What religion are you?

This is a pretty crazy statement. There are plently of atheist, agnostic and Jewish scholars who make a career out of studying the historical Jesus. There is more evidence that such a person existed than almost any other person from that time period. If you are looking for material evidence linked directly to the person, you won't find any of that for figures like Cicero, Aristotle or any other great thinker of the period. We don't even have any direct evidence of the existence of Julius Caesar; we just have writings and monument evidence from the period of years following his death -- exactly the same kind of evidence we have for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

No serious historian of the period doubts the existence of Jesus. The only people who make this claim are people with an ax to grind that are completely unfamiliar with the discipline. I wrote my bachelor's dissertation about some Sitz im Leben Jesu stuff that dealt heavily with these issues, and I can see 13 books about it from where I am sitting. I can give you a reading recommendation, if you'd like.

As for Christ of faith, well, I believe in that, too, but I don't really see any point in arguing about these sorts of imponderables on a message board.

 

Christian; and if it was not for Gods grace, and mercy... I would have lost everything, be dead, or in jail! I would not even hope to break free from an addiction that I've had for more than 30 years, like porn, with out Gods help.

 

I was raised Christian, but my father is Jewish, and the pastor at the church I grew up in took a very intellectual pro-Jew stance. More on that later.

I became disillusioned with Christianity in my early 20s, and felt the pull of my father's roots. It was complicated, but I fully embraced Judaism as much as I could without a formal conversion.

I'm sort of on the border between agnostic and spiritual, but definitely still consider myself Jewish, even if I don't really practice much. I've been meaning to get more involved with a temple again, but my life was complicated a few years ago when my ex-wife continued to be active at temple after we split up, despite the fact that she wasn't Jewish. Also, she got the car.
I live in a somewhat small college town, not many but I want to move to a bigger city, at which point I'll shop around for a congregation I feel I fit with.

**** a note about Christian/Jewish relations/politics ****
I'm not gonna get too deep into it here, but that particular liberal pastor's support for Jews was VERY different and more ecumenical than modern evangelical support of Israel, and lip-service of supporting the Jewish people. Fundamentalists blindly support every shitty thing Israel does, and sabotage any attempts at a peace process, because they want to bring about the end times, and curry favor with God in the conflict they see coming. Most rank-and-file church members don't realize this, but the theological underpinnings of fundamentalist support for Israel are incredibly anti-semetic.

 

I am a Jew, and I try my best to practice Judaism. ✡

Indeed, my religious belief is the prime motivation behind my struggle to conquer and permanently banish PMO.

Also, somewhat contrary to other religious traditions that might (perhaps exclusively) emphasize the "severe punishment for this grave sin," the Jewish prohibition of masturbation -- especially when viewed in the light of Kabbalah / mystical philosophy -- emphasizes the spiritual and metaphysical damage caused by this improper "diversion of Divine energy." One must actively strive to transcend his/her "inner animal" and refrain from this selfish act -- not because of the threat of "hellfire" -- but because doing so is the "Right Thing™", and because submitting to the "Other Side" goes against the very purpose and (ongoing!) process of Creation.

 

BTW, @Crispy21 : you misspelled the word "Judaism" in your poll.

 

I'm a Roman Catholic, from birth (well from Baptism but yeah). My parents both were, and they are very religious. In recent years I have strayed a bit, due to being discouraged by my PMO habit. But I still believe, and still try, and go to church, etc.

I'm very well educated in my Faith, and I can easily say that, if I am intellectually honest with myself, I believe that there is a God, and that He will honor my efforts to follow Him through Christ and the Church.

But in the past, while I was religious, I often very much sympathized with the atheists/agnostics, because they were usually the more rational thinkers compared to the hyper-religious people around me in the American South. However in recent years, as I've gotten to really know these progressives who I thought were rational, I have realized that almost every person within a group of people with common beliefs is likely to accept many or all of the group's beliefs as "Gospel", if you will, without critique.

For example, many of the atheists/agnostics I know are open encouragers of PMO. I think this is very irrational, especially when you expect these people to look at life through the lens of evolution and how nature designed us. But, they likely adopt this belief simply because it's opposed to conservatism. It's a shame. Too many progressives ignore much of the wisdom of ancient cultures and philosophers.

I'm not pointing fingers at any of you guys, though. NoFap is really an exceptional group of people, in my opinion.

 

You speaka da Hebrew?

 

Yes, fluently.

I understand that you're into Biblical Hebrew, and that you've written software somehow relating to it?

 

Orthodox Christian

 

Christian, but non-traditional and definitely more liberal in my own religious views. I am a philosophy major in school, so I am always questioning practices and beliefs of Christianity. Philosophy has given me more reason to believe in a God than not to.

 

Watch out, watch out: the spelling inspecter is out and about!

 

‫נכון. למעשה אני מורה של עברית מקראית ולמדתי באוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, אבל כן, גם כתבתי כמה תוכנות קטנות שקשור לשפה. כתבתי אחד שיכול לסדר מילים עבריות עם ניקוד, ואני עובד בכמה עוד שישתמשו בם לחקר תרגום השבעים והעברית המקורית שלו, וגם לחיפושים כללים יותר.‏
‬
בברכה!‏​

 

Very nice! @IGY will probably flag me for playing the "grammar inspector" as well , but the only thing that was unclear to me was "בכמה עוד יעשו אותם". (My guess is that you probably meant to start this off as "בעוד כמה"....)

