jman is not welcome in this thread
any jman posts in this thread will be deleted and maybe infracted
edited Note: NOT A THREAD FOR BEING A PRICK ABOUT RELIGION. IT IS NOT THAT I'M AFRAID OF SOME KIND OF CONTROVERSY, BUT THAT SUCH BELLIGERENCE IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR THIS THREAD. TAKE IT UP IN PMS OR MAKE SOME OTHER THREAD.
Considering that the last thread about religion that was in this general a forum area died a while back and took with it nothing but useless debate that convinced nobody of anything, I thought I'd make another thread with a different purpose.
The title says it; I'm curious about the religious backgrounds of most of the Smogon community's thoughts and upbringings on the subject of religion and thought I'd just open this thread for general discussion of what you believe/don't believe and how you came to that point. The last thread on religion was on an entirely different issue, so this isn't simply a reboot of the last one <_<. Again if you feel contentious and wish to arse someone about their religious beliefs/assertions/whatever, refer to the large red text above and take it up with the person somewhere else. Discussion and civilized debate = good; pugnacious counterargumentation to incite negative reaction/trolling/simply irritated = no-no.
If this thread has been done before and doesn't require a new version or in some way violates some rule of Smogon or a forum that I was previously unaware of, please kindly redirect me to the rule, close the thread, and send me uninfracted on my merry way. Thank you.
My own background I guess to kick things off - I was born and raised a Hindu, but never was very interested in religion. God was never around, he didn't have any direct effect on anyone, he was just someone to ask stuff from when I wanted something. There were cool, interesting stories in Hindu mythology that I gobbled up as a kid but I never gave any of it serious thought. I did notice contradictions and problems with religion from an early age, though. I went to a private school and would ask questions in religion class and would be either shut down, given nonsense answers, or both. I convinced myself that I was simply too little to understand.
When I got a little older, I noticed a few other contradictions, such as how Hinduism can claim that every religion is correct when nearly all other religions condemn Hinduism itself as a false religion. I first began to become very suspicious of religion when a preacher that my family has known well for a long time, and is a very respectable man, had come to our house to spend a night or two. He pulled out some numerology to "tell our personalities" or something, and I noticed some very obvious patterns regarding the English language (not even Sanskrit, just straight-up English!) and a few other oddities and watched him interpret our names as mystical influences on our personalities. I pointed these out to him politely, still not skeptical of his powers but just curious, and asked for an explanation. My sister promptly shut me down. Because it was disrespectful. Looking back now, I can explain the numerology tricks easily as cold reading, some pre-informed knowledge and a very credulous audience. I have to say I lost some respect for the man when I came to this conclusion.
Somewhere between 9th and 10th grade I spent a lot of time thinking in my spare time about religion. I made some interesting connections about the progress of science, what's explainable, what religion means, about logic and evidence and etc, and eventually realized that I was not quite what I once was. I didn't want to call myself an atheist initially, so I said that I was "undefinable," a mixture of things for a very short time. I called myself a "theist" in the sense that I regarded nature as self-regulating and mysterious but entirely observable, an agnostic in that I would not make a call with 100% certainty about any particular deity, and an atheist in that I would not be convinced without evidence. Soon after I decided it was more convenient and somewhat more accurate even to just call myself an agnostic atheist instead, though I still have a kind of reverence (not a worship) for the Universe's natural laws and how they fit together. Looking back from the beginning, I noticed when I realized I was an atheist that I was on this track since I was younger and first started questioning theology.
I'm still kind of "closeted" I guess from my parents, but am pretty open about atheism at school even if I get some disapproving looks from teachers and students. However, I take advantage of political correctness to say what I want to say when it seems appropriate to inject amusing comments.
There's a kind of a summary into my own history regarding the subjects of theology and religion. However, I'm very interested in hearing about everyone else's background and upbringings and influences in this matter.
any jman posts in this thread will be deleted and maybe infracted
edited Note: NOT A THREAD FOR BEING A PRICK ABOUT RELIGION. IT IS NOT THAT I'M AFRAID OF SOME KIND OF CONTROVERSY, BUT THAT SUCH BELLIGERENCE IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR THIS THREAD. TAKE IT UP IN PMS OR MAKE SOME OTHER THREAD.
Considering that the last thread about religion that was in this general a forum area died a while back and took with it nothing but useless debate that convinced nobody of anything, I thought I'd make another thread with a different purpose.
The title says it; I'm curious about the religious backgrounds of most of the Smogon community's thoughts and upbringings on the subject of religion and thought I'd just open this thread for general discussion of what you believe/don't believe and how you came to that point. The last thread on religion was on an entirely different issue, so this isn't simply a reboot of the last one <_<. Again if you feel contentious and wish to arse someone about their religious beliefs/assertions/whatever, refer to the large red text above and take it up with the person somewhere else. Discussion and civilized debate = good; pugnacious counterargumentation to incite negative reaction/trolling/simply irritated = no-no.
If this thread has been done before and doesn't require a new version or in some way violates some rule of Smogon or a forum that I was previously unaware of, please kindly redirect me to the rule, close the thread, and send me uninfracted on my merry way. Thank you.
My own background I guess to kick things off - I was born and raised a Hindu, but never was very interested in religion. God was never around, he didn't have any direct effect on anyone, he was just someone to ask stuff from when I wanted something. There were cool, interesting stories in Hindu mythology that I gobbled up as a kid but I never gave any of it serious thought. I did notice contradictions and problems with religion from an early age, though. I went to a private school and would ask questions in religion class and would be either shut down, given nonsense answers, or both. I convinced myself that I was simply too little to understand.
When I got a little older, I noticed a few other contradictions, such as how Hinduism can claim that every religion is correct when nearly all other religions condemn Hinduism itself as a false religion. I first began to become very suspicious of religion when a preacher that my family has known well for a long time, and is a very respectable man, had come to our house to spend a night or two. He pulled out some numerology to "tell our personalities" or something, and I noticed some very obvious patterns regarding the English language (not even Sanskrit, just straight-up English!) and a few other oddities and watched him interpret our names as mystical influences on our personalities. I pointed these out to him politely, still not skeptical of his powers but just curious, and asked for an explanation. My sister promptly shut me down. Because it was disrespectful. Looking back now, I can explain the numerology tricks easily as cold reading, some pre-informed knowledge and a very credulous audience. I have to say I lost some respect for the man when I came to this conclusion.
Somewhere between 9th and 10th grade I spent a lot of time thinking in my spare time about religion. I made some interesting connections about the progress of science, what's explainable, what religion means, about logic and evidence and etc, and eventually realized that I was not quite what I once was. I didn't want to call myself an atheist initially, so I said that I was "undefinable," a mixture of things for a very short time. I called myself a "theist" in the sense that I regarded nature as self-regulating and mysterious but entirely observable, an agnostic in that I would not make a call with 100% certainty about any particular deity, and an atheist in that I would not be convinced without evidence. Soon after I decided it was more convenient and somewhat more accurate even to just call myself an agnostic atheist instead, though I still have a kind of reverence (not a worship) for the Universe's natural laws and how they fit together. Looking back from the beginning, I noticed when I realized I was an atheist that I was on this track since I was younger and first started questioning theology.
I'm still kind of "closeted" I guess from my parents, but am pretty open about atheism at school even if I get some disapproving looks from teachers and students. However, I take advantage of political correctness to say what I want to say when it seems appropriate to inject amusing comments.
There's a kind of a summary into my own history regarding the subjects of theology and religion. However, I'm very interested in hearing about everyone else's background and upbringings and influences in this matter.