<p>I don't want this thread to turn into a debate, but I'm curious about other people's beliefs. </p>
<p>Personally, I'm agnostic and I think the Quran / Bible / Torah are nothing more than fairytales.</p>
<p>What about you?</p>
<p>I believe in God and only that. I don’t believe in the Bible or whatever else is associated with Christianity and I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian. </p>
<p>I simply love and believe in Jesus/God.</p>
<p>^ I find this weird. You don’t consider yourself a Christian but you believe in Jesus?</p>
<p>Can you expound on that?</p>
<p>A wanna-be religious student here.</p>
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I agree, but dismissing religion on that basis alone shows that you don’t understand it very well. Physics is almost guaranteed to be false as well, yet I believe in it anyway.</p>
<p>I am Christian, and though I know that there are some major logical issues many have with the Bible (and that I struggle with as well), I try to take on faith what it says and teaches and hope that all will be made clear in the life to come.</p>
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<p>I don’t dismiss it on that basis alone, and I’m sorry if you got that impression. I also believe that the main religions, especially Islam, are backward and discriminating towards people.</p>
<p>@Huat: I don’t. People are so eager to label everything. “You believe in God, therefore you’re a Christian.”</p>
<p>To me, a Christian goes beyond simply believing in God (includes Bible, church, etc). That’s why I don’t consider myself a Christian. I DO believe that there is a higher being. I do believe in almighty God/Jesus and I love almighty God. </p>
<p>I really don’t want to go off on a tangent. I would say more but I feel it’ll escalate into something else. If you’re still fascinated/weirded out you could PM me and we can talk there. I don’t want no drama in this thread.</p>
<p>OP: I wonder how you would react if a religious person were to say “You’re not normal. You need religion and god. You need some form of help”.</p>
<p>//Physics is almost guaranteed to be false as well, yet I believe in it anyway.//</p>
<p>But it is not the same kind of belief. It is not a matter of faith when you say you “believe” in physics. It is a position that you admit is amenable to change and refinement.</p>
<p>A more accurate statement would be something like “I accept the vast explanatory and predictive power of physics over physical phenomena, and accept that it is an ever growing body of knowledge.”</p>
<p>Physical theories certainly aren’t “false” within the experimental boundaries that have been explored so far.</p>
<p>I’m not religious, but I’ll admit the vast social, cultural, political power that religion has.</p>
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<p>I know what you’re playing at. People on here always tell you that you need friends.</p>
<p>I’d laugh at them, but friends and faith are not the same thing. Friends can physically be there for you and give you support.</p>
<p>Faith is nothing more than a combination of a hallucination and wishful thinking. There’s absolutely no evidence supporting faith.</p>
<p>“I don’t want this thread to turn into a debate”
Really? Seems to me like you are trying to start one…</p>
<p>I’ve been raised a Christian, but I’ve been struggling with my faith lately. I believe in God and Jesus, heaven and hell, but I’ve been having trouble believing that God is a loving god. I want to believe it, but I can’t for some reason. -shrug-</p>
<p>I’m an agnostic and I really don’t care what you are as long as you enforce your religious beliefs on me. That’s when it starts to get really annoying. When people influence politics with their beliefs to restrict rights from other people, it gets complicated.</p>
<p>And perhaps the importance you place on friends is nothing more than a combination of wishful thinking and delusions, as well? You don’t like a religious person to project what they believe onto you, so why do that to others? Just because you cannot live without a thing does not mean other can’t as well.</p>
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Fair enough. But do you understand that some people (e.g. women in Islam) might feel empowered by the rules that look discriminating and oppressing to outsiders?</p>
<p>It irks me when people have a negative image of religion on general.</p>
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<p>Just as we don’t know what we have yet to learn and see our past learning as auspicious, so is one’s faith an extrapolation of past good: From retrospection may come optimism.</p>
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<p>Can you blame people? From past experiences it looks like religion tear people apart as opposed to bringing them together. </p>
<p>I do have a negative image of religion in general and have no desire to be religious or anything.</p>
<p>I’m a Christian 
Absolutely love studying the bible too!</p>
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<p>If I wanted to, I’d insult the Christians here. Please don’t post on this thread.</p>
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<p>There’s no such thing. How can there be when thousands of innocent children die daily from leukemia and accidents? </p>
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<p>I agree that people annoyed you a bit too much about not wanting friends, but you take it a bit too seriously. I mean, ranting about it on a totally different thread and going off-topic about it? Come on.</p>
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<p>Please expound on this.</p>
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<p>It does look like that, and it saddens me that there are people out there who claim to have some gospel of love or other, and yet go out and create enemies. People who claim to be Christians and still hurt others, whether emotionally, spiritually, or physically. Sometimes it’s unintentional, that I agree, but a lot of times, it’s because they claim to be Christians, probably because they grew up in the church, but they conform to the culture of the world. If some of those “Christians” truly believed what the Bible says and acted that way, then things would be different. I can’t speak for everyone, but I do hope you can at least understand the point of view I bring up.</p>