college.  In any event, the first day he told us that none of us would believe in our religion by the end of his course and he would make atheists out of us all (I'm not really paraphrasing here).  In the end, I was the only one in the class that left believing in christianity, whereas everyone else had been shaken badly enough that the writings of the bible meant nothing to them anymore.  When he asked me about my faith at the end of the course, I told him my faith had been shaken badly, but was now stronger than before, and my grade suddenly and miraculously went from a C+ to an F.  Very bitter man.

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

 
Please don't be uncomfortable, Chris.  Even when we flame, we do it with love....  (OK, everyone except Dash Jones... I think he really means it!)

When I look at the world around me.... From the tiniest atom to social circles to the solar system, I can't escape the conclusion that everything I see was designed by Someone.  

I have a small collection of arrowheads, and anyone in the world can hold one in their hand and know beyond all shadow of a doubt that someone, somewhere, thought about this little piece of rock and carved it out with intent and purpose.  Tonight, for the first time in my life, I went to see a chiropractor and while waiting for the doctor I was fascinated by the full-scale model of of a human spine in the examination room....  Who can look at the complexity of that and come to the conclusion that it just happened?  That it was the product of random chance?

When I can look at a stupid piece of rock that is symetrical and has a sharp edge and know that it was created by someone, how can I look at the universe I live in and it's mind-boggling complexity and deny that there is a Creator?

Once I accepted that there is a Creator, the next question I had to answer is: What kind of a Creator is He?  Did He wind up the universe and send it off in to space?  Or does He interact with it and direct the course of His Creation?  I've found that every "religion" of the world has one thing in common.... It's all about what _I_ can do to "get to Heaven", or "achieve Spirituality" or "be Enlightened"....  Every one except Christianity as described in the Bible.  The Bible say that people are wicked, rebellious beings who cannot do it on their own, and we needed God to step in and do for us what we could not do for ourselves.  When I look into my own heart honestly, I see myself as God sees me: a dirty ol' sinner who needs God's Salvation.

I'm sorry, Chris, but I just don't buy into Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future.... He presents a vision of a society made up of worlds who have overcome their petty differences to achieve something grand; but every episode is built upon the premise that those petty differences still exist and provide the 'conflict' for that week's story.  I look at people and the world today and I know in my heart that we will never completely overcome our problems because at the root of it all we are all petty, selfish, sinful human beings, and we just can't do it on our own.

Alien says that she believes in 'tolerance', but Biblical Christianity doesn't teach 'tolerance'.... It commands Christians to Love our neighbors as God Loves us.  This is an ideal that we aspire to but will never achieve because it is contrary to our basic human nature.  Observer any two-year-old and you can easily see that "Me First!" comes naturally....  It's true Love, or treating your neighbor as if they were more important than your own self, that's really hard.

All this to say that I don't see the Big Question of Live to be "Does God exist?"  I can't come to any other conclusion than that.  The biggest questions I find are "Who is He?" and "Can I know Him?"

[E_Look]

As much I as I love Star Trek, I don't really care for Roddenberry's visions, either, in Trek, Planet Earth, Andromeda, The Questor Tapes, etc.

In fact, in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" a TOS episode, he manages, very skillfully in my opinion, to produce an entertaining episode while trashing three or four religions within it!  He belittles the ancient Greek religion by making Apollo such a FLAWED ALIEN, having Kirk quip that he's satisfied with the One in an irreverent way, belittling Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the last of which takes another beating when Scotty rushes the living Greek relic, calling him a "Saracen"!

But I think he did Christianity's image no harm in "Bread and Circuses".  I'll have to give him kudos for that.

ASIDE TO BARABBAS- did you notice your karma point totals?  22/7 is common approximation for the value of pi, which the Greeks discovered (recorded)?

[manitoba1073]

i believe in humanity as a whole, somewhat similary to genes. i  dont really care much for religions in general though.everyone is entitled to there own belief i just dont feel someone should push a religion on me.

[E_Look]

You are always free to decide.

Preaching isn't the same as pushing, the latter of which does not work too well, from what I've seen.

But one man's preaching is another's pushing.  To quote ol' Abe (no, not the very old one), "... therein lies the rub... "

What to do?

[Mike Nevil]

My belief is the oxymoron belief.

By christians I have been called a jew.

By Jews, I have been called a christian.

My basic belief that there is truth in all religions. But the full infinate truth can only be found through Yeshua. He came, he saw, and then he martyred himself. He was divine made into flesh. The cornerstone of all things. Those who accepted the circumcism of the heart, wrought by Adonai. Become Jews though adoption. Living not be the tutor(torah)But by the master. Faith. Living not the desires of the flesh, but by the fruits of the spirit.

(I need to work on my topic names...)

In my time browsing this forum today, I've been viewing the topics.  The first thing on my mind is finding topics on Three-Dimensional Chess.  Eventually I got bored finding no results, but decided to browse the off-topic forums for a change, rather than the general forum or SFC Models forum, browsing interesting topics, such as a theory as how our solar system is unique...

Well, I knew this for a while, but it recenty sparked my mind...

Ever since I was a kid in Okinawa, I was a fan of Star Trek.  I grew up with the TNG crew, then the TOS crew, then DS9, then VGR and so on.  Star Trek brings out all kinds of fans from all over the world, and obviously, people with different beliefs, especially those from Gene Roddenberry's original "teachings" through Star Trek.  My relatives outside my family are no exception.  My family--whether you look at the relatives of my dad's side of the family or my mom's side of the family--is a religious one.  My Uncle Berry works for a Church.  My Uncle Bryan runs one, as a Pastor (sp?).  I noticed many here are religious themselves.  And as I grow wiser from childhood--becoming one of the newest adults from the block (pun from a band I never cared about intended)--I am confused.

Religion is a touchy subject for me.  It really is.  When I got into Star Trek, I got into Gene Roddenberry and his teachings.  I'm pretty sure most of you knows that Gene Roddenberry had a lack of faith in any religion; as in he is an atheist.  Growing up with a show with morals and adventures, etc... *sigh* I don't know.  You could say that, thanks to the show's teachings over the years, I've been close to being stubborn as Gene Roddenberry was on religion.  But I've had a slight disagreement with him.  I may be an atheist, but I don't condemn religion, I respect it.  That's another teaching from Gene and his optimistic vision of the future I believe would happen one day; Tolerance.  If I did not practice this, I wouldn't have friends I do not regret having, especially a very close friend of mine; she's religious herself.

Let me drop to the point of the subject: I noticed that in the religious area, although I am uncomfortable discussing with it, I felt like expressing my own belief, or lack there of, without trashing other's beliefs.  I wouldn't care if you believe the Goa'uld exists and is a threat; it's a belief I'd respect.  I do not want a debate or argument over religion; I want to see how many believe in something, and express their belief in it.  This could be helpful to me, and probably others, to know people better, and respect whatever they believe in any subject, without insult.

So please, I'd like to know if any of you believe in something.  Express your belief, but please don't challenge or discuss about other's beliefs.  I just would like to know what your beliefs are.  Keep in mind, I will respect them.  I wouldn't care if you're a Jew, or Christian, or Shintoist, I would respect you like I would respect someone similar to my beliefs.  We're all good people, aren't we?

(I hope I worded this out correctly so others would understand and won't be insulted... Insulting people is not my intention.  I'm sorry if I have insulted you...)