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Forums - General Discussion - What Religion Do You Follow?

 

What Religion Do You Follow?

Islam 15 7.89%
 
Christianity 50 26.32%
 
Hinduism 2 1.05%
 
Sikhism 1 0.53%
 
Buddhism 2 1.05%
 
I don't follow a religion 120 63.16%
 
Total:190
sapphi_snake said:
pizzahut451 said:
sapphi_snake said:
pizzahut451 said:

I wouldnt be so sure about that, especially with our great religion increasing in China

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128546334

China accepting christianity to some level would be amazing. Not only would atheism become much weaker in the world but it would also start the spreading of our religion in the far east and Asian continent overall, something our forfathers werent able to do before.

One can hope...

First of all, the majority of the Chinese aren't atheists (only about 14-15% of them are), they're Buddhists or Taoists.

Second of all, most of that part of Asia was colonised by Europeans. If they couldn't convert them by now, they ain't gonna (and you can ber sure that the muslims ain't gonna convert).

Third of all, Christianity is one of the worse things that could happen to China. The last thing they need is a radical religious sect ruining their developing country and halting their progress.

(and in the West, thanks to secularism, atheists have nothing to worry about ).

(Oh, and all reliable sources indicate that Islam is by far the fastest growing religion in the world. Even an organisation such as the World Christian Database says so).


I didnt excpect another kind of response from you...

First of all, majority of chinese are atheist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China#Statistics      

Second, countries like China, japan, Thailand and Mongolia werent colonised by europeans (at least not most of them), and I wasnt talking about middle easter muslim countries, but about the countries in the far east.

Another random insult, which if I wrote, zexen would ban me in a second because of ''religious intolerance'' but that only applies if a non-christian belief is insulted, but whatever. You just keep living up to those stereotypes.

And Islam is spreading due to big birth rates in families, but Christianity is spreading aong whole nations and continents, which is a long-term advantige over Islam.

First of all, the majority of the Chinese are Agnostics or non-religious, which is not the same as Atheists. Read your own links. It says that only 10-14% are atheists. It doesnt matter. Most of them dont believe or worship a God. Period. No one can really claim not to be agnostic, because no one knows for 100% that there is/isnt a God. its just that some people choose to believe/not believe despite the lacking evidence. Some people just dont care enought to make thier opinnion, and just say ''im agnostic, im not sure'', but they still dont believe in God, because you either support a religious belief 100% or not at all (The quote Kantor posted presents this very well)

Second of all, you're the one accusing me of random insults? Read the part I bolded.You didnt bolded anything. You insulted atheists,No, unlike you, I didnt call atheism names and I didnt even mention atheists, I just said that if Christianity rises in China atheism would be much weaker, and that would be a good thing IMO. Dont pretend you dont wish christianity would disappear from Earth and professed your desire for your kind my kind, lol? to wipe out every other belief system from Asia.Thats just bullshit straight up here. I never wished for such a thing. i said i was hoping for christianity to rise in the lands of far east, not for it to become their only religion and exterminate all others. Those forefathers you talked about killed millions, profitted of people's ignorance, and destroyed entire civilizations (much more civilized then they were) no, they but defended the Holy Land from muslim invaders, the violent spread of Christianity in Asia is pretty much non-existant, you are wrong, all in the name, to spread your religionNo, but for money and power. Christians are responsable for one of the most violent and bloody revolutions in ChinaNo, they were not, thats just what you want and choose to believe., and they had similar movements in Japan also. Your post just proved how intolerant and opressive your religion isNo, your post proved just how intolerant, arrogant, and agry your belief system is for some reason.I wished no harm nor offense to anyone in any of my previous posts in this thread, when you always and constantly and very openly insult all christian and all religions overall. If by your definition I am opressing anyone with my posts, what are YOU doing than? Making a Holocaust?

Just to take the quickes example:

Third of all, Christianity is one of the worse things that could happen to China. The last thing they need is a radical religious sect ruining their developing country and halting their progress.

This, by your definiton isnt an insult to christian, but hoping for christianity to rise in China is very insulting. Double standards and arrogance at their best.

And you people have the nerve to ciricise muslims extremists for their Jihad, when you're no better then they are. This I wont ever bother to adress, because i really really hope you are joking here, or atleast speaking out of anger.

