I believe I need to show this to a couple of friends.

I believe that God has bigger things to worry about than who worships Him, and how. Or, at least, I hope so.

I do not believe that God cares in Whose name we strive to be kind to each other, so long as we get off our asses and do it.

I believe how I live is more important that what I believe or profess.

I believe I can always learn better how to live.

I believe I can't tell anyone else what to believe (and I don't think anyone here has yet tried to tell me what to believe).

Many thanks for the last paragraph.

I can never recite that word for word outside of church, notwithstanding the fact that I've recited it hundreds of times in church.

Could say a lot, some agreeing, some contrary, but will just comment:

I believe we’re bound to occasionally confuse God with His creation. The part of creation I most frequently confuse with God is the English language.

Except as Man is a creation of God, the English language is not created by God; it is created by Man.

See beyond the literal, mon frere. I believe the lady is suggesting that she is enchanted by the medium in which she works, or the tool with which that medium is brought to life, or perhaps both. When I was 12, I frequently confused God with model airplane parts.

Robert, I would agree with you but for the idea that God, by creating Man and giving us the power to invent language, has indirectly created the English language. I suppose how indirectly he did it is a question of how involved one believes him to be in everyday life. As an atheist with occasional bouts of mild neo-paganism, I don't feel qualified to answer that one.

On another note, I believe the Creed is very moving, even though I don't accept the statements as truth. I wonder if that's a result of my Catholic upbringing, or if it's just that beautiful.

Nice post. An inadaquate appreciation, but I mean just that . . .Nice post. Hope everyone had a Happy Easter . . .from a cheerfully affectionate yet admiring nonChristian.

I believe that any deity that would demand my worship is not worthy of it, because I cannot conceive of worshipping a being even less perfect than myself (and I am, of course, inconceivably flawed).

I believe that any deity that would be capable of Creation would be inadmissable of anthropomorphism, and beyond my ability to understand. For that reason I believe that we are on our own in this life, because I cannot conceive of a way in which we could possibly know what a Creative deity (or even a lesser, animistic one) would want of us, or how we can validate any claims of such knowledge by others.

I believe, nonetheless, that there is Something in the universe that loves me, and wants me to be happy in any way I can, so long as I am trying not to hurt anyone else.

Great Easter thread, even for us non-Christian types, I have to agree ;)

This is a marvellous post, thank you so much for writing it. I think I definitely need to get some people I know to read it!

Well, in reply, I'm tempted to quote the literature of, I believe, the Tony Alamo Foundation, who say, "Don't blame God for your evil impulses!" or something to that effect. The English language is not an evil impulse, except possibly for certain Newspeak euphemisms, but it is created entirely by humans out of their thoughts. (Mind you, I'm basically an agnostic--i.e., I claim to know nothing--but I will grant that by pretty much any definition of God, be it hidebound and traditional or New Age or anything in between, the natural world is the creation of God. God made sunflowers, cockroaches, bald eagles, and athlete's foot fungus. By extension, we could say that things made by animals--an anthill or a bird's nest, say--are also made by God.

And we can also say that Man is made by God. But when we come to the creations of man, we are on thornier ground. If one believes in free will rather than predestination (and I'm not so sure I do, but that's to be discussed some other time), then one must distinguish between the creations of Man and the creations of God. Even some beautiful object--the Sistine Chapel ceiling, say--might be inspired by God, but it is the creation of a man.

If one does not draw this line in the sand, then we must accept that the Willowbrook Mall, Eminem's latest record, the '66 Ford Mustang, and Count Chocula cereal are all God's creations. Or to put it another way, God made Elvis, but Elvis sang "Burning Love."

If all Christians thought that way I'd be among you still. I have no problem with any of that. So long as 'look for the resurrection' isn't phrased 'look for and work towards the resurrection', like those goony apocalyptarians seem to be thinking.

They scared the bejeezus out of me.

'I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones--I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan...' (Bull Durham, by Ron Shelton)

Well, actually, my own personal list isn't as extensive as the above, but I have tried (without success) to believe in quite a range of things in my time, and I've come to the conclusion that if there is something/someone out there then it would be more like the Tao or some notional Source-of-All than anything which is worshipped by any of the major religions.

And in the end I believe that it matters less What you worship or Who you worship than it does the Way that you worship and the Way you live your life. If you follow the Way then you'll get wherever it is that you're going in the end.

That and of course I do believe in the Church of Baseball... thank God/Gods that the season is finally under way!

Lovely, holy, and humbling. Thank you.

Some inmates and I at one of the facilities I visit are working through the historic creeds as a continuing study. (In fact I will be workiing up the materials today for Tuesday night's session.) Googling around a couple of weeks ago I found this:

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the bible, that he would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

My understanding is that this is an English translation of a creed composed by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit around 1960 as part of their work with the Masai. It is one example of the adaptation to the local culture and language (or inculturation) of the Mass and other liturgical materiais that the Spititian Fathers did in several places in Africa. (The details appear to be in the book Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent Donovan, one of those missionaries.

I believe that the fundamental tenents of life are, as indeed most major religions manage to say somewhere, and I take here in their familiar biblical way: 'Treat others as you want to be treated' I believe that the rewards for doing this are in no way connected to any post-life existence or in-life bonuses, but merely mental well-being.
I have no belief in any micro-management of individual lives on earth by all-powerful deities since a deity that is powerful enough to jump-start the universe, or even put its finger in the evolution pie cannot be unobservable. Also, any deity involved in such micromanagement would have tuned the distribution curve of man's evil thoughts a few notches towards good, notwithstanding the power that evil has in facilitating progress which eventually leads to a better world.
I concur with cyclopatra's second paragraph above on a creative deity.
I also think that psalms are often extremely powerful and mind affecting and make want to sing them in belief. But to me even more so is the choir of Old Trafford when they (and very occasionally 'we') sing the praises of the team we love.

