How do you define the difference between "deist" and "agnostic"?
I personally am not either a deist or agnostic. I follow Sikhism. To me, it makes perfect sense. I usually don't like to tell white people that I am religious since MANY only understand Western versions of religion, Western versions of God, etc. I do not even say "I believe in God" because Westerners only think of God as a big old white man in a cloud looking down on us--that I don't believe in; I often say "I believe in a Great Spirit" since it makes people think of something other than the stereotypical version of God.
Another thing is Sikhism doesn't give any real creation story or any real clear answers on what happens after death. It's said you're reincarnated or you "merge with the one" if you're really really good -- that's it, there's no heaven or hell, no great hall full of virgins. You're not left trying to reconcile a story of creation in 7 days (or other sorts of religious creation stories) with modern scientific theories. Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji (Sikh scriptures, the living Guru) only says a few things, which happen to coincide nicely with modern day scientific theories of Creation (ie: the Big Bang, cyclical theory, etc.). I only say this to show that not EVERY religion has a creation or after-life story.
Quote from: FreyasRedemption on September 09, 2015, 07:04:54 AM
I just have to disagree with this.
How many wars have been started by Buddhists, for example? How much misery has Jainism brought to this world? How many people have been killed in the name of the gods of Sala'i Vilak, the small, slowly dying religion that I follow?
None.
All religions are not bad. And to think otherwise would make one a fundamentalist, a fanatic, no better than those who give all that bad reputation to Christianity, Islam and others.
I agree and also kind of disagree with the above. I think most religions don't start wars in itself -- the problem is
human nature and not necessarily the religion. Humans play into "tribalism" and fall into black and whites on what's bad and good; "if you're not part of my group, you must be an enemy" -- many people look at the Middle East now and blame Islam, but I believe they'd have pretty much the same problems there even if the majority of people there were Christians, Jains, Jews, or Bahai'is. Tribalism and other components of human nature (greed being a BIG one) is also why non-religious or secular societies have been plagued by non-religious wars -- the USA went into Iraq not because of religion but because of human nature.
The other problem is many people who claim to follow a religion are not actually truly scholars in the religion so its easy to misinterpret things. It's not always the religion, it is the people's ignorance mixed with human nature. Many of the Taliban fighters were recruited easily because they were young and poorly educated; many had little to no ability to actually read and understand the Quran themselves. (The only thing I disagree with is that Buddhism isn't as truly innocent as many people claim, Buddhists, including Buddhist monks, have caused much terror for the Rohingya (Muslim minority) in Burma/Myanmar <though> as also stated I think this is caused by human nature/tribalism than the religion itself).
I think it's very easy to blame religion for the world's problems. But blaming religion isn't the answer. Even if we eradicated the world from religion tomorrow, there'd still be the same problems. It's human nature, not religion.