BeHatzlacha with your "Pythonic bashing" of Biblical Hebrew!

 

@Yesodi I meant that I was working "on a few more," programs, but I think you are right about the construction -- though there are so many New York Jews in Israel affecting syntax that my anglophonic slips were usually passed over without a hitch. (not to mention that it's the same in Yiddish!)

 

Boohoo. Whether or not this debatable premise is accurate, atheists and agnostics typically feel like they have a lot to contribute to this conversation. Would you prefer the godless people were excluded from it?

But I do think you are technically correct. The religion of most atheists is secular humanism, though others may be found as well.

 

@The 1000 Water Fists Eh. It all falls out the same either way, in terms of the discussion. The only difference would be that we wouldn't having this part of it right now.

I do think it would be more interesting to have a list of philosophical worldviews for godless people to choose from: secular humanism, nihilism, epicureanism, etc.

And no, I don't mean godless as an insult. I don't think an atheist would be offended by such a term since that is exactly the etymological meaning of atheism. I realize it has a negative connotation in English, and I admit this is part of what makes it so fun to say on message boards.

 

Paint me spiritually curious, but anti (anti might be too strong a word here) religion/denomination. I was raised in a very conservative Protestant Christian household but fell away from that for reasons. I believe in God and would like to have a better relationship with him but without all the trappings of religion and dogma getting in the way.

 

As always, an interesting discussion. Having two philosophy degrees under my belt [perhaps a poor choice of words given the nature of this forum], I certainly do not see myself as a Rationalist. As far as intellectual culture went, I was more attracted to the kind of enlightened scepticism found in the figure of Plato's Socrates. I was also interested in existentialist thought. As far as my practice of religion went, this involved a shift from Protestantism to the Roman Catholic Church. In this Church I saw something of a continuity with the past, and also a fuller way of being than we find in the secular culture of today. I was interested in understanding myself as a moral being, as a person with free will and a sense of responsibility for my life and actions. I remember reading somewhere of T.S. Eliot tipping his hat to the most decadent of poets, Baudelaire. Both recognized the moral sphere, with an aversion to the middle ground. I wrote this the other day with the practical/ psychological implications in mind of both cultural and existential unity:


A foray into the murky waters of history; a psychological/ existential perspective.

We tend to think of the great divide in history as that between faith and reason, but I am not so sure; we are here already in our heads, in Rationalism, where we look at things at the ideological, or analytical level. No, at the psychological level, the great divide in our history has to be the Reformation, the precursor of Rationalism. For here we came to think of ourselves as self-reliant, self-contained individuals. Before this, we were always first and foremost part of a community. In so far as we partook in ideology, or speculation, we refrained from the 'sin of seriousness' [Sartre's term, no theologian's]

And what a fantastic adventure individualism turned out to be. Following conscience, we see reason privatized, then the feelings, then art, then beauty. What remained in the 'real' world were the 'primary' qualities, the mechanical properties, the world became a machine. And us? Mere ghosts in the machine. What did we do it all for? For freedom. Where once we wanted to be absolved from the things which hindered our freedom, now we wanted pure unadulterated freedom; freedom as an idea; freedom from everything. It did not take long for this desire to start unravelling, where that equal but opposite desire, the desire to belong, started to aggressively reassert itself; enter political and religious ideology [cults]. In Eric Fromm's words, we now wanted to escape from freedom itself. The abstract pursuit of freedom had been found lacking; it seemed to have only produced fear, anxiety, restlessness, in a word, a void. Here was the romantic reaction against rationalism. This profoundest of reactions attested to a millennial long culture divided against itself.

Romanticism, which sought its darkest revenge in Fascism, was beaten down. Rationalism won out. But the romantic strain of life remains, bubbling away below the surface. How could it not for it's an intrinsic part of our own existence, namely, our passion. And it will no doubt find a way, if kept repressed, to break out again unrestrained to wreak havoc on the world. There is next to no chance that a larger unity and harmony, a comprehensive culture, could be worked out today to resolve the meaningless void that a technological society is built on. How could it given the economy of Reason, and our reliance on technique. Rather, it must be worked out in our own lives; if the macrocosmic level is lost, the microcosmic level remains. It seems in the end we are individuals after all. But this form of individualism, which questions the orthodoxy of the average, the norm, the mass mind, will strive for excellence. It will rid itself of anachronism, and approach history without prejudice. It embraces freedom, primarily of mind, and directs itself towards something. It takes responsibility for its own life, in all the arenas, for an on-going development toward those four old transcendentals of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Unity.

So you may ask dear reader, assuming you have persevered through to the end, what is the point of writing this. Is it to declare some absolute truth, is it is pontificate, is it to hammer away against a wall of reality? No, it is just an interpretation; a story of a macrocosmic loss reflecting back into our own microcosmic story. It may help us understand the trials and tribulations of our own lives, and a possible way out of them through an understanding of our own cultural history. It's as if we are the Hansel and Gretels looking for a way out of the forest via a trail of bread crumbs.

It's also both a distraction, and a pleasant pastime [and I hope the reading of it was also]. Writing always was. It transcends the base-line. It's a flourishing of florid little symbols, full of meaning, playing lightly on the pre-existent grid given us. It is a recovery, like a field in full bloom after the ravages of winter.