I believe this is a beautiful, living post and a reminder that I love you all -- not in the mushy empty cliche sense that has become associated with the word "love," but in the way of simplicity and human connection. :-)

I believe, nonetheless, that there is Something in the universe that loves me, and wants me to be happy in any way I can, so long as I am trying not to hurt anyone else.

You believe? Hah: I'm certain of it.

They're called `my family'.

--- oh, wasn't that what you meant?

I don't feel qualified to comment on many of these statements, of which I agree with some and disagree with some more.

But one of them in particular I find I must note as illogical and inaccurate, in my experience (and the related experiences of folks I know):

I believe that the cure for disliking organized religion is prolonged exposure to the disorganized sort.

I have had extensive exposure to each, and the lacks exhibited by the disorganized groups I've been with neither excuse nor make up for the more extensive and more intense dislikes I developed for organized religion AS AN INSTITUTION and for specific subsets of it in particular. There is no logical reason to assume that an individual who dislikes organized religion will not like the disorganized variety, nor that one sort of dislike will affect the other. (I also note that this is a statement of belief by Teresa, and that neither disagreement nor logical argument is a statement that her belief is not valid, for her.)

As much as I disagree with that statement, I agree with its immediate successor:

I believe that religion isn’t complex; it’s simple. It’s putting it into practice that gets complex.

I would, however, substitute either "belief" or "spirituality" for "religion", and "difficult" for "complex." Many things in this world are simple, and I am constantly reminded, in ways small and large, that "simple" != "easy"

I believe the book of Jonah was meant to be funny.

I couldn't agree more. I re-read Jonah a few years ago, and it wasn't at all the story I remember being taught in Sunday school. First of all, it isn't about righteousness and duty, it's about compassion and duty: Jonah doesn't want to bring a message of destruction to Nineveh; the sailors don't want to throw him overboard (but he insists); and ultimately, God doesn't want to destroy the city.

Second, it really is a barrel of yuks. God and Jonah have a kind of Borscht Belt relationship going on. Speaking as a skeptic, it was the book of Jonah that altered a lot of my received assumptions about the Old Testament.

That was really beautiful. Thank you...

I especially like:
I believe in the God of the Burgess Shale*, Who not only made creation stranger than we know, but stranger than we could ever imagine.

Thank you both for starting my morning so well.

I believe that man is the augmentation of dust, and that death ends all but memory. I believe in the sufficiency of chance, the inescapability of time, and the interconnectedness of all things. I believe that defeat is permanent, and victory ephemeral.

I believe in the effort of listening, and the practise of stillness; that peace is better than war, and that war is better than submission. I believe permanence is an illusion of scale, and that knowledge is an illusion of history which works anyway.

I believe that what makes me like myself less, I should not do.

So does God follow other gods into dark alleys, knock them over the head, and go through their pockets for loose doctrine?

Teresa and Graydon both: thank you for giving words to your insights, and those insights to the rest of us.

Avram --

I believe that, historically, that was chiefly the Company of Saints, at least so far as Western Christianity goes.

Jonah: Jonah is not just funny, it's a whole comedy routine, with setu-up, false punchline, and final punchline. I've long assessed the quality of (Jewish) religious-education institutions by whether their most basic (excluding pre-rational by age) teaching of Jonah focuses on:
A: The Boat
B: The Big Fish
C: Nineveh
D: The Vine
The highest honors have so far gone to the program that uses an adaptation in which G-D calls Jonah a Shmendrick in the final lines.

2: I suspect that Shir HaShirim is more full of meaning then you imply, or that I am fully aware of.

3: To cite one's sources is a Talmudic enjoinment.

In a piece I read somewhere long ago, I vaguely remember the brother of, I believe, a jesuit priest, quoting his brother as telling him, "It's as simple as this: there's a light. Try to walk in it."

Avram and Graydon -

If God and the Company of Saints committed the crime, Christian artists were aiding and abetting.

These are all lovely sentiments and I can share the general humanist concerns that they are all directed towards supporting. However, they lack one thing, they fail to answer one question that always pops into my head when I see this kind of credo: why do you believe? I can agree completely with some of the general conclusions you make, but I don't share the premises; that means I find most of what you say alien and mystifying. It's as if you said,

"I blartify the pansyngoolic metachroid, therefore we should love and respect one another."

I never blartify and I don't think the metachroid exists, but I still think love and respect are good things, so what I read here is a string of curious non sequiturs. Except for the ones where you blartify the pangenon, and conclude that the drudenates are polydianotic, which just doesn't make any sense at all to me.

I'm not arguing with or disagreeing with what you've said, but just pointing out that it's strange and foreign to those who don't share the context.

Speaking of artists, and of God's love, and of Man's ability to misunderstand the Word of God:

http://www.sinfest.net/comics/sf20030216.gif

Margaret --

I don't think it's a crime, as such; I think it's evidence that people don't do absolutes, the which many would do well to contemplate.

The real culprit, in a number of ways, was the effort to transform Christianity from being a religion of the urban poor to an Imperial religion, post-Constantine.

Though there are also the efforts to Christianize the Germanic barbarians of the former imperial fringe -- why Anglo churches put such an emphasis on sunrise ceremonies, eggs, and bunnies at Easter -- and the much later consequences of general literacy and the widespread examination of texts, so, really, there's a lot of causes to go around.

I believe that the notion of God as an external creative force and divine intelligence is a conceptual fiction, given, among other things, that the qualities attributed to God and those manifest in his supposed creation are so grossly out of alignment. Having found Shakyamuni Buddha's explanation of the arising of phenomena and the way to be liberated in the direct experience of its ultimate nature to be infinitely more coherent, I chose that path.

Whew. Thank you. I don't often get to talk like that on the 'net. And I didn't mean it as in any way detracting from the loveliness of your post. Would that more Christians were as thoughtful.

I heard recently that all through his presidency, Abraham Lincoln was pressured to officially join a church. He never succumbed, saying, "I would have joined a church if I had found one that preached one thing only: love thy neighbor as thyself."