How about losing the world domination fantasies? what kind of world domination you think i ''fantasise'' about? Where every non christian is opressed and killed? If the religious dominance of christianity was like that, you would have been dead aloooooong time ago. Im hoping for christianity to spread around the world (and this is insulting to you apprently) and for more people to learn about it, but of course, you choose totally to miss that, and create your own version of christian dominance where poor non christians are getting burned alive while impaled on a 10m stick, just to support your insecure belifs about evil christianity. Maybe then people will stop disliking your religion so much. There's a reason why people pick on Christianity so much after all.





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I put christianity since I'm a confirmed Catholic, but I rarely ever go to church, and honestly think of myself more as an atheist than part of a religion.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

sapphi_snake said:
Dr.Grass said:
ManusJustus said:
Chairman-Mao said:

Christianity. I'm going to leave it at that and not get into a discussion over beliefs. This site is way to dominated by atheists to have a decent religious topic. 

We are building a Creationist theme park in Kentucky.  Maybe you could meet some people there who share your beliefs, while you ride the Jonah Fish Submarine or Noah's Log Flume.

Serioulsy though, I grew up in a very religious family with preacher grandparents, so I know a lot about religion.  Thats why I'm an atheist.

You mean you know a lot about western religion.

So? Where are you getting at?

Isn't it pretty obvious?



alekth said:

Why would eating fish be any less cruel than other animals? It's just convenient that fish doesn't shriek, some suffocate out of water for minutes-half an hour.


Standard response.

Anyways, since no-one has been very nasty in this thread I'll give you the philosophical reason that I adhere to: Different living entities have different levels of consciousness. Since the consciousness in plants are less developed (read evolved) their experience pain is much different. Furthermore, they don't bare the pains of losing a loved one like most animals do when a child is torn from them. I just watched BBC Nature's Great Events (beautiful on Blu Ray) and you see even the Mother Sea Lions feel deep pain when their little pup is pulled away from them. Spare me the explanation that because of evolution they developed these 'emotions' because it increases their chances of survival.

So there is a hierarchy of consciousness. The fish are below the land animals in this hierarchy (not including sea mammals like wales and dolphins). So they suffer much less.

I don't think the whole explanation will be read by anyone so I'll stop there. I'm sure this will make some chuckle. I don't care, protest as much as you want - I'll respond each time (if I don't get banned which might happen soon).



sapphi_snake said:

Why I can understand why some people would want to become vegetarians, in order to be non-violent, are these people aware that plants are living breathig beings also. People also kill plants and eat them. In the end you have to kill something and eat it in order to survive (unless you're a plant of course).


yes so we might as well bbq a nice tasty homeless person. No one will know! Or what about those tasty stray dogs.Hmmmm... But wait! Nature has the ultimate solution! There are these animals you can keep on big farms, put them in small cages and induce hormones so they supply endless streams of milk! Then, when they are old and useless, you jam them on a truck and take them to a place they are minced one-by-one and a day later you have a nice juicy piece of them with some mushroom sauce

forgive my tone. It just makes conveying the point much quicker and easier.



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pizzahut451 said:



I'm not gonna bother to respond to all that you're saying, because it's not worth it.

First of all, have't you heard of the Taiping Rebellion? It was one of the most violent conflicts in histroy, when Christians in China tried to rise up against the ruling dynasty and outlaw all other religions. They killed 20 million people. It's a historical fact, not what I choose to believe.

Second of all, Christianity can only rise at the detriment of other religions. And Christianity is an intolerant religion, opressive religion, that claims to be the "one true religion", which leads Christians to want to eliminate all other religious beliefs (your comment about wanting to get rid of atheists says it all). China doesn't need another Taiping Rebellion, nor do the people need more opression in their lives.

Third of all, it's quite a delusion to ignore the massacre and forced conversion of peoples like the Incas or the Philipinos or the Africans by Christians, or what they tried to do in China, India and Japan. Not to mention things like the Spanish Inquisition, and what Christians did to the Muslims who lived there. Do you think that your religion would've survived without violence to help spread and maintain it?



