to start things out, i will tell you about my religious upbringing.
i was born & raised in The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints , aka "The Mormon Church", so alot of my basic beliefs stem from that, thus only fitting to give those who only know the rumors about the church a brief discriptin about it... the church was founded in the early 1820's by a young man by the name of joseph smith jr.who went into the forrest by his family's farm in upstate new york to ask god which of all the christain denomiations were true. then god & jesus christ came to him & told him none of them were true. that was just the begining, over the next few years joseph was taught by by the angel of moroni (for those who don't know, moroni was a prophet in the book of mormon). he then received the brass plates of which he translated into the book of mormon. the book of mormon is quite similar too the holy bible. it starts out with lehi & his family leaving jerusalem before it gets sacked. then they go to the "promised land" which is the americas.there is alot of things that happen in there including the visitation of christ to the americas. it ends with moroni, the last of the nephites, travels a great distance to bury the records of the people of the land (the brass plates). now say what you want about this, but this i hold as the corner stone of all my beliefs that there is a god & an afterlife.
this book (also a movie with robin williams, by the same name) is a great story by richard matherson about a man who dies, goes to hevan, but is not happy there without his wife, then he finds out that she commits suicide,thus giving her a one way ticket to hell, but this is not a hell of fire & brimstone, but of self-consence, or in other words you are stuck there, dwelling in your own mind on everything that you've done wrong in your life up until you died, for you do not believe that you are dead; any how the guy vows to go down & find her. but that's only half the battle. this is a great story about love after life! & the way the book discribes both heavan & hell is how i set my beliefs!
now in this section, i don't question the existance of a deity, but mearly questions surrounding the phenominom:
if god doesn't exist, & is just a "crazy idea", than how come humanity hasn't givin up on it like other "crazy ideas"
again, if god is just a "crazy idea", how come monotheoism (one all powerfull god) is the dominant idea nowadays, when long ago the idea of many gods was very popular?
does the creator have a creator, & does that creator have a creator, & such forth?
man i tell you, there are radicals in every known religion, & they're messing things up for the rest of the good people of those faiths. the muslim radicals are all in the news nowadays, but lest we forget about the christain W.A.S.P.s (White Anglo-Saxon Protistants), they're so messed up mentally, that even though christ taught love & compassion for everybody, these guys think that if you're not a WASP, than god HATES YOU, & they (the WASPs) are the chosen ones to"clense" the world of all the "dirt"... why don't any of the suicide bombers go to some of these klan rallies & do us all a favor,...now maybe it's the violent side of me, but i'd pay to see a bunch of klanies get blown to "smitherines" , that'll be COOL!
now though i was born & raised in the western hemispere, meaning christainanity is dominant here, i have adapted some idials that are practiced by eastern religions (buddhism & hinduism, just to name a few), so here they are
karma- you reap, what you sew, meaning if you're mean, it'll come back to you, 3x's as hard, but also, if you're good, it'll come back to you in three-fold
meditation-i was turning the dial on the AM a while ago, & came across one of those southern christain talk shows, you know what i mean, the whole "& gawd is maity" stuff, any how, this guest (i think he was a guest to the show) was asked on his opinion of meditation, he said something like "if praying is talking to god, than meditation is listening to him", & that made sense to me.
reincarnation-now i believe in reincarnation, not in the way of everybody gets to go again, but more as, certain people are given the oportunity, those people would mostly constist of ones that died at a young age like childhood
i first began to give this some thought a few years back, inspired by the claims on both sides of the arguement of whether or not the U.S military should of envaded iraq, both sides claiming that god was on thier side of the debate. so i came up ith a few ideas. first is that in a war caused between humanity, god does not pick sides, because all are his children. second, is that god is both king of good & evil. i believe that because in the bible, jesus is commonly referred to as "the prince of peace", & satan is known as "the prince of lies"; & they are brothers, & god is thier (& our) father; also there are numberous "contradicting" texts in the bible of god being a god of love, or a god of vengance. so taking all these in account. i just simply "did the math", & came up with the theory that god is on both, & yet niether side of a war.
this is another question that is always brought up in the religious debate...now i'm not sure about such things like insects have souls (if they do, i'm a bad, bad, man), but such things as pets like dogs & cats i believe have souls. anyone who has a dog/cat/both & is affectionate to it would agree with me.
i believe this quote is true, i mean think about it, if a loved one dies, & if you had even a little bit of faith in a creator, you'd look to him in either questions, anger, or confuision, but you'd still acknowledge his existance.