I believe that the God who made (among other things) light, and space, and number, and time, and the spiral curve of Fibonacci numbers, must be acknowledged to understand more than I do about why there’s pain in the world.

Light, space, number, time, and the Fibonacci series are comprehensible to the mind of man. Having watched a grandmother, aunt, and father slowly unravel with Alzheimer's, and knowing I may face it myself has, on the other hand, convinced me finally that there is no God. As advertised or otherwise. Details in my Live Journal if you're interested. (ww.livejournal.com/users/marykaykare -- it would be an entry right after Christmas.)

MKK

Avram, Graydon, Margaret -- Rumoured recent interDeity negotiations

Thanks for posting that. You believe some things I don't and some I
do, but nothing I can't be in a civilization with.

(I don't know if I'm a perfect natural atheist -- possibly just a
free-range kosher one.)

One line quizzles my brow:

"I nevertheless also believe that so many earnest believers trying so
hard to do right and know right for more than 2,000 years must have
done more than accumulate errors all that time, since otherwise it
calls into question the whole enterprise of religion."

I don't disagree with the conclusion, but with the argument. It has
the form of begging the question -- reasoning by refusing to entertain
the alternative.

The good or ill of human acts can only be ascertained by observation.
(And the observations are necessarily incomplete, of course, time not
having ended yet.)

The Profession of Faith used to leave a bitter taste in my mouth from years of hearing it recited without much apparent conviction or rejoicing, but it's refreshing to see someone willing to profess their faith in a basically secular forum like this. Thank you for sharing this! I can't say I disagree with much of what you believe, or with much of what others here have professed, but I'll add mine to the outpouring:

I believe that Christ was God's perfect attempt to reach man, and religion is man's imperfect attempt to reach God.*

I believe that God doesn't care how we reach Him, so long as we keep reaching.

I believe there is no greater law than to love one another, and love God.

I believe as Christ taught, that what we do to the least of His brothers, we do to Him.

I believe that we are all children of God, we all have a divine heritage, and we are all blessed with Grace and the Holy Spirit when we need them most.

* I haven't been able to find any attribution to that quote, other than I heard it first from Fr. Dougherty who taught us Death & Dying and Morality in high school.

A different creed again (just to cheer everyone up) - can't work out how to get them neatly in two columns here. Please don't read this if you're not feeling strong.

"Iago's Creed" from Otello

Credo in un Dio crudel
che m'ha creato simile a sè
e che nell'ira io nomo.
Dalla viltà d'un germe
o d'un atomo vile son nato.
Son scellerato perchè son uomo;
e sento il fango originario in me.
Sì! Questa è la mia fè!
Credo con fermo cuor,
siccome crede la vedovella al tempio,
che il mal ch'io penso
e che da me procede,
per il mio destino adempio.
Credo che il guisto
è un istrion beffardo,
e nel viso e nel cuor,
che tutto è in lui bugiardo:
lagrima, bacio, sguardo,
sacrificio ed onor.
E credo l'uom gioco
d'iniqua sorte
dal germe della culla
al verme dell'avel.
Vien dopo tanta irrision la Morte.
E poi? E poi?
La Morte è il Nulla.
È vecchia fola il Ciel!

I believe in a cruel God
who has created me in His image
and whom, in hate, I name.
From some vile seed
or base atom I am born.
I am evil because I am a man;
and I feel the primeval slime in me.
Yes! This is my testimony!
I believe with a firm heart,
as does the young widow at the altar,
that whatever evil I think
or that whatever comes from me
was decreed for me by fate.
I believe that the honest man
is but a poor actor,
both in face and heart,
that everything in him is a lie:
tears, kisses, looks,
sacrifices, and honor.
And I believe man to be the sport
of an unjust Fate,
from the germ of the cradle
to the worm of the grave.
After all this mockery comes death.
And then? And then?
Death is Nothingness.
Heaven is an old wives’ tale!

A Boito/G Verdi, based on Othello by W Shakespeare.
Translation by Jonathan H. Ward (ilbasso@aol.com)

Two sources of several:
http://www.aria-database.com/translations/otello01_credo.txt
http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/librettim.html

There are other translations I prefer parts of, e.g.
I believe the just man is a poor actor,
whether in his face or heart,
everything about him is a lie:

and
And I believe man is a plaything of an unjust fate

or
And after this futility comes death.

I believe that the God who made (among other things) light, and space, and number, and time, and the spiral curve of Fibonacci numbers, must be acknowledged to understand more than I do about why there's pain in the world.

Which is such a nicer way of putting in than in the Book of Job, even if I don't believe in the underlying premise.

Andrew Plotkin..."free-range, kosher atheist"...dude, you made my whole day with that.

I never knew until now that it was impossible to read silently the creed. Well, I read it without speaking, but I had twenty-five years worth of hearing it recited and reciting it myself running as a soundtrack. It's enough to make you shiver and remember a few things.

Thanks, Teresa. That was lovely.

I believe that this is the most beautiful expression of a faith I don't share that I have ever seen.

I believe that I want a book of Teresa's recent essays, almost enough to collect and edit one myself, and beg, oh, NESFA press to publish it.

I believe I would quickly get bogged down in the mechanical/legal/industrial/whatever details of trying to do such a project, and give up in despair; I further believe that for an amateur, however enthusiastic, to jump in and try to do on a spare-time basis what trained and experienced professionals have not is foolhardy in the extreme, even more foolhardy than I actually am. This doesn't keep me from wanting to, only from attempting to.

I believe that the Divine Nature is the universe, in form and substance. That is to say, I am not a panentheist like orthodox Christians and some of my fellow NeoPagans, but a radical Pantheist: everything put together is the Divine.

I believe that a complete understanding of the Divine is way too big and far too complex to fit into a human mind, or indeed of all human minds collectively throughout all generations. I believe that in order to be able to relate to the Divine at all, humans create metaphors. I believe that humans have different spiritual needs, and create different metaphors to fulfill them.

