Religion general

@Lord Hypno  
Pagan simply means lacking of God, in the Christain sense anyways.

God has no free will

@That1GuyGAMER18
 
Pagan actually is from the Latin term Paganus that meant “non city dweller”. It was the blanket term for anyone “not Roman”.
 
Nevertheless, that is not what it means now. Paganism is now a term used to describe several religious sects ranging from revival religions (Celtic Druidism, Nordic Heathenism) and modern incarnations such as Wicca.

@Zincy  
Thank you for the explanation. The more I know.
 
@Scrabbleman  
In that case, considering His Will maintains our existence, it may be that we too, don’t have any free will. You can’t give out what you don’t have. Not even God can do that.

@tehwatever  
We’ve finally established that we both different views of who God is like, and how he relates to us.
 
So yeah, that’s that. You believe his Will maintains reality, I don’t.

@Scrabbleman  
Like I said in the vent thread, I take scripture as data. I give you what islamic God is like, according to what I hear and read in scripture. I do it as if I’m explaining a fictional character / setting. Especially in a religion thread. I thought this thread was created to discuss religion like any other field of interest? (Like politics, history, nerd thread etc?)
 
But fair enough. My view of God largely aligns with the islamic god. So you’re not wrong.
 
Just curious. So you say that God is a cosmic being, who merely exists, if he does exist at all. Let’s go from there.
 
is God separate from our reality or within it? A celestial entity like a planet, or something more abstract like a field? Made up of matter? How does it behave? Its range of influence, if any? Did it even have a role in any event at all?

@tehwatever  

 
Part of it.  
Abstract.  
Dunno.  
Don’t care.  
Don’t care.  
Probably, probably not. It’s just there.
 
I just don’t see God as a person or a being that contains a will. To me, it’s no different than a wall, it’s just there.

@Zincy  

 
Neo-druidry is actually not a direct revivalist movement.
 
It’s actually more associated with the Romanticist movement, and although it later became associated with paganism, the earlier people in the movement were Christian. Their organizations are also more or less modeled after Freemasonry.
 
There’s nothing wrong with Druidry, but it’s also worth noting that it is it’s own separate movement from Celtic reconstructionist paganism.

Somebody wrote something on here that made me think:
 
“God has no free will”, I thought that it would be true if u thought like this, said deity is formed of cosmic energy is fixed by scientfic law, it can’t do more than it’s suppose to, if this is the case, then God has no free will which would in turn contridict the idea of predetermined destiny or fate so to speak, which you are in control, not God, that way nothing is God’s fault good or bad. This bring the idea that Karma comes to mind, this is a form of cosmic energy, meaning God has no free will.

@That1GuyGAMER18  
Scrabbleman. Yeah he got good idea.
 
That would mean God is an entity independent of us, and we are independent of him. As in, he exists somewhere out there in space, but we are neither created by him nor did he create the universe, because the act of creation requires a will. A specific, precise will.
 
Nothing is ever God’s fault because he is neither the cause of any event here on earth, nor does he have any influence.
 
But that’s not Karma. Karma is a reaction to something. Karma being a field affects whatever is in it. It therefore causes something, despite it not having a free will.
 
Basically GOD is, utterly irrelevant. An idea of an entity somewhere out there, doing things to the stars and planets and black holes billions of light years away from us, without a free will.
 
Unless: old religions who describe GOD were alien messages. Aliens who live in planets affected by the GOD field. We just been reading it wrong.
 
If you want you can develop this idea further. Give a LOT of thought into it. As it stands it’s kind of raw.

@tehwatever  
wow, this just blows ur mind and challenges your whole way of thinking huh?

@That1GuyGAMER18  
Not really. Had my agnostic phase back in my freshman sophomore years. God being irrelevant is an idea I liked because I wanted him be irrelevant. I can come up with the comment above because I had that thought back then.

@tehwatever  
i can see that, i was raised christian so these agnostic ways of thinking is interesting

Different rulers for different regions.

Religion is for idiots.

@Selaphiel  
No u!

@That1GuyGAMER18
 
Expanding your horizons is a good idea.

@Selaphiel  
You went from “Christianity will dominate!” to this.

@Zincy  
It always is. Especially if you do it sincerely.

After watching “The Good Place” I kind of started thinking: “Even if the heaven doesn’t exist, it might make sense to act as if it existed.”

@Inkscapism
 
There’s an interesting thought experiment called “Pascal’s Wager”. It goes a little something like this: I should be a good and virtuous person because if heaven and hell exist, I will be judged and continue on to heaven, and if they don’t exist, I will be dead and thus, won’t care.

pointless text
 
Outlast 2 changed the way i think about religion

Skipping my fast for this one day. It’s for a personal reason, but not a religiously-supported one.
 
Basically, there’s food on-sale and I want to try it. It’s only there for one day.

@Random-Rambling
 
But I don’t believe that heaven or hell exist. I’m pretty sure we invented them ourselves as a symbol of one thing or another. But it’s a good invention, because for a lot of people, I feel, it relieves misery, especially of that particular kind that stems out of longing that just cannot be sated.
 
I have a friend who consciously chose to be religious in order to improve the quality of life. I mean, ceremony, ritual, and especially congregation do that for people. That’s the primary function of church as social institution. I kinda wish I could do that. I probably can, but to convert truly is to thoroughly demolish certain parts of oneself, and I chicken out of that.

papa knoth opened my eyes to the truth