how do you feel about other religions?

I’m an atheist, but I’m extremely respectful of every religion, and people within that religion.

 

Catholic here. I personally feel that any religion is okay as long as you can respect others beliefs, not harm others, and not try to shove your own religion and viewpoints into others faces. Other than that, I don't care who or what you worship as long as you respect me and my believes, I'll do the same for you.

I agree with this completely.

 

If you treat people with respect and live to make the world a better place and appreciate differences and diversity, and you learned that from your religion, that's freaking awesome. I think being Jewish has helped shape this philosophy for me, but I greatly respect people of other faiths (or no faith) who have the same values. It's when religion is used to judge, devalue, and discriminate that I have an issue with it.

 

I'm Wiccan Jedi but like others on here I have no problem with other's faith and religions except when its used to 'attack' others. Then I'll go on the defensive. Nothing gets to me more then when someone uses religion to justify discrimination.

 

Wiccan Jedi sounds like a really interesting religion! I've never heard of those two combined into one faith, but I want to learn more about it now.

 

I think you can believe whatever you want as long as you aren't hurting anyone. For me personally I'm agnostic/atheist.

 

It is a matter of respect, we all have different beliefs.

 

I have a general belief that people can believe whatever they want as long as I'm in no way affected. Ideally, I'd like more people to understand the importance of logic, reason, science, and evidence. Religions of all kinds have been the fuel for crimes against humanity throughout history. That's not to say religion itself is bad. I just think a lot of people are not mentally responsible enough to properly handle a certain belief system.

With all the different religions, I find it hard to believe any of them are real. One would think if God's message was so vitally important, then it would be delivered in a way for everyone to understand without question. But that's not the case. That leads me to suspect that if a god is real, then this deity would understand my apathy.

I also believe our morals don't come from a higher power, but rather they come from the fact that what benefits other people also benefits ourselves. Humans throughout history have often worked in groups to protect and support each other. Such a thing is common among animals like monkeys and dogs. Babies are born to imprint on an adult (usually a parent). Humans also generally have a sense of empathy, so intentionally causing each other harm goes against our own natural instincts.

Anything religion can explain can be explained scientifically. However, the biggest difference between the two is that science is cumulative. The only limitations on science are what have not, or even could not (yet), be explored. New understandings of the world around us are constantly being discovered and applied. Religion is limited by ancient texts with questionable validity. However, that doesn't limit a person's understanding of it. Anyone can make their own assumptions on what a religion means and entails, which leads to different belief systems within a religion. If religion was as consistent with its teachings as science, it would change altogether when new information is discovered. Instead, all we get are new branches, denominations of various religions. Catholic vs Protestant. Sunni vs Shiite. Reformed Judaism vs Orthodox Judaism. A scientist must argue with fact. A pastor can argue with an imagination.

 

As long as nobody’s being hurt in the name of a certain religion, then I’m all cool with religion.

 

I dislike all religion, for philosophical, practical, and logical reasons.

Philosophical: If you need a holy book to tell you how to be a good person, then you're not a good person. People should do things like helping others because they want to, not because they think they will be punished by a god if they don't.

Practical: Religion is extremely controlling. They have no right to control how others act and think yet the majority of all religion is finding ways to force people into acting a particular way and deciding what is or isn't acceptable.

Logical: There are 100+ religions that all believe different things and some are total opposites of each other. They can't all be right obviously, so what are the chances you just happened to pick the 1 out of 100+ that is the "real" religion, if any of them are real at all? It's almost guaranteed that even if religion is real, you still picked the wrong one anyway, rendering it completely meaningless.

I don't mind individual people who are religious as long as I feel like they authentically believe in what they claim to believe in, and they don't try to force their beliefs on me. If I detect any hypocrisy with how they act compared to what they claim to believe they automatically lose my respect.

 

Sorry its taken a while to reply, I haven't really been on here much. It's not as interesting as it sounds. It just I combine elements from both Wicca and Jedi. It more of a philosophy really. I do believe there is some sort of energy force in the universe and that there is some sort of life after death (but not that its dependent on your behaviour in this life) I also don't follow any type of god.
I agree with Niagara that I don't really need a religion to be a good person but on occasions where maybe I'm angry or frustrated or not sure of the right thing to do they I can examine my beliefs (and other factors) and try to deal with the situation better.

For example if I get mad at work because something I'm doing isn't going right then I can calm myself by thinking how a Jedi would act. There are other things as well but I won't go into all of them now.

 

That's very interesting. Especially the philosophy aspect of it. Now do you just do the examination of self, or have you also combined other aspects as well? For example, do you use the spell aspect of Wicca?

 

I agree with all of this. I'm also against religion, but if a religious person I talk to is respectful of my opinion, then I will respect theirs. Everyone has a right to believe in whatever they want, but when they try to force it to others, they lose my respect.

 

I have no problem with religious belief, however, I do have a problem with extreme/fundamental views of thinking. I also have a problem with people saying bad people in those groups aren't "true [insert religion]" because those bad people also think that the good people aren't "true [insert same religion]" meaning nobody is really part of that religion even though everyone claims to be [see: no true scotsman].

In terms of my own religion, I like to find scientific reasons for the so-called "miracles" in the Bible.

 

I'm a Christian. I don't care what religion someone else is. I even had a friend who was a Satanist. We got along just fine.

 

I'm atheist but respect other people's religious views!

 

Ditto.

 

I'm weird when it comes to my religion. I was raised by a Christian father and Jewish/agnostic mother and didn't really raise me as religious at all, just celebrated the holidays. I don't really know what my religion is, it doesn't really fit into any religion.

The way I see it is as long as you're respectful, I'll respect you.

 

One of my subjects in college us religion and global diversity. None of our classes really focused on homosexuality but it was made clear that in most religions it's not accepted. I was raised Catholic and it's fine to be gay if you don't act on it. So basically life celibate and alone your whole life or play straight. But no one really follows the rules anymore if you have most of the country committing the mortal sin of sex before marriage. I don't believe in hell and I don't think I'll end up there for liking the same gender.

 

I'm loosely-catholic (I'm open to the possibility that god doesn't exsist but I like to think there is one)

Having lived in two very different countries, I'm suprised to say that a person's religion hasn't effected my friendships with people. Maybe it's because discussing it isn't out thing or something but idk. A quarter of my friends are buddhist, and the topic doesn't come up regularly. My rule is that if you're not harming others (or in some cases yourself) you can't do whatever you want.