I believe that the story of the blind men and the elephant is a good analogy to the result of this.

I believe that where humans get into trouble is when they insist that their metaphor is the Divine Reality itself, especially because they are, in my belief, always wrong. Even the insistance on a single metaphor as best is a grave crime: I believe that there is no metaphor that can serve all people adequately, including mine.

I believe that the direct experience of the Divine transcends metaphor, training, and religion, and is impossible to adequately discuss in anything as primitive, limited, and linear as human language.

I believe that mathematics is part of nature, and that Fibonacci numbers and the Mandelbrot Set are examples of the Divine Beauty of Nature.

I believe a whole lot of other things, but I believe I've gone on long enough (if not too much).

I believe thanks are in order.

Er...to be a free-range kosher atheist you'd have to have your throat cut...

I believe the book of Jonah was meant to be funny.

Oh, thank you, thank you. SO MUCH of the Bible is meant to be funny. I can't believe so many people treat it like an O'Reilly manual instead of a living work.

In all matters of faith, I refer to Carl Sagan: "Faith is belief without evidence, and why would you want to believe something if there's no evidence for it?"

And some other guy:

God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor. -- William C. Easttom II

Mark, to answer Carl Sagan: how about because there's no evidence against it either, and it makes you happy? How about because it helps you behave in ways that you see abstractly as good?

I, for example, have a completely irrational and unscientific belief in reincarnation. This is because I can't stand the thought of never getting another chance at living a decent early life. When I really want to depress myself I believe only what I have evidence for, and conclude, with Russell, that "when I die, I shall rot, and that no part of me will survive in any sense."

I gues my real answer to Sagan (a great man whom I admire in many ways) is: why would you want to believe things that make you unhappy?

Easttom put his finger on one major reason I decided Christianity was not for me. I know that I myself wouldn't condemn anyone to eternal torment for anything they could possibly do in a single human lifetime (much less for being descended from someone who disobeyed me once); I found myself unable to believe in an infintitely merciful deity who was less merciful than I was myself.

I know now, of course, that there are Christians who don't believe any such thing, and even heard a sermon recently to the effect that repentance is not a prerequisite for salvation, which I found odd but delightful. But when I was a teenager all the Christians I knew believed in hellfire.

how about because there's no evidence against it either

Now this is a silly counterargument. "You can't prove it's wrong!" is no more proof of a faith than it is proof that the world is secretly controlled by Templars.

Sagan is wrong, anyway: there is evidence. The question is whether there is enough evidence to constitute proof.

I was actually arguing that lack of evidence FOR is not evidence AGAINST. Unless you can prove that there would be evidence for if the underlying fact were true.

And 'proof' and 'faith' rarely play on the same team. As a man without fear has no courage either, so a man with proof of all he believes has, by definition, no faith. Or a woman either, of course.

There are plenty of reasons for choosing a belief other than evidence. This too can be taken to a silly extreme, however: how does any of us commenting here KNOW the speed of light? We believe people who say they've done calculations and measurements that prove it; they in turn believe their instruments, and have faith in their ability to calculate. This way lies madness, because you can't really prove anything except that you're thinking, which you can't prove to anyone else.

Reasonable people take a moderate view.

Teresa, I am always surprised to discover who is (or who was) Catholic in the SFF community. Maybe I've just met far too many Buddhists or atheists or pagans (or whatever-belief-system-they-identify-themselves-with) who walk the path of light to distinguish amongst them.

Still, I thank you for expressing aloud so many of my own beliefs. It's a profound relief to discover someone who is willing to state to the world: I believe.

But I'm going to add you to my list of women I most want to be like when I grow up--you'll join Ursula Le Guin and my great-aunt Martha. (I'm sure you know Ursula; you'll just have to take my word on my Aunt Martha. ;)

I believe I'll have another cookie. :)

I was actually arguing that lack of evidence FOR is not evidence AGAINST.

Indeed. But lack of evidence AGAINST is not evidence OF, either.

Of course. But lack of evidence for OR against means it falls in the realm of choice. And choosing not to believe under those circumstances isn't morally or scientifically better than choosing to believe--much as BOTH sides would like it to be.

If I make something up and believe it, and my believing it makes me happy and does neither me nor anyone else any harm, why not? If I believe in Charlie, the Goddess of Fire, who happens to look like a little blond girl named Andrew, why should I care that I got her out of a Stephen King novel/movie? (Granted, a known fictional source IS "evidence against.") It's not a problem for me or for society unless I try to make others acknowledge Her. If I start writing "scientific" papers claiming to "prove" that She is the One True Goddess of Fire, that's not a problem either...unless you're empathic enough to feel sorry for me as I make a colossal fool of myself.

On a point of logic, can you be "all that Christians are enjoined to be" if you don't go along with those first few Commandments?

I believe that while attempting to mix piety and capitalism people often get things hilariously and offensively wrong: http://www.lordsgymclermont.com/home.htm

Be sure to check the logo.
Link courtesy of ktbaxter.

Rob - she said "be," not "do." Someone on the radio today said that to many people have become Human Doings rather than Human Beings.

And wait: how can an atheist break the First Commandment? (I'm a Pagan, so I do, but...?)

But lack of evidence for OR against means it falls in the realm of choice. And choosing not to believe under those circumstances isn't morally or scientifically better than choosing to believe — much as BOTH sides would like it to be.

There’s only two sides?

I used to get into this conversation a lot, until I figured out that it always foundered on the meaning of the word “believe.” English — speaking of confusing the English language with God — isn’t very good at distinguishing disbelief from lack of belief, or belief from a whole mess of other concepts, starting with thought, feeling, conclusion and hunch.

I think the Western philosophical tradition used to be better at discussing this stuff, but these days, while we acknowledge the problem’s a bit more complex than Pascal made it out to be, we — us laymen, at least — seem to have lost a lot of the tools.