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

Dr.Grass said:
sapphi_snake said:

Why I can understand why some people would want to become vegetarians, in order to be non-violent, are these people aware that plants are living breathig beings also. People also kill plants and eat them. In the end you have to kill something and eat it in order to survive (unless you're a plant of course).


yes so we might as well bbq a nice tasty homeless person. No one will know! Or what about those tasty stray dogs.Hmmmm... But wait! Nature has the ultimate solution! There are these animals you can keep on big farms, put them in small cages and induce hormones so they supply endless streams of milk! Then, when they are old and useless, you jam them on a truck and take them to a place they are minced one-by-one and a day later you have a nice juicy piece of them with some mushroom sauce

forgive my tone. It just makes conveying the point much quicker and easier.

What point? There are people who eat other people, and there are people who eat dogs. It has nothing to do with nature, but with culture. What I was trying to say is that you're gonna kill a living being in order to survive. I'm not saying we should eat humans, BUT saying that you don't wanna eat an animal due to non-violence is silly.



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

Dr.Grass said:
sapphi_snake said:
Dr.Grass said:
ManusJustus said:
Chairman-Mao said:

Christianity. I'm going to leave it at that and not get into a discussion over beliefs. This site is way to dominated by atheists to have a decent religious topic. 

We are building a Creationist theme park in Kentucky.  Maybe you could meet some people there who share your beliefs, while you ride the Jonah Fish Submarine or Noah's Log Flume.

Serioulsy though, I grew up in a very religious family with preacher grandparents, so I know a lot about religion.  Thats why I'm an atheist.

You mean you know a lot about western religion.

So? Where are you getting at?

Isn't it pretty obvious?

No. What makes Eastern religions special?



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

Kantor said:

Since we've moved on to talking about meat eating, the reasons I eat meat:

  • It tastes delicious. Call me a savage, I don't care.
  • It's high in protein and iron, and the latter especially is hard to find in vegetarian food.
  • It can often be troublesome to find tasty vegetarian food (not that none exists).
  • Eating vegetarian food is still killing living organisms, and everyone seems fine with that.
  • We have worked our way to the top of the food chain by evolution, and we have the biological right to do what we like with our position.
  • Animals have no real conscious thought or fear of death.
  • If there's a lovely plate of roast beef lying on a large plate, not taking that beef is not going to bring the cow back to life. The same is true for raw pork fillet lying in the kitchen of a restaurant.

  • It tastes delicious. Call me a savage, I don't care.
Yes, that's an answer I will accept.
  • It's high in protein and iron, and the latter especially is hard to find in vegetarian food
This on the other hand is nonsense.

  • It can often be troublesome to find tasty vegetarian food (not that none exists).
Definitely true. Its not easy, but that's changing in some places in the west and is largely culturaly dependent.
  • Eating vegetarian food is still killing living organisms, and everyone seems fine with that.
Human beings should be able to reason better than this.
  • We have worked our way to the top of the food chain by evolution, and we have the biological right to do what we like with our position.
We have the ability to live without enforcing our 'biological' right. Are we meant to just take what we want? Surely a human society can be above such a degraded state of living?
  • Animals have no real conscious thought or fear of death.
And pain? And other fears? I suggest you watch 'The Cove', and see the trainer of the famous flipper dolphin describe how she committed suicide due to depression. Ever lived closely with animals? I've lived with cows before. Trust me, they are much closer to humans than any dog could ever be. And we western people treasure our dear Lassy's and Beethoven's don't we? Here I can't disprove you, but there is no part of me that doesn't believe that you are wrong.
  • If there's a lovely plate of roast beef lying on a large plate, not taking that beef is not going to bring the cow back to life. The same is true for raw pork fillet lying in the kitchen of a restaurant.
You are thinking with your tongue. As long as we agree on that then I accept what you are saying.


alekth said:

Reason I eat meat:

 

  • It tastes good.
  • Substitutes don't taste that good.
I'm pretty aware that one can get everything one needs eating plants (plus artificially getting B12 only pretty much), but doing so involves eating a lot of plants I don't enjoy eating.
Plus there is a lot of research that shows that proteins, iron and the like, while all available from plants are harder to process and make use of unless you strike the right combination. Not to mention controversity about someof the substitutes like soy being pretty dangerous.

 


No, I think you just have left your two bullets there, because you've not really looked into the matter. I've lived in a community with only vegetarians and I can tell you that these type of statements stupify me. People have been vegetarian in India for thousands of years.

Also, there is no such research. Perhaps an article or two by some American magazine.