But I believe nearly everything on Teresa’s list, and, that being the case, I don’t think our differences on the rest matter very much.

David Moles: "believe" and "not believe." They're the two sides cited; of course they're not the only ones that exist.

And I agree with you on the problems with the word 'believe'. Is the word used in the same sense when Teresa says "I believe God made my friend" as it would be were she to say "I believe that 2 + 2 = 4"? Or how about "I believe that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second"? None of these is the same sense as "I believe I'll have another crumpet" or "I believe in a strong regimen of diet and exercise."

This becomes important in discussions between people of different religions. Wiccans are frequently asked if we "believe in" the Goddess. I like Starhawk's answer, which is "do you believe in rocks?"

breeamal--the logo at your link left me completely flummoxed...who on EARTH thought that was a good/tasteful idea?!

yikes.

If the path to Jehovah is through faith in his Son, as was repeatedly drummed into me, then He's cruel and capricious for his treatment of perfectly good folk with no faith or different faith.

If it requires more than that, then there is no hope unless you're one of those who can bring yourself to think that your way is the right way and everyone else is wrong. How much more cruel and capricious?

And so I conclude that going into darkness forever would be a kinder fate. Knowing completely and consciously that I chose and was not merely driven would be a better path.

But, strangely, for my contact with people of faith for so many years, I admire good people with faith for the love they manifest and am deeply ashamed for all the ways I've seen them spurn others who disagreed, who were unable to agree, or who didn't know there was an argument to be had.

I am very tired of watching a small few bend the truth to breaking, dragging others more worthy after them.

'Go placidly amidst the noise & waste, & remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.'

I believe that God is innordinately fond of beetles (there's more than 20,000 different species of the little suckers! So really, I think we know who His favorites realy are) and thus, not so interested in the rantings and ravings of us two legged critters, of whom there are only 6 billion or so (as opposed to the simply rediculous amount of beetles there are on this planet alone). seeing as how the beetles seem to get along with us despite our attempts at genocide (albeit, on a very small scale), we might be able to learn something form them.

Oh and another thing...

I believe that the cure for disliking organized religion is prolonged exposure to the disorganized sort.

Having spent considerable time with both, I'll gladly take 'none of the above'. I prefer my nonsense whimsical, not soaked in blood or shaby with want for attention.

And choosing not to believe under those circumstances isn't morally or scientifically better than choosing to believe

Neutrality and a willing to accept such existence, if proven, is logically 'better' than belief. Of course, religion is not about proof, any more than love is about logic.

FWIW, I also agree quite strongly with Teresa's comment about moral candyfloss. A religion that does little more, morally speaking, than tell you to just keep sitting in your La-Z-Boy with the remote control and the bag of chips is nothing more than spiritual masturbation.

I agree with you on all these points, mythago. (I'd still argue that being illogical is sometimes useful, but don't want to get into that.) I've long believed that agnosticism (as the term is commonly used, as opposed to the technical jargon of theologians) is the only truly scientific stance on religion.

I believe I have been given plenty of proof of God. However, I doubt I have any proof of God that would convince the scientific community.

(I think I gave up listening to that arguement when I heard people debating how many symptoms of schizophrenia Joan of Arc demonstrated.)

I believe that thoughtful communities such as this, which gather intelligent individuals who possess diverse viewpoints shared with consideration and curiosity, give me back my faith in humanity on a daily basis. Whether that has anything to do with a g/God or not is immaterial to me.

Thanks to TNH for hosting, and all the rest for posting.

I believe humans are the top of the food chain. I believe humans make moral choices that are unrelated to whether they believe or not, and what it is they believe. I believe we stop when we die, so we should concentrate on helping each other while we're alive.

I also believe it's Yuri's Night, not that I worship space, but it's interesting that Passover, Easter, and the anniversary of human spaceflight all happened together this year.

I believe that anyone who interprets the Bible on a sentence-by-sentence basis, as though it were a user’s manual, is willfully making himself or herself stupider than necessary. A sentence in the Song of Songs does not compile meaning in the same way as a sentence from the Acts of the Apostles.

'...does not compile meaning ...'

So ... the Bible is not a user manual, but source code? As an ex-programmer, I like that metaphor.

Mark, Xopher, and William C. Easttom II might be enlightened by a little more contemporary view of what "eternal torture in hell" means. It's not some guys with pitchforks poking you while you burn in sulfur beds or anything like that. Read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, where hell is a voluntary self-righteous separation from God, and is distinguished from purgatory only by whether one eventually comes to a humble self-realization and leaves. According to Lewis, God doesn't put you there. You put yourself there. And nobody except yourself is stopping you from leaving.

This quote by Anne Lamott from Patrick's sidebar conveys something of the same idea: “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”

I know there are Christians who still go for the court-sentence-to-pitchforks-and-sulfur routine, but you can't sweepingly dismiss the Christian view of hell that way.

Simon, does my last paragraph in this post sound like I'm "sweepingly dismissing" the Christian view of hell"? I admit I was unaware of Lewis' view of the subject, but I have seen similar things, notably in MacAvoy, and the movie What Dreams May Come, where Hell is the result of not forgiving yourself.

I don't want to get into the whole "omniscient and/or good" argument. So the second half of this post goes poof.

lack of evidence for OR against means it falls in the realm of choice. And choosing not to believe under those circumstances isn't morally or scientifically better than choosing to believe

It's certainly scientifically better: call it Occam's razor, the null hypothesis or parsimony of modelling, but believing in a God in the absence of evidence for or against one is the opposite of standard scientific procedure (insofar as any such thing exists). This doesn't feel like the right thread for a discussion of the moral value of such a choice. PZ Myers' comment pretty much sums up my view.

PZ Myers, you mean to say that you don't blartify the metachroid?

Blasphemer.

I believe the Gostok distims the doshes.

And of course Yuri's Night is Cosmonaut's Day.
"The first flight of the Space Shuttle took place on April 12, 1981. The Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off on its historic mission on the 20th anniversary of Gagarin's groundbreaking flight. The Columbia's 54-hour, 36-orbit mission tested the vehicle, which has since been used as the basis of international human space flight partnerships."

"Hey, Yuri! He's Mister Heartbre-eak!"

sennoma, Occam was using his razor to argue that God exists. "Don't unnecessarily multiply entities." If your answer to all the whys in the cosmos is "God wills it," that's about as simple an explanation as you can get.

I'm not arguing FOR the existence of God, but AGAINST the thoughtless application of Occam's oft-misunderstood Razor. And even the modern version (the simplest explanation which accounts for the available data is best) doesn't mean that there might not be data you don't have.

How did I get into this, anyway? I just think people should believe what does no harm and makes them happy. If it takes Occam's Razor and strict rules of evidence to make you happy, then amen, ache, and SMIB.

Um. The artist comment (aiding and abetting) was a joke, sorta.

Art historians can spend whole careers tracing how and why imagery is borrowed from one culture or religion to the next. I wrote a paper once tracing the Buddha's robes from classical Greece to the temple at Nara.

As an example, the Virgin took over a number of the classical goddess' attributes, such as Juno's peacocks (in the Virgin's role as Queen of Heaven, Regina Coelus (sp?)).
A number of the very early depictions of God the Father are hard to differentiate from Jupiter Best and Greatest - inscriptions can be the only clue we have.

I don't think there's anything particular awful about this; if nothing else, it's provided me with a great deal of harmless fun.

Thank you. That was a beautiful piece to read.

I believe you have written a classic here. Thanks.

Jane

Sennoma, there's such a thing as context. True, God isn't scientific. If you're vetting a scientific paper and you find that the author has covered up a bit of missing evidence by claiming divine intervention, you're justified in calling him on it. If you're in the middle of wild sex and your partner shouts out "Oh God! Oh God!", and you call a halt to the proceedings to say "Wait, you realize there's no scientific evidence for the existence of such an entity," then you deserve what you get.

Avram - good thing no coffee, because I got a big laugh out of that!

The former example reminds me of that immortal New Yorker Cartoon.

On the point of God (not) being scientific:

Scientists tend to be very religious because, in the end, the more you know the less you understand.

If you accept the Big Bang as fact, for instance, what came before? How did it get there?
If you accept creationism, what came before creation? (Answer: God) How did God get there?
Comes down to the same thing.

I view science and religion as two sides of the coin: science asks "how" whereas religion asks "what for."

Lovely...

I believe God delights in diversity. Why else create so many hundreds of thousands of insect species? Not to mention the trees, grasses, animals, slime molds, stars, and stones.

I believe in God the Mother, sometimes called Ruach (AKA Sophia).

I believe that we can see God reflected in one another.

I believe in beholding the world with wonder.

Xopher: Simon, does my last paragraph in this post sound like I'm "sweepingly dismissing" the Christian view of hell"?

Since you ask: yes.

Michael: Scientists tend to be very religious because, in the end, the more you know the less you understand.

The antecedent (which comes second in your statement) is true, but the consequent (which comes first) does not necessarily follow. Maybe for some. Not for most. You mention "what came before the Big Bang." Stephen Hawking is very interested in that subject. He doesn't find it necessary to postulate God. Scientists of religious views whose thoughts I've read don't consider it a consequent of their scientific knowledge. It's two separate things. Whether God set up the rules of the universe or they came into being on their own is all one.

Michael: that's a fascinating notion. Any evidence for it? I considered myself a scientist for some years and did not notice any particular degree of religion among the people I worked with. (Yes, Einstein was religious; one of his greatest errors was dismissing a theory with "God does not play dice with the Universe.") Note that there are now \scientific/ discussions about how the Big Bang might have happened; I'm sure somebody religious has been willing to argue "How did God get there?", but I haven't heard of it.

I think I understand and move in the same direction as much of Teresa's creed, but I'd like to hear \her/ explanation of preferring organized to disorganized religion; that organization multiply the force of their members is a problem as well as an advantage. (Consider the misdeeds of the Catholic Church and of the U.S. under Shrub.) This is especially so when allied with -"I'm the designated intermediary so do what I say as if you were hearing directly."- (Yes, that's a crude extract, but even the dilute form causes problems.)

Just on the proof-and-disproof debate, I think it worth pointing out that matters relating to the existence of God are meta-empirical in nature... that is to say, they are not matters that can be answered with reference to empirical arguments. You cannot prove or falsify statements relating to the existence of God through empirical tests, tests which are based in empirical rules of observation and material evidence.

If there is such a thing as a God then it is by definition immaterial and meta-empirical. This is not to say that that there aren't reasons for believing or disbelieving in God, or that it isn't more or less reasonable to choose to believe in a particular form of the divine, but you can't assess God's existence through mechanical science and empirical arguement. These just don't have the tools necessary to deal with the existence of deity.

(The standard example here regarding empirical testing of the meta-empirical is ghosts. You can argue that you've not seen a ghost, you can argue that there's no empirical evidence for the existence of ghosts, you argue that you don't believe in ghosts and even that you can see no reason why anybody would want to believe in ghosts, but you can't prove that ghosts don't exist or falsify a person's claim that they have seen a ghost. Ghosts are by nature meta-empirical entities and their existence cannot be determined with reference to empiricism. And gods exist - or don't exist - in just the same meta-empirical way.)

That was very beautiful.

I teach Religious School and each year I tell my students that over time one's relationship with God evolves and changes for each individual.

What you believe at 10 isn't going to be the same at 20 or 40 or 60 or 80 or beyond. (And if it is, well, I submit that you've missed the point.)

I also tell my students that it's okay to doubt and not be sure that God exists. God can handle the doubt as well as the faith we have.

So here's what I believe at this point in my life:

I believe that God cannot be fully understood by human beings and that's the way God meant for things to be.

I don't believe that bad things happen to good people because they were really bad or deserved it somehow. There is randomness and chaos in the universe that God created. If it wasn't there, there wouldn't be free will.

I believe that God gave us free will and the ability love. Using those two things, God expects us to make the best choices we can make, but understands that we're only human. We'll mess up, often in the worse ways possible, but that we have the ability to make better choices, perform better actions and ultimately reedeem ourselves in God's eyes and in the eyes of our fellow human beings.

I believe God created us in God's image: which means that we have the ability to create and destroy. Being created in God's image means that our capacity to love and forgive should be very great. I believe that in asking us to turn to God, to love, to life (as in living one's life fully) God wants us to be creators. I believe that God expects us to love one another and accept one another. The only thing stopping us from doing so is ourselves.

I believe that God, like any good parent, set up the universe, tried to teach us some good lessons through metaphor and simile, and gave us some rules to follow. Then God stepped away to let us grow up. It doesn't mean that God is totally out of our lives: we still have God's unconditional love. But the rest is up to us.

I believe that a religion that exists only to tell you how good you are, and which never requires you to do anything you don’t want to do or refrain from anything you do want to do, is a species of moral cotton candy.

I owe you a beer for this. It's going on my wall with J.R.R. Tolkien's thoughts on war and Dorothy Parker's on obnoxious people.

I believe that what brings us together is more important than what draws us apart.

Thank you again for posting - and hosting - this sharing of faith.

Simon: OK, what comment could I have made as a non-believer in Christianity, that you would NOT have regarded as "sweepingly dismissive"?

Just to refresh your memory, you regarded this as dismissive: I know now, of course, that there are Christians who don't believe any such thing...But when I was a teenager all the Christians I knew believed in hellfire.

I think that's a fairly broad view. I had a narrow view as a teenager, it's true, mostly from inadequate data. I've also said, many times, that if back then I had known Christians like the ones I know now, my spiritual journey might have ended up in a very different place; it was the hellfire thing that was the major sticking point at the time, so absent that who knows? (I think I probably would have other problems by now, but I might also have reconciled them.)

So I'm asking you: what could I have said that you would not have found sweepingly dismissive?

Thank you. Happy Easter.

I believe because it is absurd. (to quote Tertullian)

I believe that organized religion is like a game of telephone and disorganized religion is like a shouting match, and the best sort of religion strikes a balance between the two.

I believe that faith must be independent of knowledge in order to remain faith and that so long as the mysteries of the world, the divine included, still have room to enthrall us and horrify us both then we're probably in a good state of mind.

I believe that many of the world's best social structures are, in fact, lousy religions and that many of the world's best religions are, in fact, lousy social structures. Or vice versa.

I believe that communication is what makes so much that we can accomplish possible and I believe that this blog is a wonderful source of great communication, so I'll add my thanks in, too.

I gues my real answer to Sagan (a great man whom I admire in many ways) is: why would you want to believe things that make you unhappy?

Why would it necessarily make you unhappy (in the long run) to believe those things? I will admit that when I first began questioning the religion in which I was raised, I had periods of profound unhappiness, but that was because I'd been told that there was no other way to believe, and I'd boxed myself into a belief about those beliefs. I was faced with two "unhappinesses"--trying to sustain belief in something that was initially comforting at one point in my life, but which was no longer useful for my spiritual growth, or facing that I might be wrong, that the world view which I had been raised might have some huge foundational errors. The second prospect, the better by far for me, was initially quite scary and frightening, and I was unhappy and scared when I considered the things I had learned...at first. Considerable reframing of my life and my beliefs goes on, and those things which once made me unhappy now seem to serve a purpose.

As for Sagan's statement on faith: And I do have sincere doubts about the efficacy of faith as a determinate of truth or happiness for myself--it produces so many contrary results across the board, from person to person, and hell, even from day to day in my life. But many people find solace and comfort in their faith and I wouldn't deny them theirs--unless their faith starts telling them to tell me how to behave. Credo condolons, and all that.

What do I believe: (Taken from a list I have posted elsewhere slightly earlier, so pardons to those who might have seen it already.)

I believe a lot less than I did when I was younger.

I'd like to believe that there was a God/Goddess or even multiple gods, but I don't necessarily believe they are worthy of worship if they exist.

I would like to believe in a benevolent and kind God, but if they exist, they are only mildly interventionist as far as I can tell.

I believe that humans have a lot of potential.

I believe that this world is an awesome place, in every sense of the word.

And I believe that you can get an interesting Easter discussion by watching the Passion and finishing with a chaser of Stranger in a Strange Land.

I believe that if there is a God thingie, that it doesn't much care what I, or anyone, believes. Or else, it isn't anything like as advertised. Otherwise, more decisive and coherent bases for belief would have been available by now. I believe that if one were to construct a viral meme that was strongly resistant to replacement by better information, it would look a lot like religion. (This doesn't prove that religion is a viral meme that propagates resistance to better information, but it does make it rather hard to tell the two apart.) I believe if I were ever to call myself a Christian, I'd give more weight to Jesus' assertions than those of people who never met him. And, I believe that the Cadbury creme eggs should be on discount about now, and I'd best go shopping before they run out.

Thank you, Teresa. This was beautiful.

I believe that divinity is a well we can come again and again, and that it doesn't matter what shape our beliefs are, just that they hold water.

I believe that more than 70% of the world, and two-thirds of the human body, is water.

I believe that two people who believe in different things, and care about them, have more in common than they might have with a third person who wasn't interested.

I believe that respect is as important as love.

Me: I guess my real answer to Sagan (a great man whom I admire in many ways) is: why would you want to believe things that make you unhappy?

PiscusFiche: Why would it necessarily make you unhappy (in the long run) to believe those things? I will admit that when I first began questioning the religion in which I was raised, I had periods of profound unhappiness, but that was because I'd been told that there was no other way to believe, and I'd boxed myself into a belief about those beliefs.

I was responding to Sagan's question, "Why [besides evidence] would you believe anything?" My question was meant to imply "Because it makes you happy." I was contrasting two different bases for choosing a belief.

Believe me, I'm the last one to argue against doing scary things as part of a spiritual journey or even an ongoing practice. Power is veiled by fear.

Jason:

I believe that many of the world's best social structures are, in fact, lousy religions and that many of the world's best religions are, in fact, lousy social structures. Or vice versa.

I believe that you have just cleverly encapsulated a significant part of my issues with my temple's heirarchy.

There is no God but God, and Fibonacci is His prophet.

see:


Fibonacci Numbers and The Golden Section in Art, Architecture and Music


and


The Mathematical Magic of the Fibonacci Numbers


and


Quilts Using the Fibonacci Progression
in thir [sic] designs


and


Architects have used the Golden Mean...

and


"Fibonacci Number." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource [has extensive references including hotlinks]


and

For the NEW Testament, see The Fibonacci Quarterly.



Boy, did they send me a humbling rejection letter recently...



Math is hard. Let's go shopping.

Xopher: I forget which philosopher we were discussing, but a philospohy teacher once asked a series of 'why' questions of several of his students. All of us, eventually, answered, 'because it makes me happy.' And then he'd stop and go to the next student.

So either the point was that the only reason we do ANYTHING is because it makes us happy, or that a good philosopher can make anyone say anything the philosopher wants them to. I'm still not sure.

Alice: Bang on. Some people are happy when facts, carefully examined by rigorous rules, lead to a conclusion, and they accept that conclusion. I count myself among them, but they're not the only people around, and it's not the ONLY source of happiness for me. (Also if I don't like the conclusion I look for more facts - real facts; I don't invent data to support the conclusion I want. I've seen what that leads to, up close and personal. I had a boyfriend once who believed that the Kamehamehas would inevitably (re)take over Hawaii someday, and that he could end up on the throne. He thought he could sing, too.)

On a related note, the ONLY reason I ever have "Logic vs. Bible" conversations anymore is to back someone into a faith statement...I don't even do that without a reason (they're annoying me, or we're good friends...amazing how similar those two can be motivation-wise).

These conversations end with them finally getting exasperated and saying "Well, you just have to have faith," to which I reply "Exactly. You do, and I don't. Therefore there's ample reason for you to believe the Bible, and absolutely no reason for me to believe it." (See why I only have those conversations when a. I want them to go away or b. I'm sure they won't go away just because of that, and want to get it settled?)

Of course I doubt your philosophy teacher could do that to me...which is most likely pure arrogance on my part. But I'd probably end with "Because it keeps me from any real happiness in life."

John (B): You cannot prove or falsify statements relating to the existence of God through empirical tests, tests which are based in empirical rules of observation and material evidence. Unfortunately this has not stopped many people from trying. The argument that the universe had to have a creator is still around, for instance, and even made a cameo appearance in this discussion ("What came before the big bang?")

Xopher: The word "But" at the beginning of the last sentence, and the whole previous paragraph. (You only referred me to the last paragraph, but context is important.) You dismissed Christianity on the basis of what you now realize was an outdated argument; you made no indication that you're reconsidering your opinion of it now that you realize this; and most of all, you associated yourself with Mark's Easttom quote as an explanation for this attitude you have not changed.
But this all may be hairsplitting. I can't really read your mind.

Alice K.: Reductionism of the sort you describe has been used for many strange purposes, including proof that altruism does not exist.

Simon: you didn't read that post carefully enough and/or I didn't explain it clearly enough. I didn't "dismiss" Christianity; I considered and rejected it. That's a pretty important difference; do you understand why I think so?

I rejected it based on good reasoning from flawed data. But remember, I was rejecting the kind of Christianity that the Lutheran youth group I was hanging out with professed and believed in; and that I would still reject today, because they did believe in the "Judgement/consigned to eternal flame" model. Therefore my rejection of it (that particular brand of Christianity) was and is justified. I would not worship the God those people worshipped even if I knew for a fact He was Creator and Ruler of the Universe.

There are other forms of Christianity, as I now know (e.g. the faith statement this whole thread is about). I reject them also, but as "not for me" not "could never have been for me" -- I cannot dismiss them as falsely logical, as I could my highschool friends' Christianity. I have walked a different path; I'm not cut out to be "dual-path," which is what NeoPagans call people who are both Pagan and Christian; I am quite happy with the path I'm on, which has probably kept me from destroying what's left of my life, if only because I have to clean my apartment for Circle every couple of weeks.

I don't know, perhaps my position became clearer in my last comment on this topic? Or perhaps you weren't distinguishing between 'dismiss' and 'reject', which would make more sense. I'm not being flippant here (or anywhere in this comment except the end of the previous para, and that was about ME, not you or Christianity). I'm honestly confused by your reaction.

I believe that religion has a point for some people, and no point for others.

I believe that people that try to deny the validity of scientific explanations of various and sundry phenomena have a problem, and they need to pull their head out of the sand forthwith.

Being nick-named 'Cat' not just because of my full name but because of my "What happens if I do this . . . ?" nature, I must say that I came to my present set of religious loyalties because of what I like to think of as "Applied Curiousity". I started out Catholic, turned atheist for college, went down a few mystic paths, and came scampering back when (in my subjective opinion) I had raised enough spiritual ruckus to give myself a good scare, which -- fortunately -- I survived.

So, in short, having been around a few odd blocks, I cling to Divine Mercy as expressed by Jesus in His death on the Cross. And, though it feels like pulling teeth some nights, I make the effort to ask "Have Mercy on my enemies as You have had Mercy on me."

Another particularly dangerous prayer I turn to is "For the sake of Divine Mercy, I wish to forgive." (Not that I like to forgive, or want to forgive, but that I am trying as an act of will to do so. I usually find that the interesting social fireworks start up after I add that one in my daily meditations.) I mean, half the time